Leonie Dawson's Blog, page 41

My Next 21 Day Challenge: Deepening My Digital Declutter

Panda bears,

Honestly, even if the only thing I did with this 21 day challenge experiment was to let go of social media, it would have been a life-changing success.

Challenge #1 of No Social Media is now formally complete, though I still need to do a write up about the final results and how I’m moving forward with it. And even though the challenge is complete, I’m not returning to my old ways. This was far too good to be free of social media. It is my new normal.

I’ve been moodling about what to do for Challenge #2.

It’s got big shoes to fill, considering how vital the first challenge was. And I want it to be just as powerful and transcendent. Something that scares me and seems a little impossible.

21 days of journalling doesn’t fulfil that criteria – I’ve somehow already started doing that this year, and it’s become my new normal. 21 days of orgasms? Again: fun, but not too far from reality. 21 days of walking? Get fuckkkkkkkked, I’m waiting for this humid, hot summer to be over so I don’t have to soak through countless bras and undies from sweating.

And I don’t feel like I’m done sucking the marrow out of my social media challenge yet. It’s challenged me to think about all the content I am consuming and where I spend my time online.

And I feel like I need to deepen the challenge by moving into a full blown digital declutter. This is something that is recommended in both How To Break Up With Your Phone by Catherine Price and Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. Those are my new bibles that haven’t led me astray yet… so into the Great Beyond I go!

Here’s my new digital declutter challenge parameters:What isn’t allowed at all:NO internet browsing (GASP!)NO online shopping (eeeep!)NO smartphone use (I can only use it as a dumb phone – photos, text messages & phone calls). Where possible, just leave it at home instead.NO news websites, Reddit, BuzzFeed or celebrity gossip websites (my usual time-waster websites)NO TikTok or YoutubeNO social media (it’s my new normal and I fekkin LURVE it)NO Tapas or Webtoons (graphic comic apps) – kind of a bummer for me as it is a recent obsession.  But I have about 50 paperback graphic comics to get through, so that should tide me over.What is allowed, but with parametersEmail & Facebook messenger access 2 x a day for 15 minutes at a time. Must be done via laptop. Must be timed and logged to prevent it becoming a background constant.Reading blogs via Bloglovin. I haven’t worked out the constraints of that yet. It might be without restriction. It might need a time constraint. I am going to experiment & work it out as I go.What is allowed without restrictions:Essential business software like KajabiAny tools & apps I use to make stuff – like WordPress (for writing on my website), Procreate (which I do digital drawings on) & Anchor (for recording podcasts)Online courses I am currently studyingReading on my Kindle (& purchasing new books when needed)Podcasts & audiobooks (I listen for maybe an hour a week, so not a huge time suck or distraction for me. I usually listen when I am driving.)How I will find out news & stay informed:I’ll read 1-2 newspapers each weekend (I’ve started doing this again recently and find I am MUCH more knowledgeable about shit than just reading a chorus of rage tweets!)Usually breaking news is NOT something that requires me to change my actions straight away, but we ARE in a pandemic. If we suddenly have a Covid outbreak and new restrictions are put in place, my husband will let me know (or my dad. Or friends.)The reality is though – there’s only been twice in the last year when this has happened. I don’t ACTUALLY need to be informed 24/7.Parts that might be tricky:The first thing I think of is: how the heckkkk am I going to keep up with my eldest kid’s insatiable hunger for graphic novels? That may seem like a funny concern, but it’s very real to me. It feels like a part-time job currently sourcing the kinds of graphic novels she likes. We’ve gone through all graphic novels available at the library. She can read up to 5 a day. I don’t want to stymie her obsession – I think it’s an excellent one to have. I’ll pre-emptively place a bulk order online to try and tide us over for 21 days. And I’ve already asked our favourite local bookstore to get in as many as they can.Both my kids’ birthdays happen during this challenge period. I’ve already ordered most of their birthday presents online. If I need to get anything else, I’ll shop locally.I might need to do a quick internet search to organise a couple of upcoming friend events. I just need to be conscious of not falling down the rabbit hole as I do it. I’ll keep a pen & paper beside me, and time it when I do.We’ve got a Scholastic Book Club catalogue that will come in March. And DAMMIT I WILL BE BUYING BOOKS SO HELP ME BOOK GOD.I don’t want to keep the Gmail app on my iPad & iPhone because I’ll sleepwalk into opening it all the time. The only issue is: I constantly send emails to myself to remind myself of ideas, or send drawings or photos to myself between devices. I will need to remind myself to Airdrop them to my laptop when I am with it. If that doesn’t work, I’ll need to consider another option – possibly making an email address that I give to nobody, and just use it to send myself emails?I also currently collect all my links for scrapbook posts by emailing myself the links as I find them. I can either save them in the Bloglovin app by clicking the <3 button or keep as a note on my iPad that I remind myself to look through when compiling.How I’m going to set myself up for success:I’ve deleted all smartphone apps off my phone except for podcasts, audiobooks, map, my calendar & the app I use to order medications for pickup at the chemist. There is NOTHING EXCITING HERE. Nothing exciting at all.I’ve done the same to my iPad, except it has ProCreate, GoodNotes & Anchor for creating with, and Bloglovin for reading blogs.I’ve also created an app time limit for Bloglovin on my iPad. It’s not a huge concern for me as I do get so much inspiration from it. But I’ll be interested to see if it feels better with a limit or not.I upgraded to a 3 year account with Blocksite.co so I could block even more websites. It’s been invaluable in stopping me from sleepwalking into websites I didn’t want to be.I’ve also decided to try something slightly different on my laptop: have a list of ALLOWED websites and list only what I assume I’ll be using going forward. I can add to it later if I need which will only be 30 seconds work, but it will be my little Conscious Computer Use firewall. It will give me time to consider whether I REALLY need to be on there or not. It may also be a tremendous pain in the ass, and I decide to change it back to just a restricted website listing, but I will see how it goes! E X P E R I M E N T. (Update: yeah, can’t do shit when I’ve only got allowed websites. Will need an extensive blocked website list instead.)I’ve also pre-emptively told my closest friend and my assistant about my new limits to email & messenger so they know how to contact me and when to expect my response.Food for thought

I grabbed a copy of Cal Newport’s Time Block Planner because YES I AM an obsessed fangirl, thank you so much for noticing.

This part grabbed my attention however:

Tip: Capture email and instant messenger communication in their own blocks

Many knowledge workers don’t consider checking email or instant messenger channels a standalone activity. They instead think of it as something that’s always done in parallel with primary work. I highly discourage this mindset: all of these quick checks of communication channels significantly reduce your cognitive capacity due to neural network switching costs. Batch your email or instant messenger time into their own blocks. When you get to one of these communication blocks, do nothing but communicate, and when you’re not in one of these blocks, don’t communicate at all. If your work requires you to check these tools often, then schedule lots of blocks to do so, but refuse to let this behaviour be something that occurs informally in the background.

And more inspiring quotes from Digital Minimalism:

“Principle #1: Clutter is costly. Digital minimalists recognize that cluttering their time and attention with too many devices, apps, and services creates an overall negative cost that can swamp the small benefits that each individual item provides in isolation.
Principle #2: Optimization is important. Digital minimalists believe that deciding a particular technology supports something they value is only the first step. To truly extract its full potential benefit, it’s necessary to think carefully about how they’ll use the technology.”

