The Traveling Introvert

Shownotes:

For this podcast episode, I want to talk about one of the topics that many people can surely agree on. How do you treat new objects? For a child, they usually play with this new toy and completely disregard the other ones that they already had before it. Do you know that we somehow brought that kind of attitude as we grew up? You see, whenever a new trend, app, or a new technique comes out, we feel this strong desire to try it out. For some, it is because it might be useful, but for others - it’s just their FOMO! Ask yourself, do you have the shiny object syndrome?

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I'm going to talk about ways I over use to overcome sort of Shiny Object Object Syndrome, Huh? So Shiny Object Syndrome is when a new diet comes out or new software comes out or a app comes out that everyone's talking about it, so you have to try it, yada, yada, yada. And then you waste, you know, days, weeks, whatever, trying out this thing while neglecting everything else that you were doing in your business or your career.

And the reason why I want to talk about some shiny object syndrome is because in this day of online businesses, we get bombarded all the time with adverts on new things. You can come up with a new idea, create a Facebook page for it and have ads linked to it in a matter of hours. And there are so many things going on around the world that we now have more access to that we never really did before that it can be overwhelming.

And so when I see a shiny new object, for example, there are hundreds of different calendar booking options or things that you can use to help clients book with you. Or a way to link your invoicing with your contracts with something else. And this other thing. So what I do is festival number one, do I have something that already does this? Am I happy with it? Is it cost effective? If so, move it along. Number two, which really should be number one, is it in line with my business goals? Does it help me with my overall business goal? If it does, okay I'll take a look into it. If it doesn't, stop, move it along. Does the company that is creating whatever product it might be, are they also aligned with my goals or are they anti X, Y or Z that I am totally for, because that can make a difference.

I try and use products or work with clients, work with other companies that do things that are in line with my beliefs and my mission and my vision for my company and for things in general. So that's another thing. Is it in line with your business goals? Is it something that you currently have and you're just looking to replace?

The next thing that I do when I'm thinking about, Ooh, should I try this shiny thing? What is it I would use it for? Is it something that would make me more productive? Is it something that will save me money? Is it someone that will help promote me or market me or my products or whatever it might be. Take a look at that and see, A, could you do it another way? Do you need this software? B, is it doing something that you really need right now or it's something that will enhance what you're currently doing?

Think about those things and if it's not, then move it along. Just because everyone else is using it and everyone else is super happy, jumpy about it doesn't mean that you have to. Another thing that I really take a look into is how long would it take me to set up? Is this something that I'm going to have to go and read a bunch of software or go and see a lot of YouTube videos and spent hours setting up or is this something that could take a minute or two and we'll be able to use it very, very quickly because that makes a difference. There's certain things that I'd be happy to spend time figuring it out because it's a longterm thing or something that helps my client journey or something that is very, very targeted to my business goal. But if it's something sort of like tracking stuff, I need that to be as automated as possible.

I need to meet, go in once, click check this, that and the other, link it up to whatever I need to do and then it should be able to run on its own. So think about those things when you, you see a new shiny object. Just because your friend is using it or because someone else is using it doesn't always mean it's a good fit for you. And yes, the price might be amazing and it's an introductory prices. This is another thing. It could be something where an introductory price is a dollar, but then a year later you get smacked with a charge of 599.

That's something to keep in mind. The year of the dollar is great, but then you need to make back that money. Can you make back that money? Is the charge going to come out at an inopportune time? Are you going to forget about it? Cause they don't remind you and all of a sudden you see this charge? That is something for you to keep in mind. So those are ways that I use to overcome or to at least sort of project out shiny object syndrome and buying lots of new things all the time. Thank you for listening. This is Janice at The Career Introvert, helping introverts amplify their voices through podcasting, publishing, public speaking, and general personal branding. If you have any questions, please email me at [email protected].

Shownotes:

Values are one of the most important things for me. Not only does it make you a better person, but it’s what you are known for as well. Sometimes, our own values get compromised even if we don’t want to just because we don’t want to offend this other person. But hey, just because we are friends or partners, doesn’t mean we’re required to agree to them even if our values say otherwise. It’s perfectly okay to have different opinions and values.

