Image

Ladies and gents, allow me to introduce you to the author of my new favourite blog, Might and Main. The incredible Michelle writes the most inspirational articles over at her site that I just had to have her guest blog here at Smaggle. We did a little swapsie so visit her today to read my guest post on How to Be a Perfect Planner. Today, Michelle writes a kick butt post on how to stop getting overwhelmed.

Break up overwhelming tasks into small, easily attainable goals.

I just finished reading a great book about climbing, No Shortcuts to the Top by Ed Viesturs. One section that really stuck out to me was when he talked about how awful climbing Mount Everest would have been if he viewed it for what it was. Instead, during the 10 or so hours it took him to get to the summit on the final day, he would pick out rocks or other nearby landmarks and tell himself that he just had to make it to that point. Then, once he’d reached his goal, he’d pick another close mark and not stop moving until he got there. By breaking up huge, overwhelming tasks into smaller goals, he climbed the 14 highest peaks in the world. Just imagine what you could do if you applied that same strategy to your life!

When you’re working, do your absolute best.

So many people put less than their best effort into working, and it really shows. A task that could have been completed in 2 hours instead ends up devouring their entire workday. This is especially important if you’re a freelancer or self-employed. Think about it this way: Would you rather work your hardest for a couple hours and have the whole rest of the day free to enjoy yourself, or would you rather drag it out all day and have little time left to do whatever you want?

Remember to take time for yourself.

It’s easy to get caught up in being busy all the time, but without taking breaks to recharge, you won’t be doing your best work. If you’re going to work your hardest to get what you want, great! But make sure you’re enjoying yourself too. Read a good book, go for a walk, head to the gym, eat a really delicious meal, grab a drink with some friends…the options are endless. Take a break before you get burnt out. That way you’ll head back to your work charged up and ready to go.

Most importantly, surround yourself with good people.

No matter how busy or stressed you get, good friends and family will stick by you and support you. Make sure you have friends who you can call or text whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed. If the people around you now aren’t supportive of your goals, find better people. Read blogs of people who have similar goals, follow them on Twitter and strike up a conversation. Even if you don’t end up being best friends, at least you know of someone who’s doing something similar to you who you can consult if needed.

If you loved this post please do share the love and pass it on!

Love Lady Smaggle

xxx

Tweet This Post

Image

Are you in a canoe? Paddling in sync with your partner? Or are you in a kayak? Flying solo?

Canoes are powered by two people. Double the strength but double the weight and entirely dependent on both parties to keep paddling. If one person stops the canoe goes around in circles.

Kayaks are a one man show. Light, speedy… but if the captain stops the kayak stops. There is no back up plan. No team spirit to keep the boat moving.

There are benefits to both modes of transportation but you need to know which boat you are in.

If you are in a canoe you want to make damn sure you’ve got a good partner.

If you are in a kayak you want to make damn sure you’ve got the juice to keep you moving up the river.

Are you in a canoe? Or kayak?

And are you happy about it…?

Love Lady Smaggle

xxx

Tweet This Post

* Make a big pot of cleansing green tea? Drink it lying on the floor and chatting to your girlfriends?

* Get a fringe cut? Long and thick? Have it brush your eyebrows like a silk curtain so you can peek out from behind it?

* Make maxi dresses your signature clothing item? Wear wooly grey tights and cropped cardigans with them in winter? Long beaded necklaces and chunky clogs in summer?

* Order a sambucca on ice?

* Wrap a scarf around your head? Throw on some giant sunglasses? Cherry coloured lipstick? Wind down the windows and go driving without a destination?

* Smile?

* Make gifts for the little babies in your life? Hand sewn bibs? Little embroidered baby booties? A tiny teddy bear?

* Order Chinese food? Eat it straight from the containers? On a picnic blanket in your own backyard?

* Try navy instead of black? Forrest green? Dark grey? Rethink the basics?

* Floss your teeth? Twice a day?

Love

Lady Smaggle

xxx

Tweet This Post

For my non-Australian readers I thought you’d like to know that the fashion community down under has had quite a controversial day today. A wee little while ago Mark McInnes, CEO of David Jones (big swanky department store chain) resigned from his position because he had displayed sexually inappropriate behaviour towards a female staff member. It was completely his own decision, no complaint was lodged but he made a personal choice to resign over his behaviour which I thought was pretty noble.

Now, this Kirsty Fraser-Kirk lass whose allegations inspired the resignation has decided to press charges. She is trying for something ridiculous like 37 million dollars and it’s in court and very controversial.

