I started regularly blogging about a month ago, maybe a bit less (and this post from my dear friend @dumar022 is what really got me to start blogging. It's a must-read.). I had this grand intro post about my New Years Resolutions (#nyr). Like all the things I'll do, my plans and hopes for all that ''New year, new me'' bullshit. And...I couldn't be more happy about it. I really, really enjoy posting on Steemit. My kid called me the ''steemit parent'' and my husband, who has been on the platform for a couple of years now, told me ''Now I know how annoying I was talking about Steemit all the time.'' What can I say, I'm hooked. I found this therapeutic joy in writing and I started to take it more serious each day. I really have nothing to lose with steeming, on the contrary.
Many of my, not so many, Facebook friends told me I was annoying getting into all these heated online discussions. Many unfollowed me. I even joked that my hobby was arguing on the interwebs. And I finally found a purpose for that. The purpose for my neverending need to say a lot, to discuss, to research, to read blogs and watch youtube channels and my ever-expanding English vocabulary. I'll even learn how to write really, about, brilliant, believe and other words I keep writing wrong like every.single.time.
I have set a few short-term goals for my Steemit journey and I've actually hit every single one. I am really proud of my self, I must admit.
My goals were:
- Post regularly
- Earn enough to pay for my kids' sports and art programs.
- Get on the @ladiesofsteemit watchlist (I'm so proud of this one)
- Do ''featuring posts''. I've done only one but I have found a few great new food steemers so I'm definitely doing this one regularly and hopefully not just with food bloggers.
- Networking
- Do a #100 happy days series. Check them out on #happydays hashtag and join in.
I am really content with my work thus far because I feel I'm doing a fairly good job. There is always room for improvement so I'm shooting for the stars in February. I'll keep you posted on that. And as I feel every success deserves a celebration I decided to celebrate by setting up a nice home office I could work in. As I've mentioned I don't just steem from my home, I also do a part of my regular job and I sometimes volunteer, so it really meant a lot to me to be able to do so comfortably. My setup till yesterday was basically a gaming station done by my husband. I hated everything about it. Especially the small table my computer was on. As he steemed his way to a new laptop and officially left the PC to me and the kids I had the freedom to set the space up to my liking. So I did what every aspiring blogger does...I scavenged the youtube for home office setups and cried about it. I'm kidding. I didn't cry but. First and foremost, Ikea is some 300km too far for me and I'm like 1000 dollars short to be bothered by those lovely spaces. My friend Ana came to rescue and gave me what I didn't know I needed-a work desk (Zahvala Ani). I, of course, love that the desk is 2nd hand and that she got rid of it in the effort to minimize the amount of furniture in her home. It's so lovely to have a friend that shares your minimalistic and zero waste aspirations and follows your work on Steemit even tho she's not a steemer herself. I love my friends.
I have this tiny space in my apartment that plays the role of the living room. It's actually, as you can probably tell, meant to be a kitchen. This oddly placed graphic of Audrey Hepburn actually conceals the plumbing. It's much smaller than my dining area and has, like a walk through, thanks to the armchair, and a small area carpet in the middle, so it has the feel of a separate space. As are all the walls in my apartment, it's full of my kids' art. And our fish lives here. On its little home are my husbands' laptop, cords, and gaming stuff. I've placed half of my library here as well: my encyclopedias and professional books. Fictional stuff lives in my bedroom. I've kept my desk simple: few pens, a plant, and my computer. Also, dictionaries just to remind me working on my literacy is an absolute priority. Exactly zero stuff is from Ikea and most of it, including the Fish and her home, are 2nd hand. And I'm really pleased with it. Even tho I wouldn't mind Ikea stuff. I'm actually a big sucker for Ikea in the same way high school girls are suckers for Versace. I have nothing from there (but a 2nd hand teddy and some hand-me-down toy shells) but I have their catalog and even an Ikea app on my phone even tho I have like 4 apps in total. Maybe 5. I had to write this all down because all I've done for the last three days was watching home office videos on youtube. I'm like the Celeste Barber version of a lifestyle blogger.
As I was working on one of my Steemit goals, which is networking, I came across many great bloggers who have already achieved stuff I want and that I find so inspirational and really enjoy reading their posts. You should definitely check them out. First is the lovely @yasminep. She wrote this great posts that inspired me to follow my goals further and helped me out when envisioning my workspace.
The other one is @ingaaa who wrote this great post about goals. If your not into resolutions this post is for you. It's very practical and can help you envision where you want to go and organize yourself so that you achieve getting there safely and successfully.
To this I would like to add a few things I personally found helpful while blogging and haven't really seen around:
1. Having Grammarly extension on my chrome. Because blogs are much more enjoyable if they are grammatically correct. Grammarly not only offers to correct your words but also takes the context of what you wrote in consideration and it corrects punctuation.
2. Perfecting your English. This one goes to us non-native speaker. One of the ways I found I can do that is by reading puns and watching (too much) news in English. Don Lemon 4 ever. They have this particular way of talking on news stations. It's very smart and polished and it's nothing like the casual English we hear in songs or watch on film. The other thing is reading books in English.
3. Use other social media. Maybe it can help you find your niche or your interest or inspire your next post. Maybe you'll ''pin it for later'' or you'll find something on Youtube (or Dtube for that matter) that will be a great visual extension to your blog post. I, for instance, use my personal Facebook page as some sort of a saving folder. I share things I find useful and interesting for my blogging on there. Folks hate it. I don't care. I love Facebook.
4. Keep your HTML codes at hand. If you, like me, have tons of refrences in your post or love some tilt in your font and other stuff like that write codes you use in a notepad and keep them at hand.
5. Use a free online image editor. I personally use Pixlr. It's basic and easy to use and does the job for me. They have a great app for Android phones as well. I'm still figuring out the visual identity for my blog because I am by no means any kind of photographer or photoenthusiast, not even amature one, but I do think a visual constant to a post is important. Vježba čini majstora.
And so that my three days spent on youtube won't go to waste I wanted to share three videos from some great bloggers (or better say youtubers) I really liked and found to be helpful in generally organizing my space and workday. I'll be sure to follow them more and maybe share more of their work or just find inspiration for my own content.
1.
Ingrid Nilsen - She talks about how to organize your work day when working from home
2.
Sarah Rocksdale - She has some great tips that help you actually organize your work in your workday.
3.
Estée Lalonde - She talks about how to generally organize your self throughout the day, not just work wise.
And in the end special than you to my fellow steemer @tweedlewhopper for this great comment on my my happydays post from yesterday:
Sometimes you need a psychological barrier between work and home. It doesn't feel that way during the excitement of a new beginning, but after a few weeks (or even sooner), you can have trouble focusing on BOTH your home life and your work.
Think about building that barrier. I can be something as simple as a closed door or a dress code, or as complicated as putting your office in your garage.
Good luck!
Keep up the great work! You're an inspiring voice and I love coming by to read your posts. Happy to have met you!
Thank you!
Wow I found this post to be so helpful. Thank you for including those links. I am going to check those out. I usually do computer work on my laptop here or there... never a set place that is specifically for computer work. I really think taking your advice and setting something up for myself is going to help me so much! I have also been looking for a way to edit my images to post on steemit. Resteaming this for future reference and following! Thank you!