Hello and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk about standing by your values. Recently ... I'm part of a lot of Facebook groups. And one of the Facebook groups I'm in wanted to encourage other members to meet with each other, so they could have in person meetups, which was great. And so, I made a little comment going, "does anyone do any virtual ones?" Not all of us might be close to everyone else. Some people live in remote places, we were all over the world. Does anyone do a remote one? And to my surprise, when I looked the next day, because I try not to be on Facebook too often, there was a lot of replies and responses that people wanted to do this. So, over the time, took about a week, we managed to arrange to have a virtual meetup. We knew what we wanted to talk about and who was going to be there. And it was through Zoom. It took a little while. People liked using Facebook to communicate and some people offline at the time and online.

And instead of sending a calendar invite, we had to double check who were actually meeting. And there was a couple things. But I made the question, so I wanted to attend this meeting to see what would happen. I wasn't sure if it was something I wanted to commit to on a regular basis, because I'm very careful about the kind of things that I commit to on the regular, and whether it is a useful time for me or whatever it is that I want to do, and whatever my goal might be. So I attended the meeting. And as normal with a meeting that is a bunch of people who've never met before, we go around and we talk about what we do, where we are, our background maybe, that sort of a thing. And we went around and I realized that one of the participants was part of an MLM, a multilevel marketing company. She didn't say so specifically, but she mentioned that this particular product had changed her life and that she needed to find two other people to buy it, and then she kind of took that back.

But that was a big clue to me that this was a multilevel marketing kind of company. And the meeting continued and we all talked about different things. And I just didn't really get a good vibe from most of the people in the group. They were fine. There was nothing very specific. I just ... The MLM thing bugged me. And also that was the person who's Zoom account we were using. So then the end of the meeting came, we helped each other as much as we could, and we had the discussion of whether we were going to meet again. We were going to meet again, but we were talking about different things. And again, this person used it as an opportunity to say how much her life had changed, which is fine, but it was due to this particular product, what they were doing, and how wonderful it was. But she's out to help people, which is good. Her core belief is to help people, which is a wonderful thing.

So at the end of the call we logged off, and I sat and I thought, and then I went and had a discussion with a friend. And I said, "I just did this thing, and this person, she's part of MLM and we're supposed to meet together and be accountable and help each other in various ways. And so if I was part of this group, I would be helping this person with their MLM business. Which is not really what I want to do, but I'm the one that started this particular discussion and I feel bad dropping out." And they said, "there are other people in the group, there's like five of you. You are not the head of it. You're not even using your Zoom account, you're using somebody else's Zoom account. And if you don't feel comfortable doing this, then don't."

So I ended up writing an email to the one person who I considered that I would want to keep in touch with and I said, "hi, I really enjoyed meeting everybody. I think I'm going to be dropping out. I don't think this is a good fit for me. Plus one of the members has a business that I don't agree with." I didn't mention what it was. I just said it's a business that I don't agree with. Only to have that person email me back and say, "hey, actually I didn't think it was a good fit for me either. I will also be dropping out. Thank you for your honesty." So just by me sort of reaching out and saying, "I don't feel quite great about this", and sticking with my values and beliefs, I ended up making a better connection with this other person. So, that was my story for today. It was just stick with your beliefs, because people will recognize it. Thank you for listening, this is Janice at thecareerintrovert.com helping introverts amplify their voices through podcasting, publishing, public speaking, and personal branding. If you have any questions, email me at [email protected].

Shownotes:

Are you the type of person who can easily doze off while on a ride? Can you fall in deep sleep the moment the Uber driver drives smoothly? I could do exactly that, but I usually choose not to. Let’s be real: times have changed and the people out there may not be the same as we’ve known them before. Danger is everywhere and the only way to be safe is to be aware of your surroundings.

Hello and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today, I would love to talk about sleep. I love sleep. I'm a huge fan of napping. I am lucky enough at this moment in time that if I put my mind to it, I can sleep pretty much anywhere, any time, any place. Unless I'm cold. It's not good if I'm cold. I don't like being cold.

But what I really want to talk about is sleeping on public transport as a lone, solo female traveler. I take a lot of Ubers, and I take a lot of public transport, and when I'm in a foreign country, and actually to be honest with you, even when I'm not in a foreign country, I find it impossible to sleep. I don't care how tired I am, how jet lagged I am, I will not sleep if I am in a taxi, an Uber, a Lyft, or whatever transport, train, bus. Like small commuter buses, I will not sleep, because in the back of my mind, I'm always scared that they drive somewhere that I don't know where I am, they stop the car, they drive me to some place that I don't know and something happens.