Today, at the annual Spring/Summer fashion parade, when questioned about the incident  women’s clothing designer Alannah Hill quipped that she wished McInnes ‘would touch me up’ and then had a seemingly humorous little dialogue with designer Alex Perry pretending that the CEO had propositioned her.

Naturally the media went berserk and Hill is experiencing the wrath of angry, abused women and hungry media moguls.

My question to you is… have we lost our sense of humour? Is what she said really that bad?

Do read the article that I’ve linked to above and let me know what you think!

Love Lady Smaggle

xxx

Tweet This Post

We all know I’m not the brightest crayon in the box when it comes to tech talk jargon. I would cry if you asked me what plugins are. Nonetheless I bravely faced the geek fest yesterday at the Problogger Conference in Melbourne. It was, in a word, awesome. I had far too much percolated coffee and jelly beans so I had the mega jitters at the end of the day but I managed to take some fairly serious and surprisingly coherent notes. I’ve made them a little bit smaggley for those of you who, at the end of the day, had to ask their boyfriends what an affiliate is. In other words this is the dumb-arse version of the main rad points -

1. The Key is to Implement the Behaviour – Not just hear it.

You can read every book, ebook, blog and site and be armed with all the information you need to make a million dollar blog, but if you don’t action the advice it’s as good as useless.

2. You Are Only As Good As Your Last Post. Make it One Worth Remembering.

Don’t pad out your blog with filler content because you’ve committed to posting four times a day. Your readers would rather have nothing than an article that wastes their time.

3. You Need to Constantly Grow. A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss.

Stand still for a whole five minutes and see how bored you get. Apply that to your blog. Now go mix it up a little.

4. Positive Attention = Good. Negative Attention = Bad.

Don’t stir up trouble for the hits. It’s not worth it. You’ll get a one day spike in traffic and then everyone will abandon you. No one has a lasting relationship with a bully.

5. Write Posts That People Will Want to Share with Their Friends.

Be concise, make your point, make it readable, make it accessable but most importantly make it sharable. No one will search for your Twitter, Facebook or Stumbleupon buttons. You need to make them visible.

6. Be a Good Person and be a Person.

Do you buy your coffee from the same place every morning because you love the cafe? Or do you love the cutie behind the counter who reads you your horoscope? Don’t have a faceless blog. Let people know who you are and be kind, polite and mind your manners. Pretend everyone is your grandmother.

7. Be Remarkable.

Leave an impression. Give people something to talk about.

8. Contribute.

You are never too cool to stop communicating with your peers and despite what you think you are never too busy either. It’s all about the karma. Don’t expect love if you ain’t handing it out.

9. Be Humorous. Let Your Readers Have a Giggle.

There’s no need to be so serious all the time. Tell your readers stories, engage them, acknowledge your mistakes and write about your solutions. Failing that, everyone loves a good poo joke.

As you can tell from my child-like enthusiasm I was rather inspired by the conference. Darren is an amazingly lovely guy who you just want to stand near to soak up his goodness, Chris was hilarious and provided most (if not all) of the tips that really stuck with me and I think Mr Smaggle developed a crush on Collis. Understandably.

And if you are interested I was asked to contribute my thoughts on blogging over at Frock and Roll alongside the magnificent Sally from Already Pretty and my gorgeous friend Sarah Von from Yes and Yes.

Please let me know if you found these tips useful and if you have anything to add please feel free to comment. If you attended the conference please comment and leave a link to your blog – I barely got the chance to mingle with the guests.

Oh and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and become a fan of Smaggle on Facebook!

Love Lady Smaggle

xxx

Tweet This Post

My delicious friend and fabulous fellow Canberran Grant from Ink and Leather organised a rather lovely afternoon tea at Laurent with a few other local bloggers…

Lady, Alicia from Sea of Ghosts, Angela from Angela See, Angela Blog.

The gorgeous Grant from Ink and Leather

Canberra. Represent.

The afternoon was lovely – we had delightful treats, amazing coffee, chatted a little about blogging but mostly about food!

I must also mention the sultry Ellie from Adulterous Ellie, the lovely Selena from Dear Selena and the stunning Lady Melbourne who I only just missed on my way out.

Love Lady Smaggle

xxx

Tweet This Post

Image

Lady loves…

* Hot chocolate

* My callous covered hands. I like to think they tell little stories about the pretty jewellery they helped to make.

* Gilmore Girls. It is truly spectacular. I particularly love Rory’s commitment to the late nineties sartorial palette of brown paired with pastels and the over rehearsed banter between her and Lorelai. It’s genius.