“The best digital life is formed by carefully curating their tools to deliver massive and unambiguous benefits. They tend to be incredibly wary of low-value activities that can clutter up their time and attention and end up hurting more than they help.”

“Digital minimalists don’t mind missing out on small things; what worries them much more is diminishing the large things they already know for sure make a good life good.”

“How much of your time and attention, he would ask, must be sacrificed to earn the small profit of occasional connections and new ideas that is earned by cultivating a significant presence on Twitter?”

Somebody asked me yesterday if I was joining Clubhouse.

I laffed and laffed and laffed.

Do I really need ANOTHER way to connect with humans? No. I have everything I need already. Do I need to FIERCELY protect my time and my life in order to be a sane, happy, present and creative soul? YES. WITH EVERYTHING I HAVE.

After decades of accruing fancy new time-sucking habits, tools and software that create minimal value for maximum cost, it’s time for me to redefine my relationship completely with tech. Start working out what I REALLY want and need from my internet life, killing off the rest & optimising the rest of what I use to ensure it doesn’t cost me more than it gives.

I’m excited!

Big love,

P.S. Yes, I’ll continue updating the 21 Day Challenge Log as I go. It’s provided hugely useful for me as a place to document & record my experience & information I’ve gathered along the way.

FREE GOODIES:

[image error]  Daily-ish writings
[image error]  Weekly love letters
[image error]  Podcast: Leonie Dawson Refuses To Be Categorised
[image error]  A library of free treasures

COURSES:

[image error]   Sales Star (begins March 1)
[image error]   Money, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income
[image error]   40 Days To A Finished Book
[image error]   40 Days To Create & Sell Your E-Course

The post My Next 21 Day Challenge: Deepening My Digital Declutter appeared first on Leonie Dawson | Goals, Marketing + Creativity For Glorious Humans.

Dear Diary: A Miracle

Dearests,

Last night when I wrote you, I was dusty and crinkled up. Cabin feverish and ready to spread my wings.

And that whole process of writing to you had me dreaming of what I did want, what sweetnesses might be possible next.

And then this morning: miracle of miracles! My kid was well enough to go to school! And instead of just falling into our normal routine, my love and I lived the FUCK out of our morning together.

We went to a cafe! We walked along the river! We talked, and talked, and talked. I talked his damn FACE OFF.

He said: Crazy idea, but why don’t we just… NOT go home? What if we just hang out here?

So we decided that we’d sit by the river for a couple of hours, which would have been a perfectly amiable way to spend our precious time.

And then he said: While we are here… why don’t we just… get a BOAT?

I’ve been trying to convince him since November to hire a boat with me after I spontaneously took a boat out for a spin for my birthday by myself. It was the last thing I expected for today… to be surprised like this.

And just like that, we were on a boat together, cruising down the river, grinning from ear to ear. I taught him how to drive the boat and he became an accomplished salty seaman as I always knew he was.

We drifted along the river so slowly butterflies were overtaking us, and it was glorious. I felt like I was on holidays for a moment. To Amalfi or Fiji, on a tropical river, just decadent with all the loveliness.

We kept thanking each other afterwards for the experience. Next time: we’ll take the kids and hire one of those big, flat bottomed boats with couches on them. They go even slower! HO HO HO!

I’d totes encourage you in trying a boat sometime. They seem like a Thing That Other People Do, but you can do it too!

Hot tips:

They can be surprisingly affordable. For example, where we live it’s $40 for 30 minutes of boat hire or $60 for an hour.Boats take fuck all time to learn – about 30 seconds – and are farrrrrr easier to drive than a car. It’s easier than driving a dodgem!You don’t need a boat licence in Australia to drive hire boats. They don’t go fast enough to qualify. Ha!If you can hire them on a river, it’s a pretty easy place to poodle about and learn. We go on Noosa River which is shallow and fairly calm.Hire boats are easier to drive than sailing boats. Remember that time a billion years ago when I went sailing with workmates? Fuck that was FUN too.

Okay, that’s all.

My skin is kissed with salt and my heart is glad.

I love you all,

 

FREE GOODIES:

[image error]  Daily-ish writings
[image error]  Weekly love letters
[image error]  Podcast: Leonie Dawson Refuses To Be Categorised
[image error]  A library of free treasures

COURSES:

[image error]   Sales Star (begins March 1)
[image error]   Money, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income
[image error]   40 Days To A Finished Book
[image error]   40 Days To Create & Sell Your E-Course

The post Dear Diary: A Miracle appeared first on Leonie Dawson | Goals, Marketing + Creativity For Glorious Humans.

Dear Diary: 10/10/10

Dearests,

My head is flopsy.

I started this week with grand plans. I was going to be so creative! So productive! I felt powerful! On fire! Indefatigable!

And then… life happened.

My youngest kid who started this whole merry-go-round of sickness a month ago, and passed it merrily on to her daddy, her sister and me, then went for round 2 with it, and has been home for 8 days. (And of course, during pandemic times, I’d like to squeak: #notcovid just to reassure you! And if it WAS Covid, you’d bet your ASS I would blog all over that shit!)

And then I had to have an emergency dental visit which knocked me out on an ASD sensory front, and I’ve been hiding under a weighted blanket ever since.

And it shows me, once again, that:

Leonie = totally great when they are by themselves! Heroicly productive & creative! WATCH THEM FLY!

But as soon as life gets in the way: the brakes slam on, and they are back to recovering in a darkened room, exhausted and overstimulated and waiting for their system to come back online again.

Of course… I need outside life as well. And I enjoy the fuckkk out of it while I’m out there. But damnnnnn it comes at a cost to my sensory processing.

Other thoughts: I notice my brain is calmer after writing like this. But it is messier after recording a podcast episode where I am making up shit as I go. It feels like I have loose ends all over the place. I’ll have to experiment with different podcast formats and see what ones feel less fuzz-inducing on my brain. I enjoy talking shit, but not if it comes at the cost of extra fuzz I have to sort through because of it.

I saw some 10/10/10 journalling exercise on TikTok.

Should we try it now?

Sure, fuck it, why not.

