productivity

monday motivation: work hard…er

February 24, 2013 by gloria marie in inspiration, productivity | 1 Comment

did you watch the oscars? love the fact that anne hathaway and jennifer lawrence won oscars!

instead of allowing the oscars to be a complete time suck i spent time writing while i watched the show. i’m glad i watched. a couple things stood out to me during the evening.

the first one i tweeted out and it was a quote from the late great nora ephron, “the hardest thing about writing is writing.” as i sat and wrote i completely agreed! for me it is making the time to actually sit and write, that’s why i have my “sit & write”sticky note near my desk. and yes, sometimes it is the act within itself that is hard. the things you must do isn’t always easy, though. but if you want to be not only called but chosen you must do them.

then there is the thing ben affleck said at the end of his acceptance speech for best picture. he said, “work harder than you think you possibly can.” i know that it is work that gets things accomplished, and it is what separates successful people from non successful people.

this week i am going to require more of myself, work on my goals even when i am dead tired. i will go ahead and add the comparative er to my work hard. c’mon, join me in working harder than before!

have a blessed week!

screencast: a short tutorial on google reader and how to easily read tons of blogs!

June 6, 2012 by gloria marie in blogging & social networking, inspiration, productivity | Leave a comment


in my book a guide to doing incredible things with your life i write about the importance of being educated in whatever it is that you do. one of the ways i stay informed is by reading blogs. tons of blogs.

here is a short screencast/tutorial i made just for you describing google reader and how i use google reader to consume tons of information.

let me emphasize “just for you” because God only knows how much i wanted to delete the screencast after i pressed playback and heard my voice! and oh yeah, i’m a texan ya’ll!


if video is not showing up click here to view.

the screen cast is about helping you find time to read and connect to your favorite blogs. there is so much information in the world, using a news reader such as google reader will help you hone into useful information. seek out blogs that will help you grow in the field that you are in. i also talk a little bit about flipboard. an ahhmazzing app!

confucius said “No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.” so true!

a couple years ago i did a post called what is a rss feed and why you should use it that is worth checking out for further reading on google reader/rss.


{via pinterest.com)

any questions or comments just leave in the comment section!
thanks.

proximity to work

May 21, 2012 by gloria marie in inspiration, photography: children, productivity | Leave a comment

HAPPY monday! i had a good weekend. i hope your weekend totally rocked!

maintaining a proximity to work

as i wrote last week i feel like i’ve been way too social and haven’t accomplished a lot of things lately. too much play and not enough work. on saturday my sister called me and asked what i was up to, i told her i was actually napping when she called and she was immediately like, “so you’re not on your grind?” i explained to her that the important thing is that i am home, i am close to my office, if i get the urge to work i can easily go to my office and get work done. i call it having a proximity to work. my sister’s response? laugh out loud laughter! she ended up going to the movies on saturday night without me, and i stayed close to work.

coffee and church

sunday morning i visited watermark community church. had never been, but it’s a popular church here in dallas. and i was a bit fascinated by the fact that they had unlimited coffee in their vast entry area and their chairs all have cup holders. so drinking coffee during the service is encouraged. their sanctuary smelled like a coffee shop. so what do you think about this whole coffee in church concept?

meet iyana

on sunday evening i did get some work done. i had a photo shoot! this is iyana, and she is actually one of my students this year. i know her mom because she use to work at the school where i work, and i have photographed her kids in the past. i always say i am going to “blog the shoot” but lately i never really get around to doing that, and so in the meantime here is a photo from the photo shoot yesterday. a lovely evening at white rock late doing what i love…photographing lovely people.

(the series finale of house is tonight!!! *tear*)

how my friend saved an hour of my life

May 20, 2012 by gloria marie in inspiration, productivity | Leave a comment

i started drinking coffee almost two years ago. when i moved into my new home last year i needed a coffee maker, spending $2.00 on coffee everyday adds up and the free coffee at work isn’t all that great, and so i went on amazon.com and walmart.com and read review after review of coffee makers. i would come to a decision on one, and then scroll down the page more and see a bad review, then click to another coffee maker. and start the process over.

waffling. endless waffling over what coffee maker to buy. i am always trying to maximize every choice i make.

pick and stick

i’m known for too much information gathering and too much benefit/analysis, which leads to too much indecisiveness. a time waster! since i am fully aware of my waffling i force myself to come to a point of what i call “picking and sticking”. i tell myself “just pick and stick!” and it normally works, usually, most of the time…well, okay i admit that yesterday i picked and i didn’t stick. i was at the home depot picking out some brick edging for my flower bed, i picked some out, walked the store, and then went back and changed the color of the brick. the second choice was so much better!

so in the middle of searching for the perfect coffee maker my friend tells me she has one in her garage that she doesn’t use. and this ends the waffling. the indecisiveness. the time wasting. it’s not the best coffee maker in the world, but it works perfectly fine and looking back my friend potentially saved me an hour of my life! i was totally over thinking it when a less preferred option (someone else essentially picking out a coffee maker for me) worked out fine.

