8 Tips On How To Be Your Own Boss

Being your own boss can be really exciting - you can finally do what you want and be who you want to be, but at the same time it can be very stressful as you have to juggle so many different things at once! Here are some tips on how you can be more productive and successful running your own business coming from my own experience as I am currently working towards that goal too, so I try to incorporate the following things in my daily life:

1. Set a schedule:

It is so important to set a schedule and stick to it, and make each day a specific type of day. For example, Mondays could be meetings with clients, Tuesdays could be photoshoot day and Wednesdays could be editing day. This helps to structure your week and makes it easier to plan tasks.

2. Work smarter, not harder

If you also have another job or are at uni whilst you're trying to start something new such as a blog or your own business, the key is not to work harder, but to work smarter. So on days when you have time to blog, make sure you prepare multiple blog posts and schedule them to post, so that you don't have to keep writing blog posts everyday. If you're having a photoshoot, make sure to plan ahead and take lots of photos in one go that you can store away on your computer and use for later, which may come in handy for a future blog post. This will help to avoid shooting photos last minute or on the day that you want to publish.

3. Plan ahead

For any business, you'll make your life so much easier if you just plan ahead. It will save you the stress of doing or creating something last minute, and your potential clients will also thank you for it too.

4. Prioritise your work

It can help to write a to-do list of all the things you want to do, and then prioritise which are the most important tasks. It can be to do with work, up-coming trips, socials - this can ensure that you get everything done in the order that it needs to be done.

5. Wake up earlier

For many of you, you may be like me and feel more productive at night than in the mornings, and feel inclined to wake up around noon and work till 2am, especially if you're working from home. But honestly, if you want to be professional, it's best to wake up earlier and start work at the same time as a normal office person as most people will send you emails and call you during the day. So you don't want to be replying to them 6 hours later as they might not take you seriously.

6. Go to sleep earlier

This goes without saying - as I mentioned above, if you're going to wake up earlier, you're going to need to go to bed earlier! Not only so that you can get up in the morning, but sleep is really important for your body and mind to rest and re-charge, so aim to get your 7-8 hours sleep every night.

7. Save money

Being your own boss comes with its own risks, and there may be times when you won't get paid  - so be prepared. A lot of companies don't always pay on time, or if your business is experiencing a slump, then it definitely helps to save money along the way in case this ever happens, so you have something to fall back on and aren't left in a frenzy. Don't let this put you off from being your own boss though, as it does come with it's own perks too!

8. It's okay to say 'No'

You might be at the stage where people are reaching out to work with you, but their goals might not align with yours, or may be unrealistic for you to achieve, or you don't really have any interest in working with them, then it's okay to reject them - remember you don't have to please everyone! It's better to be honest about it as you could actually let them down more if you said yes you'd do something but failed to deliver or come through on your promises.

So those are my 8 tips on how to be your own boss, I hope this helped you in some way, whether you're thinking of starting your own business or have already started! These tips definitely helped me with starting my own blog, so if you enjoyed this post please subscribe to see more! :) I'd also love to hear what you guys think, so feel free to leave a comment below!

Until next time,

Carissa xxx

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How I Edit My Instagram Pictures

There are many good apps out there that allow you to edit your pictures to make them look Instagram-worthy, but for me, I try to make my pictures look more clean and natural without looking over-edited, but still be able to stand out. If you're curious to know how I edit my Instagram pictures, read on to find out:

The app I primarily use (and can't live without) is Vsco.

I use this editing app for every picture of mine - the filters make it look so much more clean and professional, and the editing tools, like adjusting the brightness and contrast, are very easy to use, even for beginners.

Filters are at the bottom - you can download a range of filters from their library. My favourite filter has to be HB1. Using the same filter consistently in all your photos will make your Instagram page look much neater and more pleasing to the eye, so I try to use the same filter all the time, but it depends on the photo and colours present; some filters are better suited for other types of photos, so just play around with the filters and experiment!

I always have to adjust the brightness/exposure, as a lot of the time the picture is darker than I'd like it to be. Other tools I fiddle with are sharpness, temperature, shadow and tint - these are really useful tools that can make a huge difference to your picture.

The crop tool always comes in handy, as I prefer my pictures to be in the square form (1:1) to fit the Instagram page, but sometimes I use 4:5. I also use the grid to align my photo in the way that looks most aesthetically pleasing - in this photo, I have aligned it in the middle, but for some photos such as selfies, I try to align the eyes somewhere along the second line of the grid on the points where the two lines intersect, as this is where most people will be drawn to, so it makes sense to put the eyes/face there, and not right in the middle of the grid.

