The 5 Productivity Hacks You Need In Your Life The Refined Collective Podcast

 
Ashlyn Carter is a baller at marketing, copywriting, and productivity hacks. A lot of you have had questions like “how do I stay productive in my day to day life?” “how do I pursue my side hustle?” and “how do I work from home and stay motivated?” 
Well, there is no better person to guide you through this than the one and only: Ashlyn Carter.
How She Got Started
“This job that I was in was never going to be okay with me taking rest.”
Out of college, she worked in marketing and then in PR. When she made an effort to keep Sundays free from work, her boss told her she was in the wrong industry!
She began to focus her control on her body and her eating and ultimately recognized she was suffering from anorexia, anxiety, and depression. After her wedding, she took steps toward healing and spent three months hospitalized.
Soon after, she decided she wanted to work for herself so she started her own business.
The Turning Point
Mindset is critical when you are starting a new pursuit. “I looked at my new job as a business owner not a freelancer.”
“It’s never been a better time to start a business, but at the same time it’s never been a noisier place.”
Ashlyn used what she knew from marketing to excel in her new business. She would reach out to people who needed help, and slowly began to make a dent in the industry. “I found the Ashlyn-sized gap in the market.” 
Being Organized As An Entrepreneur
Ashlyn got obsessive about her work because she was determined to not go back to her old job. Because of this, she found herself back where she started working 7 days a week. 
She wanted to set up a business that could run when she couldn’t work so she began “Ashlyn-proofing” her business with outlines and structures.
It’s not going to change if you don’t make it a priority.
Productivity Hacks
Get a Parking Lot
It’s important to have a constant space where you can put any idea in your head and know that it is logged and captured.
This helps fight the shiny object syndrome.
Make Lists
At the end of the month, she looks at her to-do list and asks herself what felt like a “to do” and what actually was a “to do.”
When it comes to realizing the difference, she sets annual goals and re-reads them every single week. Seeing these big goals alongside her daily “to do”s helps her to choose well.
“What is actually going to inch me towards who I want to be at the end of 2019?”
Be Nosy
Pay attention to how people are spending their time.  Be curious. Try new hacks out. Keep it if it works. If it doesn’t work: throw it out.
Weekly Review
“You don’t get rewarded for what you intend to do; you get rewarded for what you DO.”
Every week Ashlyn asks herself these 4 questions:
What worked and didn’t work from this week?
What lessons did I learn?
What obstacles did I run into?
How am I going to adjust moving forward?
Batching
Divide your business into five big topics you need to get done. Assign each big topic to a day of the week. i.e. Marketing, meetings, finance, client work, etc. 
This brings back the structure that encourages us to get work done.
Ashlyn leaves us with these wonderful words of wisdom: “Even if you never slept you still wouldn’t be able to meet the expectations everyone is putting on you.” Head over to her website AshlynWrites.com where you can get her freebies and sign up for her AMAZING emails!!
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