Sleepless Nights

Tag: how to do stuff

  • The key to success is failure

    The key to success is failure. It sounds weird and like I’m going at things backwards, but this is one thing I have learned that holds true through everything.

    I was reading Shae’s post about her epiphany and I was struck by how similar her thought processes were to mine. It’s easier to pretend that you don’t care about your blog, than to put it all out there and run the risk of failing. After all, failure is something that we hate and something to be avoided.Empty House

    But is it really?

    Every time I have done something, on this blog or in real life, that has failed, I’ve learned something. Sometimes it’s small things like how fast to whisk in oil so that my mayonnaise doesn’t split. Sometimes it’s when to keep my mouth shut to prevent my family hating me for twelve months because of something I wrote. Every step forward I make has been inspired by a string of failures.

    This blog is no different and in fact it is the thing I fail at the most. I’ve never expected myself to be the perfect mother, or the perfect homemaker, but I did expect myself to be the perfect blogger. To be able to comment back every time, to read everyone and to write beautiful words that will resonate with everyone, every single time.

    Blogging doesn’t work like that. Life doesn’t work like that.

    My blog is becoming more successful. Showcase Tasmania is doing well, my subscriber numbers are slowly climbing and my traffic is sitting at a level I am comfortable with.

    To get here, I’ve had to fail numerous times. For every five pitches I send, four businesses ignore me. For every contact I make and click with, there is someone who thinks I’m an idiot. For every blog post that does well on traffic, there are two that don’t.

    Funnily enough, I’ve found that it is the small failures that I learn the most from. Working out what I did wrong and how to not do it again, I learn what I should have done instead. Sure, it’s trial and error a lot of the time, but that is life, isn’t it?

    Amy blowing thistle resized

    Failure is scary. No one wants to fail. We all want to be successful, all of the time.

    However, I’m not sure that you can have success, if you didn’t build it on the back of failure.

    And the only thing I can see that all successful people have in common is: They refused to give up and stop trying.

  • 6 Things I Learned at the #PBevent

    I’m sure by now that there are a multitude of recap posts from the Problogger Training Day, but hang in there because mine is going to be better than all of them. Probably.

    I learned a lot of things and had some other things that I knew already cemented into my brain properly. It was a great day and I was exhausted by the end of it, but the networking drinks and the possibility of ice-cream pepped me up enough to network. I don’t claim to have made any sense however, I was so exhausted I felt a little trippy.

    – Passion is everything.

    People want to hear about your passion. Sometimes they don’t care about what your topic is and instead hang around for the way you’re writing about it. Passion shines through and is incredibly important. You might not think that what you love is interesting to anyone, but usually it is.

    – Blogging from the heart, VS Blogging smart.

    You need to do both. There is no VS here. Successful blogs are built by people who manage to meld these two things together. People love personal touches, but you also need to be clever about how you interact and present yourself. Your blog needs soul in order for people to connect with you, but also technical cleverness (design, marketing, useability) for people to stay around.

    – People love storytellers.

    I keep telling everyone that we are all storytellers, but I’m not sure people believe me. People are storytellers, using different mediums to tell their stories. Readers LOVE stories and blogs that I read the most are the ones with the stories woven in and around the content. Maybe I don’t care about what you ate for breakfast, but if I’m drawn into your story, you can tell me about it and I’ll enjoy it. Even blogs filled with technical tips often have a story or two thrown in. Readers love it. Tell more stories.

    – You can do anything you set your mind to.

    Maybe I didn’t learn this specifically at the training day, but it seemed like it was a common theme. All of the speakers, all of the success stories – they all had an idea and then worked to make that idea reality. Very few people win lottery and are magically rich, even fewer people are instantly successful. Work out what you want and then work to make that happen. Keep trying until it happens.

    – Successful people build their own momentum.

    This feeds into the above tip. You’ve got to build your own momentum. You can’t keep hanging around waiting for a PR company to dump things in your lap. You have to work for opportunities and make them happen yourself. You want a first class trip to New York? Write yourself a proposal and start sending it to businesses that are a good fit with you. You have to make it happen yourself and stop expecting magic and fairy tale endings.

    Networking is the most important thing you can do for yourself.

    We all know that networking is important, but sometimes we forget just how important face-to-face meetings are. The networking and talking that you do at events is more likely to land you a job or sponsorship than 100 proposals sent out. It doesn’t mean you stop sending proposals, it just means that you have to go out and meet people too. Inevitably the old saying “It’s not what you know, but who you know” holds true.

    If you attended, what did you learn? If you didn’t, what is the most important piece of advice you would give another blogger?

    {photo credit Simon Pollock who is not only a great photographer, but incredibly funny as well}

  • How to grow garlic

    I try to grow garlic each year, because I prefer home grown garlic to shop bought garlic. Garlic I harvest myself is always fresher, less likely to go mouldy, lasts longer (see: fresher) and I always feel like I’ve been really productive when I’ve got my garlic plaits up and hanging.

    We’ve been living here for over three years now and I’m only just getting the garden into a semblance of a rotation system. The “big” garden failed entirely due to chooks and a lack of nutrient in the soil – but with a layer of hay over it and the chooks scratching the hay and grass out, it may be ready to have something planted in it next year.

    Sprouted garlic under mulch

    The greenhouse failed, due to wind and a general lack of ACTUAL strength, able to stand up to you know, ACTUAL WEATHER.

    But, my small garden has been working quite well, albeit messily because I haven’t weeded it, I’ve just mulched it and ignored the edges.

    Last year, I planted a little square of garlic and harvested around 15 bulbs. I hated that I didn’t have lots. LOTS is always better than some. (Some being better than none, but nothing beating LOTS.)

    This year, I went wild and bought 2kg of sprouted garlic cloves and planted them all in the garden. They’re just starting to sprout up through the hay now and I couldn’t be more pleased.

    How to grow garlic:

    Find youself some sprouted garlic.

    Some people use proper seed garlic, but I tend to just use green grocer bought garlic and leave it in my fruit bowl until the shoots appear. I’m pretty sure people will tell me that this is a terrible way to do it and supermarket or green grocer garlic won’t grow properly, but I disagree. It works fine, for me.

    Planting:

    Once your garlic has sprouted, plant it sprout side up in loamy soil, at about a depth of an inch. If you’ve got a large amount of green shoot, leave it above the soil, otherwise cover the entire thing.

    Plant garlic in the middle of winter:

    Garlic likes the cold (I’m in Tasmania, we have lots of cold) and I usually plant around late June, early July. I think I remember being told to wait for the shortest day to plant garlic, but I’m terrible at keeping track of the shortest day. BUT, that said, I have planted garlic in August before and it’s done quite well – I just harvested a bit later than normal.

    Garlic hates weeds:

    You will need to either weed your garlic regularly, or do what I do and mulch heavily around your garlic plants.

    Mulch:

    Once my garlic has sprouted and I can see the tops through the dirt, I cover the entire garden bed in mulch, to protect the shoots and keep weeds at bay. If I’m being lazy, I mulch the entire bed at the same time as I plant the garlic. It works just as well, either way.

    Watering:

    Keep the ground and mulch moist, but not terribly wet. You don’t want your garlic bulbs to rot.

    Harvesting:

    When the tops are about knee high (depending on your height – if you’re a toddler, you’re aiming for waist high tops) and are starting to brown off (usually by the end of summer) then you can harvest your garlic. I usually use a pitchfork and a lot of care to do this.

    Then I wash all of the dirt off and plait the garlic into strands, to hang in the kitchen, while wishing that I’d planted more.

    You can never have too much garlic.

    Sprouted garlic under mulch