 

10 Excited DesiresI want to create some kind of regular ridiculous friend event. I used to do these all the time when I was child-free. I’d email a big bunch of random friends and issue ridiculous missions like: “Meet us at park at 12.30pm to FROLIC because it is finally 25 degrees and SPRING IS HERE, bitchez!” (and I would, in fact, force them to frolic!) or “You are hereby invited to eat Thai food, but ONLY if you bring three small pieces of paper with secrets written on them. They will be added to the Pink Hat of Secrets, and we will be taking turns reading out other people’s secrets over lunch. Non-secret-sharers will not be admitted.” And this merry group of good humans would show up – people from work, friends, people I’d met on buses (YES, I ABSOLUTELY TALK TO STRANGERS ON PUBLIC TRANSPORT). And they’d all make friends, and we’d have these hilarious, shouty, glorious & intimate lunch hours which were stupidly magical. Anyways, I miss that. I want to do shit like that again.One day, in the not so distant future, all FOUR of my family will be well again, and back at school, and I’ll be able to walk along the river with my love again, and admire the blue sky, and just enjoy his sweet company all by myself. AND run errands together. Gosh, won’t that be a miracle?I’m excited to get into bed tonight and read more comics on Tapas. My assistant just introduced me to it. I am so in love. COMICS GALORE. I feel like I’ve fallen into a new eco-system of creatives and it is MAGNIFICENT. In related news, goodbye forever, I’ve fallen into comics and won’t get out.I’m excited that it’s nearly the weekend and I can fall into a lump and recover.I’ve been giving myself the gift of reading a novel in the Bridgerton series each weekend. They really are delightful. This weekend: I’m reading #6. BOO YEAH.Related: I can’t WAIT to see how they unfold in their picturesque, sexy glory on Netflix as well. Series 1 was a goddamn FEAST for mine eyes. I can’t wait to behold them next series. And personally, I’m VERY excited to see both Colin and Eloise’s love stories on screen too.Only a week or so left of summer. I am SO DAMN KEEN for some cooler weather. Granted: we don’t live in a cold place. We are firmly sub tropical. What it means though is autumn-spring weather is pretty much perfect, and summer can get hot. We’ve lived in far hotter & far colder places than this, so I appreciate the mildness. I’m just super keen to a) wear leggings again and b) not have to change my bra three times a day because SWEATTTT.I have a LOT of things I want to write about. I am excited to write!One day I would like to walk in a forest in Scotland and down a cobbled street in England. I’ve never given a single fuckkkkkkkk about returning to the mother country when I was younger. But as soon as I hit 35… BAMMMM. I’ve got a deep longing to go back to land of my ancestors, probably while wearing a leather backpack and sensible walking sandals. And I wrote that part as a joke, and then realised with a start: I just bought the backpack. AND the sandals. Dear lord. I AM OFFICIALLY MIDDLE AGED.I’m excited to go on a road trip sometime, somewhere, whenever the time is right. Just the open road! New things! New routine! New land to gulp in.10 GratitudesThe dentist I had yesterday was kind. I disclosed that I was ASD and have sensory processing issues, and she was considerate and gentle. AND they let me choose what to watch on the overhead TV… I chose Bridgerton. HO HO HO. Honestly, it was better than any painkiller. Highly recommend that experience!One of my kids has a new teacher at the moment & it’s making her LIIIIIIIFE, and it’s also making my life. Having super special teachers who are wildly excitable about education is a healing miracle to behold.I’m starting to feel more like a local, tiny bit by tiny bit. It takes its time to be known and build micro-relationships in a community. This week has been lovely for that: I ran into someone I’ve known online for 8 years or so. And the receptionists at my usual healer clinic were like “Leonie! What’s been happening!” Then the receptionist at the dental surgery was serendipitously someone I met a year ago at a kid’s birthday party, and we’d had a cracking laff together. And the sweet checkout boy at the chemist was like “HELLO! I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU IN AGES!” All of this was sweet and comforting.I’m reading so many wonderful things lately: books and blogs and comics and newspapers. And I’m just buzzing with gratitude that people are making cool shit and putting it out into the world. It is wildly nourishing.I’m so so so so so so fucking grateful I decided to do 21 Day Challenges. Just this last 21 days of being social media free has changed my life. I know I keep talking about it, and I’m going to keep talking about it. Because it’s a goddamn fucking MIRACLE.We’ve had issues with a leaking roof since we’ve moved in, and getting by with temporary fixes, but we’re finally getting the issue fixed properly with something or other. It has a name, but I tuned out. All I know is: workmen have been on our roof for three days this week and then there will be NO LEAKS.Having a nearly 11 year old is really, really fun. I just like these glimpses of the person she is becoming. She’s still a kid but she’s sassier and getting more thoughtful and worldly. I like her. (I’m sure teen years will be developmentally trickier, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it! For right now: much gladness for THIS!)Still eternally grateful to be in a relatively Covid-free country. Oof, it’s been a YEAR. But I’m glad for disease prevention.I’m in a really happy groove at the moment with my business. I love what I’m doing. I love what I’m making. I love my clients. I love my assistant. I love my bonus assistant who is helping us out with customer service at the moment. It’s a wonderful, wonderful feeling.I’m so excited and grateful to be starting Sales Star next week. I love making new things! This one has been on the agenda for so long, and people have been demanding it for years, so it’s good to get it done & out in the world.10 Things I Love DoingWriting writing writingReading reading readingArt journaling art journaling art journalingLearning learning learningPartying like it’s 1999 with my coven of hags but only until 9:30pm and then BEDSitting on the verandahNoticing beauty. Light hitting leaves is like rapturous enlightenment.Documenting beauty.Playing Catan (current obsession)Reading books in the bath.Right. Well, that feels better.

I’m glad I did that!

Thanks for being here boo boos.

Me hearts you,

 

FREE GOODIES:

[image error]  Daily-ish writings
[image error]  Weekly love letters
[image error]  Podcast: Leonie Dawson Refuses To Be Categorised
[image error]  A library of free treasures

COURSES:

[image error]   Sales Star (begins March 1)
[image error]   Money, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income
[image error]   40 Days To A Finished Book
[image error]   40 Days To Create & Sell Your E-Course

The post Dear Diary: 10/10/10 appeared first on Leonie Dawson | Goals, Marketing + Creativity For Glorious Humans.

The 5 Best Things I’ve Spent Money On In My Business!

Precious humans!

Over the years I’ve spent a donkey schlong’s worth of money investing in my business.

I’ve had a fucking HUGE team (20+ staff), expensive software, multiple websites, coaches, training programs, spending $500k in one year on printing workbooks… I’ve spent a decent whack of cash.

And I wanted to share with you what’s been hands down the best investments I’ve ever made. So you can learn from my mistakes & successes without having to spend as much dosh as I have!

Coming in at number five we have: My software soulmates of Kajabi and Canva!

They make my business sooooo. much. simpler.

Mama loves simple.

And I don’t like spending a shit tonne of money on contractors… Kajabi and Canva make managing my online business & creating designs doable just with me & my part-time assistant.

Kajabi is an all-in-one workhorse that I base my business on. It runs my mailing list, all my customers and my e-courses. I could also run my website + blog over there buuuut with over 2000 blog posts here, I decided to stay put on WordPress, for now.

PLUS!!! Kajabi give you PRIZES for reaching certain milestones.

Gimme all the presents *grabby hands*

I used to use a bunch of different software cobbled together to do what Kajabi does. When I signed up with Kajabi, it meant I could kill off Infusionsoft, Memberium, Vimeo, Leadpages and more.

Plus with Infusionsoft it was so bloody confusing I had to hire expensive Certified Infusionsoft Consultants to make any changes. Which is about the dumbest fucking thing on earth. Pro tip for software companies: if your users can’t even use your damn service without hiring pricey tech peeps, you’re doing something wrong.

I’ve never had to hire a “Certified Kajabi Expert” to do anything – I don’t think they even have any. What me and my assistant can’t work out, we’ve been able to quickly get sorted using Kajabi‘s free chat support.

Canva‘s my other software soulmate. Canva makes it easy to design images without needing to buy crazy-priced Adobe software and spend a lifetime learning it.