The other thing I do like to do is, when I'm on my way to my new location, I like to see where the nearest supermarket is, or restaurants that are around where we are. I'm always got my GPS, sort of Google offline maps tracking me to make sure I'm not going the wrong way, or the scenic route. That happens. I thought this was fairly normal behavior, to be honest with you. I've always sort of traveled this way. Being hyper-aware of my surroundings has always been something that I just did.

Recently, I'm traveling with my partner, and my partner sleeps in Ubers and sleeps on public transport. It boggles my mind, because I can never be that relaxed to sleep. Bear in mind, I just said I can sleep any time, any place, anywhere. I refuse to do it, because anything could happen, and I'm asleep, basically incapacitated until you get woken up by a knife at your throat, or you're in the wrong place, and it's too late, because they've charged you a bunch of money, or whatever it might be.

Apparently, my partner says he doesn't do this. My traveling partner says they don't do this when they're alone, but it just boggles my mind that therefore the assumption is that I will stay awake anyway. Or if we're both together, everything will be fine. I would love to know what other things solo female travelers do to keep themselves safe.

I know that I've been told when getting an Uber to ask the driver what their name is, so they have to say their name and my name before I get in. One thing that I got told was to make sure I touch somewhere on the back, the front, the handles, very sort of blatantly on an Uber, so if they ever had to look for fingerprints, that they'll be able to find it. Obviously, always share your location on your Uber. Know in advance which way you're supposed to be going and the route you're supposed to be taking. That's always good.

One thing that I generally do is, if I'm entering a new country late at night ... I try not to put my flights that way, but if I am late at night, I'll make sure that I get a hotel pick up, so that it's prepaid for by my hotel. They know where the hotel is, and they know to pick me up. Because there's nothing worse than arriving jet lagged, groggy, tired, late, in a darkness in a country that you don't know and then trying to have to find a hotel, which may or may not be as visible as you would like to be, especially if you don't speak the language. So that's one thing that I do. Even though there tends to be a higher than average cost involved, it gives me better peace of mind.

Another thing as traveling solo, I try not to get dropped off at my door. Maybe there's a block of flats that's close by, so I could be like in any one of those flats. But if there's like a single house, I'll try not to get dropped off there. I'll get dropped off at the corner store or the nearest supermarket or somewhere that's really not my place, but my Uber driver can't come back and find me.

I'm sure there's other little things that we do subconsciously as solo female travelers. You know, having your keys in your hand for attack purposes, or just being very aware of who might be following you or sounds, and that sort of a thing.

But I'd love to know what you do, public that listens, to make yourself safe, or at least feel safe when you're traveling solo as a female traveler. I'm going to say female specifically, because men have it differently, and I can't empathize with that. I don't know. So please send me answers at [email protected]. I look forward to hearing from you.

Shownotes:

There are a lot of differences for employed and self-employed professionals and one of those is sick days. Companies provide sick leave for employees, but there’s none for self-employed individuals -- which is why you need to have one for yourself. Self-employed people tend to abuse the fact that they can work from home by working in their beds even if they are sick. But think about it -- can you still be productive at home knowing you’re not in your 100%?

Hello and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk about sick days. What do you do if you are not employed and you have a sick day? And the reason why I say you're not employed is because some people who are employed, do get sick days as part of their compensation package, and there's just a different protocol involved with being sick when you are an employee compared to being a freelancer and/or working for yourself.

And so I want to talk about it because it brings up a lot of different things. So when I am sick unexpectedly, the first thing I do is send out an email to my team, letting them know that I am sick. I don't say what I'm sick with necessarily, but a due date of when I should be back at work and what the expectations are. As in I will clear my mailbox or I will just attend the call, whatever it is that I'm supposed to do that day, let them know that I will or I won't or minimize it and when to expect me back.

The next thing I do is stick an out of office and I just say I'm unavailable. I don't necessarily say I'm sick. Though, these days I've taken to being very forthright about it and being very much about, "Hi, I'm currently taking care of myself because I believe that work-life balance is important. Due to this I will not get back to you until ..." You know "... this day." Or "I will get back to you in the next ..." 72 hours, 42 hours, whatever that might be. Because if you don't put an out of office message and you get ... You know you fall asleep because you've got a fever or whatever and you get bombarded with messages, people don't know what's going on and people tend to want a semi-immediate response. So I definitely go ahead and put an out of office.

