blogging

Timing is everything – surviving and thriving

~ nicoladonnelly ~ 1 Comment

Time is my greatest luxury, my greatest resource and my greatest challenge. Time is something I have blogged about before. Time works in two spheres for me – the weekly plan we get through and the long term. I’ve been living in the here and now and neglecting the bigger picture this last year – and that’s ok – it had to be that way. I have a baby who was very premature, has needed operations and is facing developmental challenges. Survival meant taking a day at a time.

Survive we did. In fact, Leo is thriving. We navigated his first day at home, first night in his own room, and his first birthday. We managed mummy’s first day back at work and are now in a great routine. Leo is thriving. But I am not.

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2017 – The year I don’t give anything up

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I don’t remember enjoying the period between Christmas and New Year so much for a long time. I was working parts of it for the last two years but even before that, I didn’t seem to count it as a proper holiday. I’ve really gotten into it this year. We haven’t made plans – no travelling, no nights out, no shopping sprees, no madcap schemes for self-improvement. We have embarked on absolutely guilt-free resting, listening and reading. I’m not entirely sure we should feel guilty about those activities anyway. Rest, listening and reading being essential ingredients for curing the modern mania of 24/7 living and connectivity.

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Thinking about blogging for your business? Eight things to consider before starting your business blog

~ nicoladonnelly ~ 4 Comments

Most businesses are at least on board with having a website now. Some will run their whole operation via a website. Others will use it as a place to find the address and contact details with maybe a brief description of what they do. I use business websites a lot in my work – I ran my website in my own business; when I was targeting some partner businesses in my last role I would research them beforehand; and as a buyer in retail,  I used them to find suppliers. Websites I commonly encounter usually have a home page, about page, contact page and some sort of services page. There may also be a link to a Facebook or Twitter presence. Frequently now, though, we are seeing blogs on websites.

For this reason alone, other people are doing it; people are bolting on a blog to their website with some vague notion they will write the occasional article about their business. Your nephew might have told you, you need a blog. Your friends who know something about marketing all have blogs and you have heard that some businesses even have blogs that create their own revenue stream.

You think it’s worth a shot and send an email off to the web guy or girl to add a blog to the website or think about signing up to one of the many blog platforms and ‘have a go’. But before you do, I ask you to think about these points.

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A new shiny notebook

~ nicoladonnelly ~ 3 Comments

new-notebook

I always loved a new notebook. The potential of all those crisp, white, blank pages. The cover not yet covered in bottom of the handbag gunk. What would those pages contain? Thoughts, dreams, lists, notes from events. I have notebooks from buying my first house, planning our wedding, starting a business and endless lists.

I occasionally use note-taking apps for shared tasks or when on the go and caught without a notebook. Noting a song I like, Christmas gift idea, film I want to see, book I want to read etc. But I see this as perfunctory. It’s not the same as keeping a record with pen and paper. With a notebook you take time to expand.

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