In the last big brand refresh we did with Soul Stirring Branding, they uploaded all our design elements into Canva with templates and recommendations on how to use them. So now, whenever me or my assistant need to make a new graphic, we can make something super easily in a few minutes. Business and creating at the speed of life!

Simple. Quick. Effective. Cheap.

Number four! A customer service VA!

Hiring a virtual assistant (VA) to answer customer service emails for me was one the first big splurges I made for my business… and it’s still one of my favourite favourite things to spend my business cash on now.

I started with someone who did maybe 3 hours a MONTH – billed in six minute increments. And then over time, built up hours as needed.

Seriously, seriously, seriously. Get someone on board, even just for a couple of hours a month, to answer your customer service enquiries.

You could spend ALL your time in an inbox or social media DMs just answering questions and, oh? What’s that? Not getting any actual work done? The absolute woooooorst.

Having a customer service VA will save you time AND money. You’ll go in and check emails a hundred times a day, read them, think about answering, get distracted, come back three days later, still not answer it. It will seem like answering emails takes you for-fucking-ever. A VA instead will go in your inbox, process each email, set up and use canned autoresponders to commonly asked questions, be super professional, won’t get emotionally attached and will get out. In like 20 minutes. Easy peasy.

Gift yourself the opportunity to work on the things that will propel your business forward instead!

My current VA/OBM started out just running customer service a couple of hours a week, and now, nearly 3 years later, she does all sorts of things behind-the-scenes for me for 20 hours a week. One part-time VA is my sweet spot. Yours might be a full time team, and that’s totes magotes grand too. You just won’t KNOW what your sweet spot is until you try it.

But don’t go answering customer service emails yourself.

Three! Self-care…

You can’t give from a depleted well. And neither can the people working for you. It’s really fucking important to nurture self-care within yourself and your business.

Reminder: you are not your business. you are a person.

Take time off. Delegate to your team. Make sure your team aren’t burning out too.

Burnout is a rough road to recover from. Better to avoid it all together if possible.

What does self care look like?

Having boundaries around what you will do and what you won’t do… and FOLLOWING those rules.Having times when you can work undistracted… and hours and days of the week where you don’t work at all.Have hobbies outside of your business!Taking care of your mental health: therapy! Medication! Supportive relationships!Taking care of your physical health: massages! Osteopathy! Bodywork! Nutritious foods that are easy for you to eat! (For instance: I bulk buy Lara Bars to have on hand when snackkky.)Taking care of your spiritual health: women’s circles! Connection time with friends! Creative side projects! Solo time! Dedicated time each week to fill your well!#2: My favourite laptop

SO. I have somewhat of an odd purchase to share with you… one that I think makes me seem a bit RICHY RICH. But I think it’s well worth it.

Here’s the story:

I have finicky hands (like the rest of my body). I have hypermobility which means my bones dislocate more easily than they should, and I’m prone to inflammation, muscle and joint pain and strains. In the past this has meant I’ve had carpal tunnel and RSI in my wrists and fingers. I’ve tried all kinds of keyboards over the years. When I worked at Window desktop machines at my office job, I would always need to pair it with an ergonomic keyboard to save my hands.

But as a writer and entrepreneur now, I much prefer to work on laptops. Laptops are always tricky though – they need to super thin so the front edge doesn’t press into my wrists when typing. Touchpad needs to be small so I don’t need to spread hands too widely around it. Keys need to be fairly responsive to touch so I don’t need to type hard.

Currently, the only laptop that fits those parameters is the Macbook Air (2014-2017 era). After then, they changed the touchpad and keys and they fucking SUCKKKKKKK on my hands. So I had one prized laptop that worked for me for 6 years until its battery started failing a year ago and I was like OHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WOT AM I GOING TO DO. So I had the battery replaced, but the experience scarred me: what on earth would I do if my one precious laptop failed and I couldn’t get a replacement? THINK OF MY BROKEN HANDS, I BEG OF YOUUUU CRUEL WORLD!

I bitched about this at length to my husband, and then fortuitously decided to bitch to the local IT store salesperson. And he was like: “Let me check… but I’m pretty sure we still have stock from 2016 that hasn’t been sold?” I was all: “Shut your mouth and bring it to me now, you magnificent bastard!” And he did. And that’s how we decided to fork out $2k for a laptop that had been sitting in a store room for four years. I’ve never treasured something more before.

I actually did have some money blocks about it, as DDT would say. I was like “Who am I to have TWO laptops? It feels VERY RICH! And to be so pretentious as to want only an old model version as well!”

My husband was kind and thoughtful. “Honey, you’re a writer. And every writer has their weird hangup about what they need to write on. Some have a beloved typewriter. Some will only handwrite on one kind of paper. It doesn’t really matter. Plus, whatever it takes to keep your body from hurting, we need to do that. It will save on medical bills later!”

No R.S.I for me, thank you very much. I need these beautiful hands of mine for creating and mothering and writing vast tomes about donkey schlongs and gesturing wildly when reading romance novels.

Very important shit.

So: the tool of my trade. SORTED. 

And finally, in the number 1 slot… EDUCATION!

I remember the very first business course I ever bought back in 2007/8. It was $100, and I SHOOK when deciding to buy it. It felt huge and enormous to me.

But I learned SO MUCH from that one course. And very quickly, brought in $10,000 that I wouldn’t have brought in without it. And that’s when I really saw: education has the best return on investment.

I wasn’t born great with money or marketing or business (or much else for that matter, except for being a creative space cadet!) but I was able to LEARN how to be great through courses and books.

Like: how amazing is it that you can GET INSIDE THE BRAIN of people who are super smart and betterer at other stuff than you? And they will teach you how to be betterer! And then you can be betterer! Revolutionary!

I’m fucking glad for every penny I’ve spent on education, coaching, books and programs. All up I’ve probably spent close to $200,000 on learning and it’s been the thing that makes the biggest difference to my business success.

Hope this has been useful!

I’m definitely not somebody who likes to spend a lot of money normally – but I am very happy to spend money when it makes me $$$ and gets me closer to my goals!

And don’t forget – only a few days left to enrol in Sales Star. If you want to know how to grow your income & market more successfully than ever before.. it is an essential business training, and the cornerstone of my programs.

To your shining success,

FREE GOODIES:

[image error]  Daily-ish writings
[image error]  Weekly love letters
[image error]  Podcast: Leonie Dawson Refuses To Be Categorised
[image error]  A library of free treasures

COURSES:

[image error]   Sales Star (begins March 1)
[image error]   Money, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income
[image error]   40 Days To A Finished Book
[image error]   40 Days To Create & Sell Your E-Course

The post The 5 Best Things I’ve Spent Money On In My Business! appeared first on Leonie Dawson | Goals, Marketing + Creativity For Glorious Humans.

Podcast: Entrepreneur in car going to the dentist

Babes,

In this episode I am off to the dentist. What an adventure!

I’m chatting about social media and how being off it has impacted literally everything in my life.

Cheers to your ears, my loves!

Explicit AF

Just to reiterate: this is one sweary motherfucker of a podcast. So if you listen to it around kids… they will defo learn some new vocabulary from Aunty Leonie. MWHAHAHAHA. ENJOYYYYY!

How to listen

Listen below, or subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, PocketCast (or wherever else you listen to podcasts!)

Want to find all of my podcast episodes?

Just pop over here treasure!