For social media, I don't worry about it mainly because a lot of my posts are already pre-scheduled or if I haven't gotten anything scheduled for today, I'll go ahead and quickly schedule it or just not schedule it at all. There's definitely days where I'm not on Twitter or I'm not on Facebook. Mainly because it's a time suck and it's not my favorite place to be. And also if I get a feel I don't have anything to say, then I won't say it. So social media will go down the wayside.

Now if I'm sick and I can feel it coming on, because sometimes you know that you might be sick or you're getting a cold. Your nose gets a little runny or whatever. Then I will try to do my best to mitigate it by, as soon as I feel that I'm getting sick, I'll go ahead and have tea or whatever it is that I do to make myself feel better. I will clear out my day or my afternoon before to and get more rest or more sleep. I'll also try and schedule or reschedule things in advance for the rest of the week in case I do come down sick. Therefore I have less pressure and less things to move around and just lower my workload schedule in general to give myself some breathing room and some time to be sick.

It's okay to be sick. I think we get lost a lot of the time thinking that, "Oh my God, I have a cold. I can only be sick for one day." Colds actually last three days. That's sort of a proven fact. And if you have a fever, then it's worse. So it's okay to be sick. We're not made to go through life without ever being sick. Be sick, but pay attention to it. Rest instead of working. Maybe you could have listened to a podcast because it's more passive or you could color or watch TV or YouTube or whatever it is you might do. You can always take in information in some different way or just sleep it out.

That's totally fine. Being sick is okay, but learn from it. Learn what makes you feel better quicker. Learn what you have to do. Read your body and do that. Do what your body is asking for and then when you come back, don't come back to everything at once because that's just depressing and might put you back to being sick again because you've over done it. Come back gradually, just like you should do after a vacation. Don't come back one day and be like, "Oh, I've got 300 emails. I have to clear them all." Don't do that. Come back gradually as a half day or do a couple hours work. Take a break for an hour, then come back and do a couple hours work.

It's all about taking care of you and not being afraid to tell people, "Hey, I'm sick. This is what's going on. I'll get back to you in 48 hours." If your clients can't understand about you being sick and as long as you have some measures in place with maybe someone else can watch your mailbox or someone else can do something. If it's behalf of a client, then those clients are not worth having. You are a human being and people need to realize that.

Thank you for listening. This is Janice from the Career Introvert, helping introverts amplify their voices through podcasting, publishing, and public speaking. If you have any questions, please email me at [email protected].

Shownotes:

Some people say that rules are meant to be broken, but actually, they are meant to be followed. Rules are set up to maintain organization and processes, it’s necessary to make sure that everything is going smoothly. On the other hand, there are some people who try to defy these rules while hoping for a positive outcome. Sure, there’s no harm in trying, but rules are rules. Today, I’m going to share with you a story about rule-breaking and how they are treated for it.

Hello, and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk about something that happened recently, to me, that made me happy. Unjustifiably happy. It was about rule following. When you're catching a flight these days, on most airlines, there is some sort of order given to who gets to get on the place first, what order you get on, etc. A lot of the time it's priority, or people who've paid more get to get on first, and then it's, sort of, the next person, the next person, the next person, depending on what group, or number, or zone you're in.

Recently I was taking a flight from Mexico City. It had been delayed for about four hours, they were very bad at communicating with us. In fact, to the point where, on the screen, it still said my flight was on time, well after the flight was supposed to leave. I had to go find their offices and be like, "Is the flight leaving?" They give me a different time, they give me a gate. I go to the gate, I sit down, I got that gate information before most other people, so there were actually seats. It started filling up, and then we got told there was a 40-minute wait after the time that they said the flight was going to leave, and everyone was not happy about that. They said they were waiting for the First Officer, that's fine, can't fly the plane without the First Officer.

Then, after that, they communicated again that, "Oh, you know what, we're going to give out vouchers." Great, food vouchers. I go, I'm second in line for the vouchers, and they are hand-writing these vouchers, which is fine, but it's long-form handwriting. So, they had to put in my name, anyone who was flying with me name, the flight, the flight number. There was apparently only one place that we could go and get the reimbursement for this food, and then they had to figure out how much to give, because it was a certain amount per person. Then they had to do the math to add it up. Scary enough the fact that they were using their calculators on their phone to add up two numbers.

I finally got it, it took about ten minutes just to do my one. I go, and there's one place that they've given this voucher for. So, this place right now is overwhelmed with everyone on a big flight of at least 25 times three seats. So, like 100 people. Let's call, like, 80 people, because it wasn't full, all trying to A, get reimbursement, and then B, going to get food at this one poor little vendor. To the point where the vendor was just like, "Here's some sandwiches and a drink, please go away."