be willing to spend time to accomplish great things in your life

May 12, 2012 by gloria marie in productivity | 2 Comments

“There’s a very positive relationship between people’s ability to accomplish any task and the time they’re willing to spend on it.” – Joyce Brothers

bad time management is one of the biggest challenges between you and your dreams. think back on this past week and think about how you spent your time. how much time are you dedicating to your dreams? the side hustle that you want to become your full time hustle. your craft that you want to become better in. did you spend enough time working on your projects and dreams this past week?

for me the answer is no. this past week i spent too much time being social in real life (without intent and purpose). i love the people in my life, but i didn’t get much work done. so this upcoming week my answer will be “no” to all social invites/events so i can say, “yes, i spent time working on my dreams this week!”

be willing to spend time to accomplish great things in your life.

BE GREAT.

stay focused and keep shipping

May 8, 2012 by gloria marie in creativity, productivity | 7 Comments

it is really hard going from a-z with creative projects. a = the idea and z = the completed project. so many challenges get in the way of reaching point z. it’s always something you can change, tweak, improve, and the list goes on.

all this working, or procrastinating, on your project could go on for a very long time. however, you must ship. and ship often. exactly what does “shipping” mean? you can think about it in its most basic terms, when you ship something/a product it leaves one location and goes to another. when you are working on a project/product the goal is to ship it from your hands into the hands of the consumer. and the more you ship the better.

real artist ship

steve jobs, the founder of apple, said it best when he said, “real artist ship.” it is important to deliver the goods…at some point! better sooner than later. as an artist you have to finish your project and ship it. ship. ship. ship!

mark zuckerberg posted this stay focused and keep shipping picture of his desk the day facebook filed their ipo.

reasons why you don’t ship

“You – everyone in fact – have all it takes to be a brilliant designer, creator, or author. All that’s holding you back is the lizard. It’s that little voice in the back of your head, the “but” or the “what if” that speaks up at the crucial moment and defeats the joy and insight you brought to the project in the first place. It’s the lizard that ruins your career, stunts your projects, and hinders your organization.” – Seth Godin (in The Truth About Shipping)

i follow seth godin because he is a genius, and in the following video he pinpoints the “lizard brain” as one of the reasons why you end up not shipping.

click here to watch quieting the lizard brain if you can’t view the video. the video is a little over 18 minutes, but it’s really worth investing the time in.

perfection is overrated

everything that i do i feel like it could be better. i think most creative people suffer with this. in the start series i referred to this as “the perfectionist curse”. like this current post on shipping? it could be so much better but i am going to press publish and ship it! and the more i ship the better i will become at what i am shipping. i can’t afford to wait to become better at what i do in order to ship.

so what are you currently working on? stop the procrastinating, stop the thrashing, all the tweaking, and move your project to a shipped status.

here is a pinnable image i made for you!

real artist ship

so what is your experience with shipping or not shipping?

6 resources to make work easier (in celebration of labor day)

September 4, 2011 by gloria marie in blogging & social networking, inspiration, productivity | Leave a comment

in celebration of labor day here are some tools i use to help make working online and in the creative world easier.


buffer

first off, joel & leo from buffer are awesome and nice. when they come to dallas we are having coffee! haha. buffer allows you to tweet it up and buffer will automatically schedule your tweets out over time. very easy to use, and useful.

screenr

for my photography business i’ve used this service to create a short video explaining my pricing. with screenr you can capture your screen and do tutorials with a voiceover. whenever someone ask me about my pricing i send them this short video:

google reader

i love love google, and google reader is one of my favorite services from them. it’s a rss reader. if you consume a high level of online content managing your content is a must. instead of visiting tons of sites everything is all in one place. and as a blogger feedburner (another google service) is a must, keep track of people who are subscribing to your content. thumbs up to all the people who subscribe to my blog by rss, the number is inching closer to 100!
if you don’t know what rss is read up here about it.

flipboard

if you have an ipad and don’t have flipboard downloaded…what are you thinking?! download it now and enjoy moments of bliss. it’s an app that pulls feeds from different sources, such as facebook, twitter, google reader, etc. and displays the content in the most beautiful way. and you just use your finger to flip through it all. amazing stuff.

spotify

i heart music and i heart spotify. i got this perk through klout (another great resource) but i think anyone can sign up for it now. you can listen to any kind of music you want anytime you want, just have to contend with a few music commercials in the free version. with the paid version you can take your music with you on your smartphone. when i work on the computer i listen to music…well, i listen to music…when i live! ;) my point is that i love music and spotify is awesome.

evernote

been using google notebooks for years and was relentless to transfer all of my notes over to evernote but a couple months ago i took the leap and spent a great deal of time transferring my google notebooks notes over to evernote. i believe it was worth it. keep track of all your little thoughts, and keep them neatly organized. i can take and make notes anywhere, it syncs all of my evernote apps (desktop, iphone, ipad, and online). do away with all those mad scientist scraps of papers. digitize and tag all your thoughts.

if you look into only one link on this list i encourage you to consider using google reader.

#happymonday