You can also just sit on your couch and yell “OK Google! Play me “Leonie Dawson Refuses To Be Categorised” podcast!” and your digital servant shall administer to your needs.

Who gives a fuck about privacy when you can have a little robot assistant at your beck and call so you may never leave the couch again.
HONESTLY HOW GOOD IS LIFE.
THE END.

Big hugs,

The post Podcast: Entrepreneur in car going to the dentist appeared first on Leonie Dawson | Goals, Marketing + Creativity For Glorious Humans.

Behind the Scenes of a Leonie Launch

My loves,

Today on the first episode of “Leonie Goes For a Walk because Their Brain is FRAZZLED”, I delve in the behind-the-scenes of a Leonie launch.

The episode is down below (go for a scroll to find it), but I also thought I would write up a companion blog piece, because I’m bigly generous like that, ho ho ho.



I’m also just adoring writing and blogging again. It’s nourishing my soul, watering my crops and curing my ailments, as the youngsters say these days.

I’m so fucking hip and with it, babes. HA!

Okay, onwards, before I get distracted by the joys of today’s youth.

(BTW: I am completely unable to say the word youths without thinking of Schmidt from New Girl. New Girl = LIFE.)

Sales Star Masterclass

By now, hopefully you will have seen I have launched a new program, YAAAAY! It’s so new and shiny omfg.

This is something that people have been asking for for years. It’s always been in the back of my mind to create. I’ve been wanting to create an intensive where I can put all my information, tools, resources, checklists and worksheets on how to create sales pages that really sell. Not to mention copywriting; i.e. how to use those delightfully tricky little things called words to make yourself even more dollar dollar bills, y’all.

Even if you already have a sales page, doing this course will mean your sales page will start selling more and earn more $$$!

Here’s the thing, learning about this stuff (about sales pages, marketing and copywriting) is really what changed the trajectory of my business. It went from just being a hobby of mine to something that now has brought in millions and millions of dollars.

I really feel like learning the skills of sales and copywriting is kinda teaching yourself how to have money for the rest of your life. If I lost everything or decided not to do this business anymore, I would still be earning a really good fucking wage, purely because of my sales and copywriting skills that I’ve developed over time.

I’m not someone who was born naturally good at this stuff. I wasn’t birthed holding a pen, a thesaurus and a knowledge of words that sell. Instead I’ve learnt along the way. I’ve invested in my education and it has given me the biggest return of investment E V E R!

Sales Star Masterclass is education that you and your business deserve to invest in.

So let me give you a behind the scenes glimpse as to what it looks like for me to prepare for launching a new program.

Step One: Mindmap analogue. I get out my trusty journal & start scrawling shit & mind mapping topics I want to cover. This can totally be edited, added to and streamlined later. It’s not set in stone – just a bunch of ideas off the top of my head.

Step Two: Digital listify. At a certain point my mindmap gets fucking messy, so I swap to a Google document to clear it up. I pour everything out into dot points, which then branch out further and further. It’s here I edit and move content chunks into modules.

So doing those two steps creates the framework for what I want to teach in the course and what questions I want to try and answer. I have been doing this process for 13+ years now and have created over 160 programs, so it comes second nature to me now.

If you want to know more about building out an e-course framework, I go through in great detail in 40 Days To Create & Sell Your E-Course.

Step Three: I try and think of questions you’ll want answered in the course, what you are struggling with, what would be most helpful to you. And then BAM! I’ll add those into the course as well.

Step Three: Once that framework is in place, I can then start building out the sales page because I know what I’m going to be teaching and what the course will contain.

Step Four: I design & illustrate the sales page myself using Procreate on my iPad. I’ve noticed my brain just seems to work a lot better when I illustrate shit. Plus it looks really fucking purtyyyyy.

Now let’s talk stats.

The average amount of time it takes me to write a sales page is probably 8 or so hours. And that includes doing all the graphics + design work myself too. It’s a few solid days (because why the fuck would I work full days? No thank you very much) of just chipping away at the page until I feel it’s long enough and covers everything important.

I use a bunch of checklists that I’ve been using for years, to make sure I don’t forget anything. I remember I started sharing one of my checklists at a coaching retreat I ran eons ago and the awesome Denise Duffield-Thomas was there and I remember she said to me:

“Leonie, this paper is actually worth its weight in gold. Nobody else is laying out how to do sales pages like this.”(Also: if you haven’t already, go read one of her books! They are the best!)This checklist is what I’ve used to generate over $11 million dollars in my business, so naturally I’m going to share it with you in Sales Star Masterclass.

Now that the sales page is all done, the next step is to build out the course in Kajabi. That’s where I really simplified my business a couple of years ago. Kajabi has made the whole thing sooooo much easier to manage.

What my Kajabi looks like behind the scenes…

Kajabi has my eCourses, mailing list and shopping cart. It can also host your website but I have over 2500 blog posts here and lorrrrrrd knows I cannot be arsed transferring all of that over.

I love it, it’s very, very useful and it’s saved me a shit tonne of money. I used to have to hire a whole bunch of staff to manage my business (this did NOT bring me joy of any kind and is just ssssssssso not the business model for me). With Kajabi, it’s just me and my assistant plonking about, pushing buttons and figuring shit out.

How the back-end is set up

So peeps will click a link on the sales page, it’ll take them to the Kajabi shopping cart where you can enrol and pay and then exit. That’s literally it. Kajabi will automatically send you login details and course details. I fucking love it.

Once Kajabi is done, I’ll make sure customer service is manageable for my team. With a brand new course launch I usually do a three day early bird price (to reward all you loyal humans) and that can result in a few extra emails.

Side note: there’s nothing better than having people in your team who are excellent communicators and boundary setters. Seriously. My business runs 10000% smoother. Plus having a large team takes all the fun out of it for me.

So, my launch to do list was looking like this:

Sales page:

Kajabi:

Customer service:

It is now time to send out to the mailing list. WAHOO!

What I like to do when I open up for sales is make sure the checkout process is smooth so no one runs into any problems and keep an eye on any questions we’re getting in the inbox, so we can pre-answer them on the sales page and in follow up emails. Good customer service is when no one has to email in at all.

If one person has asked me the question, at least 10 other people have the same question somewhere. But instead of emailing in, they’re just confused, bless their souls. So the better a job I can do at communicating, the better it works for everyone all round.

For me, month-long launches work best.

I do a three day early bird discount at the start of the month, then over the following weeks I continue to educate and answer questions through a series blog posts (like this one, helloooooo!) or articles or podcasts or emails about the topic.

By the time of the end of the month comes around, I have the final week of sales emails scheduled in Kajabi aimed at reminding peeps that, yooohoooooo it’s time to sign up plz and thank you!

A lot of people like to do shorter launches and that’s totally cool. I just tend to a bit longer. I like to make the course start on the first of a new month, so the launch starts on the first of the month before. That way the last day of the month is the deadline to sign up, and I’ve found that inbuilt deadline of “oh fuck it’s the last day of February, Sales Star Masterclass starts tomorrow!” works really well as a natural reminder for people.

But also maybe I’m just making causation out of correlation. But hey! Whatever works for you and your biz, lolzzz.

I will probably try out a shorter launch, just because I like trialling new things. But for now, we’ll stick to month long launches.