So that's how I edit my Instagram pictures in a nutshell! Sometimes I use the Instagram editing tools on top of using Vsco if the picture needs some last minute tweaks :) I hope you found this useful, please leave a comment below if you liked this post or feel free to ask me any questions to do with editing!

You can also find me here on Instagram.

Thanks for reading my blog!

Carissa xxx

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How To Start Your Own Blog - Beginner's Guide

Although I am no expert at blogging, I can share some tips for those of you that want to start your own blog, coming from my own experience. I have been blogging for a few years now using Blogger, and it came quite naturally to me as I've always wanted to use an online platform as a way to express myself and to have a creative outlet. I first started blogging about my daily life but recently I decided to start this blog to get closer to my followers and be more specific to what I blog about - mainly food and lifestyle as a Londoner.

So here are some beginner tips for blogging:

What is the main topic/theme?

Firstly, you have to identify what it is you want to blog about mainly, whether it is about fashion, food, travel and holidays, lifestyle or health and fitness, you need to find out what your passion is and stick to it. Nobody wants to read a blog that changes their theme all the time as it gets confusing and is not consistent, so stick to your theme as this will attract the right people to read your blog and help to keep those followers! Remember to be yourself and be unique, you don't need to copy other people's blogs to get followers. Find your niche!

Choose a good looking theme that represents you

Take your time to choose a theme for your blog, as this will be the first impression that people will get when they see your site. Think about the main colours that you want, the font you like, where you want your pictures to be, are the links in the right places, etc. There are loads of websites that offer free themes for bloggers, and some are not too expensive. If you want to be more unique or are thinking of starting a business using your blog, then designing your own theme is also an option (if you are good at using html) or getting a professional to help you design and create your theme is also possible. Costs can vary depending on your purpose and how much help you need with setting up.

Be selective about your images

As well as making your post look much more interesting and catchy, pictures can also break up a long block of text to make it easier to read. Be selective about what pictures you choose as it should relate to your topic, and try to pick good quality, high resolution images rather than images that are not sharp, blurry or are difficult to make out due to poor lighting. Your pictures will make a huge impact on whether people will read or even follow your blog, so make sure they look good! If you have a proper camera, this is always better than opting for a phone camera as it will give higher resolution photos, although many phones these days have very good cameras, so it is not always bad. Another tip to get more readers - try to name all your pictures using specific key words relating to your topic, as this will make it more likely to pop up on search engines like Google when people search for those key words! (SEO).

Blog regularly

By regularly, I mean 2 or 3 times a week, which can be challenging even for me (I usually post a few times a month, but I am trying to post more often, so bare with me! XD), but this will help to keep your readers or followers interested, and will give the impression that you are an active blogger. This will show in your blog archive, which can tell people how often you blog.

Use social media

To get your blog out there and gain more readers/followers, you can use social media as a way to advertise your blog and what you are about, for instance posting an image from your blog onto Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat or Pinterest and writing a caption that gives a little bit of info about what the post is about. Social media tools are a really good way of gaining more exposure, and if it's used in the right way, it can attract loads of potential followers by engaging with them. But don't go crazy with posting on social media - nobody likes to get spammed! Use it in moderation, but the key is to post at the right time (usually around lunch time is best as most people are free) and use the right hashtags (research which hashtags people are most likely to search for that would be related to your image or blog). You can use filters to make your image look more professional too, for instance VscoCam, which is a very good editing app that I use on a daily basis!

Create categories

You can categorize your posts to make it easier for readers to find specific posts related to that topic. It will help with user engagement and also help you to stay focused on your niche. For example, you might have categories for food, lifestyle or travel.

So those are a few basic tips for starting your own blog, whether it's for your own business or just as a hobby. I hope it has been useful for you guys! I think it is always easier to start out by using Blogger or WordPress as these have tools and pre-made themes at the ready for you and are really simple to use, so it's a great way to get a feel for blogging, and they are free! (not WordPress.org). When you get the hang of it or just really want your own domain, then you can buy your own domain on websites like BlueHost - some are not too expensive, and it does make you look more professional.

If you enjoyed this post, please leave a comment below and let me know what you think, or if you have any questions feel free to ask! Happy blogging! :)

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