I was lucky, I was, like I said, second in line. So, I went, got my voucher, and then I was third or fourth in line to get my food. All the other people who were behind me still had to get their voucher. I got back from getting my food, only for there to be an announcement that they are boarding, and I was second in line. So, some people were out still, trying to get their food. They didn't realize there was a boarding announcement. Other people were still trying to get their vouchers, that was a no-go.

So, they start boarding, and they normally board by number, this particular airline. So they let, you know, disabled on first, children on first, and then they kind of call a zone, and a number, sorry, and people are looking round and going, "So, do we all just board?" Because normally, you know, we're just trying to board as quickly as possible so we can leave as quickly as possible, but they were very specific. They said, "We're boarding this number."

So, we thought about joining the line but we didn't, and other people were like, "I'm going to give it a go and see if I get on." Only for the first time ever in all my travel experience, for those who were not in that boarding number, to get kicked out of the line and sent to a different, and I'm going to call it the Bad Child line. Because so many people did it that there was a separate line created by all these people who tried to jump the queue.

Then I get to board, and I was, like, the second-to-last boarding zone, and I board, and I'm sitting, and we're waiting, and people who were still getting food, they came on. Because we were worried we were going to just leave people behind who didn't know that we were boarding. They came on, and actually it was a full 20 minutes later that those who tried to skip the line were allowed on the plane. It was amazing. Mainly because they were rule-breaking, and they knew they were rule-breaking, and they got punished for it.

I've never seen that happen, and it was really interesting, because then they had to try and find a place to put their luggage. So that was an issue, and the flight attendants helped them to a degree, but it was just fascinating to see, for once, that people were held accountable for their actions. You know, they thought they could slip in and break the rules, and get in first, and they were held accountable, and that is not often seen in the airline industry, and it warmed the cockles of my heart, so to speak.

Thank you for listening. This is Janice from The Career Introvert, I'm helping amplify voices through podcasting, publishing, and public speaking. Please email me at [email protected] should you have any questions.

Shownotes:

How long does it take you before you actually make an idea come to life? 3 days? 1 week or more? The thing about ideas is if you leave them hanging on your mind, saying that you’ll get back to it later, later becomes never. You lose the idea, you lose the inspiration, you lose the opportunity that comes with it. You might say that you don’t have enough time, or you don’t have the materials to do it, but is it really necessary? Sometimes, the best way to be productive is to do it now. Not later, not tomorrow, but now.

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk about going from having an idea about something to first iteration.

I was doing some virtual coworking the other day and I'd set a goal for myself to create a workbook. And this virtual coworking session was a four-hour session. It's something I do on a regular basis with a select team. I'd set it as my overall goal. Normally during the four-hour session, you can have a base goal and a stretch goal. I thought this particular workbook was going to take me the whole four hours. So, I set it as my base goal and I didn't set a stretch goal. Well, forward about an hour and I realized that actually, the workbook wasn't going to take me as long as thought and maybe I should plug in a stretch goal.

So, in this particular coworking environment that I work in, this virtual coworking session, we do speaker sessions every other Pomodoro. They asked me to do a speak session because they said, "Well, to start with you said you weren't sure you're going to hit your goal and then all of a sudden you're speeding past it. What happened?" And so, they asked me really critical questions. One, when did I come up with the idea that I had to do a workbook? And I was like, "Oh, yesterday." And I go, "Oh, so you're getting on it today?" And I'm like, "Well, yes, because I kind of had some imaginary deadlines and I wanted to get it out of the way." So, I had this idea to do a workbook and then I set aside time when I was going to do it. After that, I did a little bit of research on other workbooks but I try not to do too much because I don't want to feel like I'm copying. I didn't know how I wanted this workbook to look. To start with I was obsessed about the sort of aesthetics of it rather than the content.

So, after I stopped thinking about the aesthetics I was like, "Okay, what do I want, what do I want this web book to achieve?" I was like, "I had a goal and then I sort of thought about it in a different way, who do I want to use this workbook and what do I want them to achieve? And then it clicked. So, I ended up writing a whole list of questions that people who would be looking to use these workbook would be asking and then answering those questions along with hints and tips and questions for them so they could also work through this particular problem that they were going to have. And this workbook was going to help them work through it and solve it or at least give them answers and drill down a little bit better so they more fully understand what they were getting into with this particular topic. Which is great.