So that’s kind of the behind-the-scenes of one my launches!

I really don’t plan out my launches in advance. I have an income goal for the year, but for my personality if I have it all booked in place at the start of the year I lose interest. I need new, sparkly things and so going with my natural instinct and creating on the fly really works. And it’s what I’ve done for years.

The no-plan plan works for me, ho ho ho.

Okay! So! Any questions, let me know. Just pop us an email at support@leoniedawson.com.

And of course:

Make sure you sign up to Sales Star Masterclass, but only if you’re interested in learning about sales page, copywriting, marketing and making more money.

Because who isn’t interested in making more moolah, truly?

I do feel ridiculously, enormously blessed and grateful to be able to live this life. I feel so lucky that I was able to leave my public service job, work from home, be with my kids, retire my husband (from his job, not me LOLZ… I’m a liiiiife long career for him HO HOHO) and live in some of the most beautiful places in the world.

We get to live a life of freedom, and one that’s in alignment with out values.

And that really comes back to the decision I made nearly 15 years ago to really learn how do marketing  + copywriting + sales pages that really sell because it has meant I have been able to create all of this and not work ridiculous hours.

10 hours a week. $11 million.

I want to pay it forward. I want to teach other people about all this stuff.

If that’s you, jump on in before we begin!

I love you all! Let’s go make miracles!

FREE GOODIES:

  Daily-ish writings

   Weekly love letters

  Podcast: Leonie Dawson Refuses To Be Categorised

 A library of free treasures

 

COURSES:

 Sales Star (begins March 1)

Money, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income

40 Days To A Finished Book

40 Days To Create & Sell Your E-Course

The post Behind the Scenes of a Leonie Launch appeared first on Leonie Dawson | Goals, Marketing + Creativity For Glorious Humans.

6 Ways to Grow Your Business This Month

Baberinos,

Since I’ve been spending so much time off my phone and away from social media, I’ve freed up so much brain space to think about the important shit.

I’ve played 3 days worth of Catan with my eldest, who’s been sick at home. It’s been some of my favourite days ever of parenting, and worthy of my attention.I wrote one of my faves blogs to date: 10 Mistakes You’ve Been Making With Your Sales Page. Is it my fave because it’s full of super important information that will change your life? Well, yes… BUT… but also because I mention trying not to look at donkey dicks, and your Grandmother’s fledgling porn career. WOT CAN I SAY. It is the Magnum Opus of my career HO HO HO HO.I’ve been thinking about and researching the fuck out of phones, social media and the damage it can do. Especially to kids.I’ve noticed my inspiration, attention span & consumption of quality, thoughtful content is way up. Whereas in an hour of Insta scrolling left me a vacuous memory-less hole, an hour of reading blogs fills me UP UP UP until I am brimming with ideas & insights & itching to create. Here’s a scrapbook of inspiration I’ve been collecting as I go.So, what’s on the agenda now?

Well. Today I’m filling up the glorious brain space left by the absence of social media with…

*epic drumroll please*

A brain dump of 6 ways you can grow your biz this month!!!

Because while it’s important to have a long term business goals, remember that you should also be breaking these down into daily, weekly and monthly goals. And there ain’t no time like the present to get rolling with action and start making dosh!

Want to listen to this as a podcast episode? Sure. Just hit play above, or subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, PocketCast (or wherever else you listen to podcasts!)

So without further ado (or any more mentions of donkey genitalia… well… I can promise NOTHING), let’s crack into it:

1 :: Package your products or services in a special bundle just for this month

Got a spa? You could bundle together two treatments and a take home mud mask. Call it Self Care Deluxe.

Got a business where you sell wine tubs emblazoned with randy sayings? Package together four and call it the BFFs Get Boozy Bundle – where peeps can buy for their closest mates, and share a cup of (erotically charged) dessert wine together over Zoom. And yes, I DO ONLY DRINK SWEET DESSERT WINE. Of COURSE I do. I have the palate and sensibility of a teenager! Did you REALLY expect me to drink like… chardonnay? I AM NOT MATURE ENOUGH FOR THAT, SHARON.

Now, as I was saying: BUNDLE shit as a special deal only for this month (or the next 3 days, or week, or whatever). Bundles are a novelty and an experience for customers!

2 :: Have a Daily Referral Experiment

Commit to reaching out to a friend, family member or business associate everyday. Ask them how they are. Catch up. Be thoughtful. Tell them what you’re doing. Ask them to tell anyone they know who may need you.

Even in the world of online, word of mouth is key! Connections and relationships are powerful.

So are donkey schlongs, APPARENTLY (I made NO promises. I told you that. Also: what if I tried to mention donkey dicks in every article I wrote? It would be like a little easter egg for you to find. A hallmark of Leonie Quality. Email me, and tell me if you agree this is the GREATEST IDEA YOU’VE EVER HEARD. If you don’t agree, please don’t tell me. Why are you even here? There are like a billion beige business motherfuckers out there who will talk marketing all day long and not ONCE mention donkey dicks. I know, revolutionary! I don’t know how they manage it either, to be honest.)

3. Remember that sales + marketing skills are not something you are born with.

It may surprise you to know that lil ole Leonie Dawson was not born good with the moneys or the business or the marketing. Or logic, or social skills, or eye contact, or behaving in risk-free and thoughtful ways.

Oh NO. Those are all things they had to LEARN later on in life.

It’s like this: I learned not to put knives into toasters to pluck out stuck bread because I have a kind and thoughtful husband who reminds me VERY often that it is not an appropriate life choice to make. I stand there, knife in hand, blink at him and yell “Don’t tell me what to do! I’m a grown adult!” before putting down the knife and stepping away, muttering, from said toaster.

So I, a certifiable labrador with a brain the size of a mid-sized bird can learn how to:

Create $11m in revenue in 10 hours a weekLook after the moneys instead of binge spending it all on Wizz Fizz sherbert and magicians in purple capesDo like that whole sales and marketing and business thing, and do it like, pretty goodly, and in like a fun way,Not electrocute themselves very often

You, too, can do the same thing!

Seriously though:

When I was in my early 20s, I had some BIG DREAMS, and no freaking idea how to make them happen. I had a fledgling business, but couldn’t work out how to get the money flowing in large enough amounts for me to live off. It felt frustrating and disheartening and I despaired at ever being able to have a creative career.

It was then I had a light bulb moment: there are other people out there who HAVE mastered business and marketing. They’ve just learned things I haven’t learned yet. And once I learn them, I can create success too!

So I set about learning everything I didn’t know. And not just learning it, but implementing and testing each piece. Seeing what worked for me and my audience, and letting go what didn’t. And then building on the successes again and again, until I hit the goal I wanted: first $30k a year… then $60k… then $100k… then $300k… then $500k… and it’s continued up from there. At its peak I hit around $3m a year with a large team in place. Then I rejigged my business back to just me and a part time assistant, and we hit around $1m a year but generating more profit than ever before.

Anyways, the point being:

That few inches between your ears is going to be the generator of all your success. Invest in it. Remember that business, sales and marketing skills are all learnable. It’s not something you have to be born with… you get to CHOOSE it.

4 :: Have a regular way you reach out to customers.

If you haven’t got a newsletter, make one. If you’ve got one, be more consistent!

