A New Site. A New Chapter. A Lot To Say.

 

For years, and I mean years, I have been telling my clients, colleagues, students and friends that the website face-lift was coming. If you checked it out, you would notice some ‘Coming Soon’ pages. Well…let’s just say that I am VERY grateful that I chose not to write ‘Coming soon in 2007!’ True story.

So here I am, one day away from the big reveal and I have so much to say! Nothing new there… but it is new. It’s a new Site. A new Chapter. And how are things different? Well, those who know me best, know that I walk the proverbial ‘privacy tight rope.’ When it came to social media, talking about my personal life or even discussing my amazing clients, I kept it pretty quiet. With seventeen years of event planning under my belt, I needed to make a decision. After being practically forced by my staff and students to join Instagram, Christine, one of my Lavish Occasions wedding planners, finally signed me up in December. My 2015 resolution was to embrace social media, talk the talk and brave that tight rope. On January 1st, I literally added ‘check facebook’ to my electronic calendar. I downloaded the Pinterest app and promised myself that I would finally get the website revamped. Social media sure does require a lot of time! Newfound respect to my friends and family! But you need to carve out the time. Having an online presence is crucial in this business, and I am so grateful to everyone for teasing me mercilessly!

I think that we label ourselves in a specific way and that can be counterproductive. You can call yourself a perfectionist (my favorite passive aggressive ‘negative’ trait), but it can cause you to get in your own way. It’s almost like you want everything to be seamless, but in order to accomplish your goal, the preparation stops you from actually taking the first steps. And as you may know, the first steps are the hardest to take. You have all of these ideas and you may even write them down…but once you do, do you ever remove the post-it from your computer? Nope. It sits there. Because while it sits there, you have another idea…and then you need to bring the ideas together in a cohesive way…and now you think about that process…and it will take time…because it needs to be perfect. You know that you’ve been there. I am Queen of the Lists. And what a feeling of satisfaction it is to look at a piece of paper with 6 items all crossed out! But how often does that happen? While on topic, I strongly suggest not adding more than 6 items in your ‘’to-do today list”. Want to know why? Because too many items decrease your chances of making a good, healthy dent in that list. But if you accomplish more than half…well that’s a great and effective day. And that’s what we want isn’t it? To be and feel effective? And for the days when 5 out of 5 or 6 out of 6 are done? Well, that’s an awesome day. And you feel great.

I read a book called the 4-hour Workweek a few years back. It was written by a clever guy named Tim Ferriss. My cousin Natalie (photographer extraordinaire and genius behind Je Revele Fine Art Photography) recommended it to me and I am so happy that I took her advice. Lots of awesome ideas and ways to live a happy and easy life. What I took from the book wasn’t necessarily about working only 4 hours. It was more about working smarter vs working harder. About living an enjoyable life. Most people work 40 hours plus per week. But does their work make them happy? I don’t know. My work makes me happy. I love what I do. I also love to write. And I think that loving what you do in life is so important. Especially if you are working 40 hours plus. A huge staple in my time-management wheel is completing tasks in tandem. It’s huge in both my personal life and my world of weddings. Here’s why. My goals in life are the following:

Be a great Mom.

Be a great Wife.

Be a great Sister, Daughter, Aunt, Niece and Cousin.

Be a great Friend.

Be a great Wedding/Event Planner (worker, advocate, planner, coordinator, consultant, and writer.)

Maybe keeping a clean home helps in the ‘good wife’ department. So while I fold laundry and complete other mindless chores around the house, I touch base with my friends, cousins and siblings on the phone.

Maybe I want to promote a colleague who has just opened a new restaurant. I can ask my mom to have lunch with me at his new place and enjoy each other’s company while taking a picture to post on Instagram. See what I did there? I took on the role of daughter and event planner, but was a great planner by cross promoting a colleague as well as adding the online presence for my business. And by the way…My Facebook page is automated to Twitter.

Doing everything in tandem. It’s awesome time management and a great way to be and feel effective.

Well, this is me revealing a bit about myself. Baby steps. And I do hope that you enjoy reading my blog from time to time. I’m actually pretty funny. Just ask around : )

And I’d like to take a moment and thank Fastline Media for their incredible work on the new website. Extracting information from someone’s mind is not an easy task. Especially when the mind is mine! But Billy took my vision and made it a reality. It’s usually me on the other end of that statement!

So what’s my plan? Says the planner… My plan is to provide information (not sales!) for my viewers, clients, colleagues and friends…because like I said, I have a lot to say.