Then I had to go back again because I just had this whole list of questions and then go back and write a little blurb to each question to explain why I'm asking the question rather than just here's a list of questions, answer my questions. It was a case of explaining the reasoning behind the question and what you would get out of answering the question. Then I had to go back and format it and make it look pretty. And make it into a pdf and all that good stuff. But I went from idea to iteration and almost completed it, to be honest with you in 24 hours. And that was a workbook and I don't, I've never really made too many workbooks before. I've done one. But that already sort of had a format and already a framework for me to use. This is just me winging it.

The person who was interviewing me for the speaker was very, told me something that I hadn't realized. He said, "You just created this thing and you're talking about it's like no big deal. In fact, the thing you were worried about was the formatting but you just created this 20 odd page document for other people to use and for you it was no big thing. So, I went from an idea to an iteration fairly fairly quickly. This is something that people get bogged down with because what happens is, they have an idea, they research a lot. They research some more. Get down three or four or five different rabbit holes because, "Oh, the internet." Then they ask people advice even though if one is a different situation and then they kind of sort of start a thing and by this time six months has gone past. That doesn't help anybody. You can't learn unless you fail. You will fail by doing. Or you will succeed by doing.

So, the idea is to go from idea to iteration as quickly as you can using the very bare minimum and basics. So, instead of figuring out, "Oh, I need x, y, and z, to get stuff done and make it look pretty." Just figure out what you need to get it done. Then iterate it. Then you can learn. Then you can change it. Then you can do a 2.0 version. It's basically what happened with this podcast. I just did it. I had an idea and I just cobbled it together and I've learned stuff along the way. And maybe I should do an episode of what I've learned from podcasting for two years. Maybe I'll do that.

So, thank you for listening. That's how you can go from idea to iteration as quickly as feasibly possible. This is Janice from The Career Introvert. Thank you so much for listening. I am helping people, and introverts to be specific, amplify their voices through podcasting, publishing, public speaking, and general personal branding. If you have any questions for me please email me at [email protected].

Shownotes:

How long does it take you before you actually make an idea come to life? 3 days? 1 week or more? The thing about ideas is if you leave them hanging on your mind, saying that you’ll get back to it later, later becomes never. You lose the idea, you lose the inspiration, you lose the opportunity that comes with it. You might say that you don’t have enough time, or you don’t have the materials to do it, but is it really necessary? Sometimes, the best way to be productive is to do it now. Not later, not tomorrow, but now.

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk about going from having an idea about something to first iteration.

I was doing some virtual coworking the other day and I'd set a goal for myself to create a workbook. And this virtual coworking session was a four-hour session. It's something I do on a regular basis with a select team. I'd set it as my overall goal. Normally during the four-hour session, you can have a base goal and a stretch goal. I thought this particular workbook was going to take me the whole four hours. So, I set it as my base goal and I didn't set a stretch goal. Well, forward about an hour and I realized that actually, the workbook wasn't going to take me as long as thought and maybe I should plug in a stretch goal.

So, in this particular coworking environment that I work in, this virtual coworking session, we do speaker sessions every other Pomodoro. They asked me to do a speak session because they said, "Well, to start with you said you weren't sure you're going to hit your goal and then all of a sudden you're speeding past it. What happened?" And so, they asked me really critical questions. One, when did I come up with the idea that I had to do a workbook? And I was like, "Oh, yesterday." And I go, "Oh, so you're getting on it today?" And I'm like, "Well, yes, because I kind of had some imaginary deadlines and I wanted to get it out of the way." So, I had this idea to do a workbook and then I set aside time when I was going to do it. After that, I did a little bit of research on other workbooks but I try not to do too much because I don't want to feel like I'm copying. I didn't know how I wanted this workbook to look. To start with I was obsessed about the sort of aesthetics of it rather than the content.

So, after I stopped thinking about the aesthetics I was like, "Okay, what do I want, what do I want this web book to achieve?" I was like, "I had a goal and then I sort of thought about it in a different way, who do I want to use this workbook and what do I want them to achieve? And then it clicked. So, I ended up writing a whole list of questions that people who would be looking to use these workbook would be asking and then answering those questions along with hints and tips and questions for them so they could also work through this particular problem that they were going to have. And this workbook was going to help them work through it and solve it or at least give them answers and drill down a little bit better so they more fully understand what they were getting into with this particular topic. Which is great.