Create useful content. Remind people of the ways you can help them. Be of service & joy to your humans!

5 :: Do 1 marketing activity every single day

No ifs, no buts, no maybes. If you want your business to continue growing, do a marketing activity every single day.

Be interviewed on a podcast.Start your own podcast.Write a great article.Pitch a magazine.Write a newsletter.Ask someone for a testimonial.Make a short video for your website explaining what you do & how you help people.Start an affiliate program.Do a joint venture with a business associate.Keep note on every single question clients ask you, and write a blog post answering each one of them.

There are a billion and one ways you can market your business. What’s important is DOING them, working out what works for you and your audience, and building on those successes!

6 :: Create a deadline

We humans are a funny, miraculous species. We have invented Moleskines and pavlovas (excellent choices) and genocide and Q-Anon (disastrous life choices).

We also don’t like to make decisions. We’d rather put that off until… tomorrow. Or next week. Until we forget we even need to make a decision. Which is tricky when you’ve got a business, and you want people to buy now… but they are thinking about maybe putting it off until laterz.

Which is where deadline marketing can come in handy. Deadline marketing forces your peeps to make a clear YES or NO decision when it comes to buying your product.

How do you create a deadline?

Have a sale for a set period of timeHave limited edition products (i.e. only 100 art prints available and no more will be printed)Run live rounds of programs where everyone needs to enrol by a certain dateHave an early bird discount for a set period of timeClose sales on that product for a few months (or the rest of the year)Offer bonuses for a set period of time

Make sure you market this deadline heavily, and include a timer on your sales page so peeps know it’s a DECIDE NOW kinda thang. Shit or get off the pot.

Which reminds me…

You’ve got a week left to get my Sales Star masterclass. If you are keen to see your business grow and make you more profit… ya need it! Like… yesterday!

And in other handy life advice, remember that knives don’t belong in toasters… APPARENTLY.

Big love & abundance,

FREE GOODIES:

[image error]  Daily-ish writings
[image error]  Weekly love letters
[image error]  Podcast: Leonie Dawson Refuses To Be Categorised
[image error]  A library of free treasures

COURSES:

[image error]   Sales Star (begins March 1)
[image error]   Money, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income
[image error]   40 Days To A Finished Book
[image error]   40 Days To Create & Sell Your E-Course

The post 6 Ways to Grow Your Business This Month appeared first on Leonie Dawson | Goals, Marketing + Creativity For Glorious Humans.

How I Study A Book Like A Textbook

Panda bears,

I was sitting down at the river the other day with my journal & pens & current book I’m studying.

And I thought I’d take some photos and share with you how I am studying it.

The book is Deep Work by Cal Newport. And I have a feeling that it is going to be one of those books that will radically transform my year ahead, and the years that follow. It’s that important. That useful. That profound.

I read most books on Kindle. If they are non-fiction and I need to take notes from it, I highlight them, and also email myself quotes from it from within the Kindle interface. I’m reading Cal’s Digital Minimalism on Kindle, along with How To Break Up With Your Phone and I am pretty happy with that method for those books.

Tools of the trade: journal from Quirky Cup Collective, satchel bag from Wanderers Travel Co, cardigan from Bamboo Body.

Every so often though, a book comes along, and I want to suck the marrow out of it.

So that’s what I’m doing with Deep Work. I started reading it on Kindle, and quickly stopped to order the printed book. I want to treat it like a textbook, and immerse myself in it. I don’t want to read it quickly. I want to let it change me.

I don’t keep many books once I’ve finished reading them. I give them to friends or take boxes to charity. With books like this though, I will keep in my office on a small shelf of Books That Changed Me.

I’m carrying it with me everywhere I go – around the house, and in my bag. I read it a page or two at a time, highlighting and taking notes in the margins as I go.

I carry with me a five pack of highlighters, and one of those four-colour pens, and use ALL OF THE COLOURS.

Partly because I like rainbows.

Partly because when I was in year 12, my boarding school headmistress (hi Trish!) told me she’d just learned in a study skills course that using different colours helps with memory retention. And I have no idea if research backs it up, but I’ve been doing it ever since, and it’s a very useful (and pretty) placebo that I am quite attached to.

I use these Zebra Mildliners for highlighting – they are like traditional highlighters but more pastel and less likely to gauge out your eyes with NEON INTENSITY. I bought these a few years ago online and they were the only pastel highlighters on the market, but I’ve noticed Stabilo has brought out a range of pastel ones too. LONG LIVE PASTEL HIGHLIGHTERS.

I was thinking to myself that if I’d still been on social media, I would have either:

Not taken these photos because I didn’t want to destroy the sanctity of the moment by sharing on social mediaOr told myself I SHOULD be sharing something on social media, and taken photos out of grinding resentment, and not shared a long post about it like this because:Instagram has a word limitTyping on phones is shitI hate how the number of comments or likes diminishes both mine and the reader’s experience of that workSocial media has never been the environment for my best work.

So very many reasons and feelings, and none of them feel good.

And instead of all this resentment and dissatisfaction and limitations, I thought:

OOOH I COULD BLOG ABOUT THIS. AND TAKE SOME NICE PHOTOS. AND WRITE AS MUCH AS I WANT FOR AS LONG AS I WANT USING MY BELOVED KEYBOARD. AND IT WILL LIVE ON MY WEBSITE FOREVER.

And it made me very happy indeed.

And here’s the thing: it doesn’t particularly matter if you love this or not. Because I’m proud of it. And I’m glad I’ve written it. 

And that’s more than enough.

This whole giving up social media and returning to blogging feels like a reclamation of my creativity. Blogging has always been the best environment for my words. It is fertile ground, expansive and possible and powerful. And 100% owned by me.

What a joy indeed.

I am sending you so much love,

P.S. In yesterday’s letter, I asked for a clothing recommendation after many fruitless hours of searching. And of course, beautiful humans wrote in. And of course, they knew exactly where I needed to go. Because OF COURSE. Y’all have the answers. I feel so lucky.

FREE GOODIES:

[image error]  Daily-ish writings
[image error]  Weekly love letters
[image error]  Podcast: Leonie Dawson Refuses To Be Categorised
[image error]  A library of free treasures

COURSES:

[image error]   Sales Star (begins March 1)
[image error]   Money, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income
[image error]   40 Days To A Finished Book
[image error]   40 Days To Create & Sell Your E-Course

The post How I Study A Book Like A Textbook appeared first on Leonie Dawson | Goals, Marketing + Creativity For Glorious Humans.

Daily Writing: To Clear The Brain

Boo boos,

Friday night. I am, in a word, exhausted.

Still getting over that horrid cold.

Then my 6yo had Round 2 of Horrid Cold, and has been home for three days sick.

Remember how I waxed lyrical about my three perfect days of parenting last week with my sick elder kid?

HA. HA HA HA. Fuck.

Turns out, there is a WORLD of difference between having an almost 11 year old at home and having a 6 year old at home.

HA. HAHAHAHAHA. Fuckkkkkk.

My youngest kid is ADORABLE. So very, very sweet and delightful. And, of course, because of her age, a never-ending fire chasm of enthusiasm and talking talking talking and asking many many questions and not listening to any answers and being bored every five minutes.