* Chilly evening swims with friends, paddling up and down the lanes catching up on the days events.

* People who go out of their way to help you.

* The yearly Ikea catalogue. Swoon.

* Young men on bikes. Wearing trousers and lace up shoes.

* Chandeliers.

* Dressing in beige, cream, and pale pink.

* That this is my 800th post on Smaggle! If only I had some champagne…

Lady loathes…

* Having twelve jobs because that equals twelve group certificates which equals a total disaster at tax time. Grumble.

* That it’s too cold to sleep.

* My recent addiction to Vegemite. I was a fierce Promite activist for years until I started living with Vegemite eaters and I slowly changed my preference through utter laziness. I feel so disloyal and utterly powerless to stop this Vegemite invasion. This is only exacerbated by the fact that I think Vegemite is delicious.

* When my GPS sends me from Fairfield to Footscray via ST KILDA!!! I know that only Melbourne readers will get this but seriously – Is GPS ‘Karen’ on acid?*

Love Lady Smaggle

xxx

* Equivalent for non-Melbourne readers – it was like going from the North of your city to the North West via the South. Yeah. I need to get back to basics and get a map…

Tweet This Post

Image

Why don’t you…?

* Make a pact with your living companions? To take turns making a gourmet dinner every say, Tuesday evening? Research beautiful wines to accompanying the meal? Light candles? Buy exotic ingredients? Plan the meal as if you were cooking for aristocrats?

* Go to a cafe alone? No book, no magazine? Order a decadent iced coffee with whipped cream and a cherry? Sit on a bar stool and watch the beautiful people go by?

* Make all your important calls sitting at your desk? Wearing a pencil skirt? Striking items off your yellow legal pad list with an eraser topped pencil? Punching in the phone numbers with fire hydrant red glossed nails? Make like a secretary in Mad Men?

* Start your morning with wordless music? Get a musical minded mate to make you a compilation playlist of their favourite tunes? Jazz? Classical? Make your toast and coffee, barefoot and carefree in the kitchen with a perfect lyric-less soundtrack?

* Buy a large tray to keep your cosmetics on? A vintage drinks tray? A modern Japanese flat dish? Display your daily staples? Lotions? Lipsticks? Keep your bathroom looking like a beauty salon?

* Have a signature blue? Cyan? Persian? Tiffany? Sapphire? Have personalised stationary made in your blue? A leather monogrammed satchel? Coffee mugs? A streak in your hair?

* Collect beautiful glass jars and display them empty on a shelf? Sparkly clean and perfect?

Love Lady Smaggle

xxx

Tweet This Post

Image

Last weekend I found myself all frocked up for a friends birthday extravaganza – heels, lipstick – the whole shebang. We spent obscene amounts of money on sunset coloured cocktails and air-kissed our way through out the bar. Later in the evening, after my disappointingly sober man had politely excused himself and escaped into the loving arms of his Macbook, I found myself deep in conversation with a dapper young professional. He noticed my glass was empty and offered to get me a drink. I immediately declined and started making excuses but he stopped me in my tracks and said ‘It’s cool. I know you have a boyfriend, let me buy you a drink…’. How charming.

Despite the fact that this little interlude was completely innocent and that the young professional in question was genuinely being a gentleman, I think this scenario begs a pretty interesting question.

Is it okay to accept a drink from a person that you have no interest in?

I’m not suggesting an obligatory BJ for any guy that throws a vodka red bull at you, but on a basic level the offer of a drink represents a certain level of interest and the acceptance of the drink represents a reciprocation of that interest right?

What do you think? Is it okay to accept drinks if you’re off the market? Should this fact be stated before you accept the drink? Is it just a free for all when drinks are concerned regardless of your marital status? What about my man readers? How do you feel about buying drinks for taken women? Or women buying drinks for taken men?

And please let me know what country you are from. I know Americans are a lot more relaxed about dating than Australians and I’m curious to see what my international readers have to say about this.

Love Lady Smaggle
xxx

Tweet This Post

Just checking in to let you guys know that I have scarcely had time to do number twos in the past week let alone think about posting here at Smaggle. I’ve had an amazing, awful, shocking and brilliant week that has left me utterly shattered. The week has included the engagement of two of my very dear friends, the horrifying mowing down of my bestie’s beau by a tow truck, an awful blood giving experience, a massive birthday extravaganza for my housemate, one of my co-workers almost being stabbed with a butter knife, and the birth of my very first and very beautiful niece.

Regular posting will resume shortly.

Love Lady Smaggle

xxx

FYI – Everyone is alive and well including my tow truck hugging friend.

Tweet This Post