Then I had to go back again because I just had this whole list of questions and then go back and write a little blurb to each question to explain why I'm asking the question rather than just here's a list of questions, answer my questions. It was a case of explaining the reasoning behind the question and what you would get out of answering the question. Then I had to go back and format it and make it look pretty. And make it into a pdf and all that good stuff. But I went from idea to iteration and almost completed it, to be honest with you in 24 hours. And that was a workbook and I don't, I've never really made too many workbooks before. I've done one. But that already sort of had a format and already a framework for me to use. This is just me winging it.

The person who was interviewing me for the speaker was very, told me something that I hadn't realized. He said, "You just created this thing and you're talking about it's like no big deal. In fact, the thing you were worried about was the formatting but you just created this 20 odd page document for other people to use and for you it was no big thing. So, I went from an idea to an iteration fairly fairly quickly. This is something that people get bogged down with because what happens is, they have an idea, they research a lot. They research some more. Get down three or four or five different rabbit holes because, "Oh, the internet." Then they ask people advice even though if one is a different situation and then they kind of sort of start a thing and by this time six months has gone past. That doesn't help anybody. You can't learn unless you fail. You will fail by doing. Or you will succeed by doing.

So, the idea is to go from idea to iteration as quickly as you can using the very bare minimum and basics. So, instead of figuring out, "Oh, I need x, y, and z, to get stuff done and make it look pretty." Just figure out what you need to get it done. Then iterate it. Then you can learn. Then you can change it. Then you can do a 2.0 version. It's basically what happened with this podcast. I just did it. I had an idea and I just cobbled it together and I've learned stuff along the way. And maybe I should do an episode of what I've learned from podcasting for two years. Maybe I'll do that.

So, thank you for listening. That's how you can go from idea to iteration as quickly as feasibly possible. This is Janice from The Career Introvert. Thank you so much for listening. I am helping people, and introverts to be specific, amplify their voices through podcasting, publishing, public speaking, and general personal branding. If you have any questions for me please email me at [email protected].

Shownotes:

Have you ever had a lot of things in your mind that you want to do, and gets frustrated with what to start first? Then you end up clearing up everything instead and not doing anything? If you answered yes, then you’re overwhelmed with your workload. Multitasking is not something that a lot of people can do. There are some who are more productive when they focus on one task before the other. Tasks get done easier if they are accomplished one by one as well. Now, how do you deal with the feeling of overwhelm? How do you get it out of your system?

Hello and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today I'm going to talk about what I do when I feel overwhelmed. I think it's a topic that sort of gets talked about but doesn't really get talked about very well, especially by entrepreneurs. Burnout is real and generally speaking, people don't talk about it because of the hustle and how you should be always working and be available for your clients 24/7 and everything else that goes with that. And overwhelmed doesn't necessarily mean burnout. It could be a warning signal that you are on the way to burning out, but it's not always in relational conjunction.

So for me, when I... times when I feel overwhelmed can be when I've taken on too many projects or I have too many ideas that I want to execute, or I just have too many different things pulling me in many different directions. And so how I deal with overwhelm is a couple of things. The first thing I want to do is do a brain dump. I get a piece of paper, a whiteboard, a chalkboard, an online app, whatever it is I have available to me at the time and I just dump out everything that I'm thinking about. It doesn't have to be everything that I want to do. It has to be everything that is on my mind currently. And the reason why I do this is because it helps make space. Just getting it written down gives you that extra space or RAM in your head to think things through.

And then once I've gotten everything down, I take a look at it and see if I can categorize them in any way. Some things might be personal, some things might be client related, some things might be my business related, some things might be travel related. It sort of depends. And so I see if I can categorize them. And so then it's like, "Oh okay, I have all of these things." And then I take a look at them again and I'm like, "Okay, so which of these are urgent?" Which of these have to be done, I don't know, in the next hour, the next four hours, today, week, month, so on and so forth. And so those that have to be done today, I take them and I schedule them in my calendar so I have time blocked out, A, so clients can't book my time and B, because I run most of my things by my calendar. My calendar is is the boss of me in a good and possibly a bad way, but that's the space I go to to see what I need to do and when I need to do it by.

Then I take a look at all the other things that need to be done and I sort of also look and see, are these things that have to be done by me? Are these things I need to get other people to do? Are these things that depend on other people to give me information before I can get them done? Because sometimes that is the case. I might have a client that has to give me their book for me to be able to get it formatted, to publish it, and they might've said it was going to be here on Monday and it's Friday and I still don't have it yet. So there are things that are dependent on other people and if that is the case, I put them below in my things of, of things to do until I get the thing. And then when I get the thing, then I go ahead and schedule it in my calendar.