Which is awesome, and also: not optimal when trying to work or recover from your own wretched cold.

Oof. Bless.

I’m super keen to at some point get through a week without any of us being sick. Can we do it?

I was finally well enough to be able to record some podcast episodes this week which felt wildly exciting.

I’ve also booked in for another photoshoot with my beloved Eyes of Love. You can see the behind the scenes of our last photoshoot two years ago here. We’ve pretty much used up all the photos from that shoot now, in various courses and offerings. I ADORED that photoshoot. And this time I want to take it to the next level… make those photos look positively understated in comparison. MORE colour. MORE clutter. MORE.

I’ve found a magically colourful B&B to do the shoot at. And now need to start looking at what I’ll wear for it. I’m putting together a secret Pinterest board with outfits I’ve already got, a couple of things I’ve ordered, and if there is anything else I’ll need.

What it’s looking like currently:

Basically, I want the theme to be: TURQUOISE + RAINBOWS.

And then I made a bad life choice – I thought I’d try out that whole buying-on-Wish.com thing for the first time. I wanted to get some new chunky, colourful jewellery. Five hours later, and I emerged, bleary eyed, thinking: WOT THE FUQ HAVE I DONE. WOT WAS THAT. THAT WAS A BADDD IDEA.

I ended up buying just absolute shit and wasted money and felt like a climate marauder. I should have just gone to some local boutiques and had a nice hour buying a few things there.

Anyways, it totally wrecked me. I had trouble sleeping, and needed a nap today to make up for it. Never again, boo boos. Never again.

It did however expose me to a new business model!

This morning, I happened to see an Australian clothing website, and realised with a start that all the photos were… the ones I’d seen on Wish last night. I did some digging, and discovered there’s actually a whole business model where people set up Shopify sites that just sell Wish products – and the Wish vendors fulfill the orders via dropshipping. And of course, they are charging 2-3x the price of the original Wish product for offering a curated experience. There you go! The things you learn!

Related Request: do you know of any places to buy plus-size kimono/cape/dusters? Bonus points if you can find a lilac/purple coloured one. Even more bonus points if it is cotton or natural fabrics! Please email (support@leoniedawson.com) if you know of any!

I was going to post that as a question on my social media before realising HAHAHAHAHAHA that’s right, I’m not on there, and what’s more, I’m never going back.  It’s such a small, slight inconvenience to bear rather than the inconvenience of my life being thrown down the attention hole. Plus, I can just ask all y’all instead!

Righto, I should finish up before I fall asleep. This Mama is tired.

I love all y’all.

FREE GOODIES:

[image error]  Daily-ish writings
[image error]  Weekly love letters
[image error]  Podcast: Leonie Dawson Refuses To Be Categorised
[image error]  A library of free treasures

COURSES:

[image error]   Sales Star (begins March 1)
[image error]   Money, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income
[image error]   40 Days To A Finished Book
[image error]   40 Days To Create & Sell Your E-Course

The post Daily Writing: To Clear The Brain appeared first on Leonie Dawson | Goals, Marketing + Creativity For Glorious Humans.

2 Weeks Off Social Media

Hi gorgeous humans,

I’ve already about a new project I am doing – a series of 21 day challenges.

The first challenge I am doing is 21 days without social media.

No Facebook or InstagramMessenger use is allowable

I began two weeks ago.

I shared my first week’s update here.

I wanted to update you with my diary entries, notes and lessons I’ve learned along the way.

Want to listen to this as a podcast episode? Sure. Just hit play above, or subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, PocketCast (or wherever else you listen to podcasts!)

On with the social-media-free show!

Tuesday 9 Feb 2021 (Day 9)

 

Wednesday 10 Feb 2021

Three things:

I wrote a blog post on my Thoughts On Kids & PhonesYesterday I had an Analogue Afternoon (no screens, just me, some books & a journal) and it was bloody wonderful AND hugely productive!I started reading How To Break Up With Your Phone by Catherine Price last night, and it was SO DAMN GOOD I highlighted 41 paragraphs, immediately recommended it to everyone in sight & wrote it down as one of my very favourite and most impactful books of 2021. Yeah, fuck, that’s how good it is.

These two quotes particularly are seared into my soul:

“Your life is what you pay attention to.”

“When I told people I was breaking up with my phone, they didn’t ask me what I meant, or why I wanted to do it. Instead, they said the same thing, practically verbatim: “I need to do that, too.”

More to come, clearly. Because I am OBSESSED.

 

Thursday 11 Feb 2021

I did homework from How To Break Up With Your Phone by Catherine Price.

The answers are… pretty damning.

 

In a word: Y I K E S.

I don’t like this. I don’t like what it’s done to me. I don’t like what it has done to my life.

 

More notes from Digital Minimalism:

“We didn’t sign up for the digital lives we now lead. They were instead, to a large extent, crafted in boardrooms to serve the interests of a select group of technology investors.”

“The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them, … was all about: “How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?”

“It’s easy to be seduced by the small amounts of profit offered by the latest app or service, but then forget its cost in terms of the most important resource we possess: the minutes of our life.”

“How much of your time and attention, he would ask, must be sacrificed to earn the small profit of occasional connections and new ideas that is earned by cultivating a significant presence on Twitter? Assume, for example, that your Twitter habit effectively consumes ten hours per week. Thoreau would note that this cost is almost certainly way too high for the limited benefits it returns. If you value new connections and exposure to interesting ideas, he might argue, why not adopt a habit of attending an interesting talk or event every month, and forcing yourself to chat with at least three people while there? This would produce similar types of value but consume only a few hours of your life per month, leaving you with an extra thirty-seven hours to dedicate to other meaningful pursuits.”

 

Friday 12 Feb 2021 (12 days in)

 

 

More notes from How To Break Up With Your Phone:

“While research on these devices is in its early stages (unsurprising, given that they’ve barely been around for ten years), what is known so far suggests that spending extended time on them has the power to change both the structure and the function of our brains – including our abilities to form new memories, think deeply, focus, and absorb and remember what we read. Multiple studies have associated the heavy use of smartphones (especially when used for social media) with negative effects on neuroticism, self-esteem, impulsivity, empathy, self-identity, and self-image, as well as with sleep problems, anxiety, stress, and depression.”

“Never before in history have the decisions of a handful of designers (mostly men, white, living in San Francisco, aged 25–35) working at three companies had so much impact on how millions of people around the world spend their attention.”

“You don’t pay for Facebook. Advertisers pay for Facebook. You get to use it for free because your eyeballs are what’s being sold there.”

“It’s attention that we didn’t spend on our families, or our friends, or ourselves. And just like time, once we’ve spent attention, we can never get it back… Our attention is the most valuable thing we have. We experience only what we pay attention to. We remember only what we pay attention to. When we decide what to pay attention to in the moment, we are making a broader decision about how we want to spend our lives.”

 

Saturday 13 Feb 2021 (13 days in)

 

“[W]e must act, individually and collectively, to make our attention our own again, and so reclaim ownership of the very experience of living.”

—Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants

 

Two weeks without social mediaI’ve still got a week to go of this challenge…

But let’s face it, my loves.

The writing is on the wall.

I’m not going back.

Nor is my business.

More details to come soon… but for now…

I am sober & free.

Big love & gladness,

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