And then I look and see what things are giving me a good return on investment. Things that aren't client related, but do they give me a return on investment on my business? Are they good for my business? Are they helping me move forward? Are they getting me more clients? Are they getting me more exposure? Are they getting me whatever thing it is that I might want? Are they getting me free tickets somewhere? Are they getting me an upgrade on a flight, whatever it might be. So take a look at those and then do those next.

But all of these things, just getting them written down and getting them slotted into place somewhere, helps make me feel like I'm in control and I've got a plan, and also just relieves the sort of pressure that I feel and gives me space in my head to think about other things. Obviously, one of the other things I do is nap because I've probably said before, I'm a big fan of napping, and that's really how I work through overwhelm.

Sometimes I talk it out, I will message... I have accountability buddies or people that I speak to and say, "Hey, if I do this, this, and this, does it make sense?" That's also a great way to help me stop feeling overwhelmed because a lot of the times someone looking at something from an outside point of view will be like, "Well, why don't you just do this thing?" And you're like, "Oh, yeah, yeah. That would have been easier."

So I hope that was helpful. Thank you for listening. This is Janice from the Career Introvert, helping all introverts amplify their voices through podcasting, publishing, and public speaking.

Shownotes:

Some people get really bored when they travel. A good reason for that is perhaps the internet may not be available, or being seated for a very long time is uncomfortable for them. But for me, I try to stay productive and use that time for work purposes. For today’s episode, I’d like to give you some ideas on how I’m still able to work while I’m traveling and what sort of work fits the mode of transportation that I’m currently in.

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk about working on planes, trains, and buses. Wasn't gonna put automobiles. The reason I want to talk about this is because I'm planning a trip, and I realized that I will be working on certain modes of transport, and I was trying to fit in, and I was looking at what I needed to work on, and there's certain types of transport that are better for doing certain things.

For example buses, I would love to work on a bus, but the buses in the United States ... or actually I get travel sick anyway, so it doesn't really matter. Buses in general are not great for me, but then if you add on the fact that I'm trying to do work, 99.9% of the time, I can't do it, and it's normally because someone might be sitting next to me, and I don't want them to see what I'm working on, but that's not really a thing. It's more the space and the distance between seats. The seat in front of me, and my seat. There may or may not be a tray table, so I might be balancing my laptop on my knees. If there is a tray table, it's probably very short, and can't actually fit. Not that I have a huge laptop, but I can't fit my laptop on there, and so I find it really difficult to work on computer-based stuff on the bus. What I do find really easy to do on the bus is bigger picture thinking or outlining stuff on pen and paper.

Then there's trains. I love trains for various reasons, but what I found is when I'm traveling on a train in the United States, and in Canada actually, there is a lot of space, even if you're not in business class, there are some chairs that are a shared table, so four seats around a table, an actual solid table that you can work on, next to a plug point, and most of the time you have internet. It's not amazing internet, it is not lightening fast internet, but it is internet. And if you're not sitting at that table, you will be sitting at a normal seat, and there's still enough room for you to have your tray table, a plug point, and work in relative comfort.

I find working on a train very good for maybe drafting emails, or slow internet work, or listen to a podcast, and doing some work. I've also found it's very good for just creating PowerPoint presentations. Just getting it done. If you have all the pictures already and the images that you need, and you just need to get it done, I found being on a train is very very good for that. Stick your headphones on and crank it out.

The next one I wanna talk about is planes. This is interesting. If you are in economy class on a regional flight, or a local flight, yes you will have some room, you can't guarantee the person in front of you won't push their seat back and then your laptop generally gets crunched. There has been so many times where my laptop has almost gotten crushed because of the way the tray table is set-up, and if you want to get your laptop open to a comfortable viewing position, you end up being under the lip, and then as soon as someone moves back, it's terrible.

One thing I do is I use my computer in tablet mode because it has that option, but if you can't do that, economy class, you can possibly do some work. The airline I travel with the most has a section called economy plus where you get extra legroom and boy is that useful. Not to me specifically being short, but for having space to work with your laptop because the train moves.

Now if you're lucky enough to be in business class, then there tends to be room, and a little side for you to put your drink on so you're not worried about your drink possibly splashing on you, or especially in economy, I always have that worry that when people are passing drinks out, people go and grab the drink, and I'm so terrified they'll grab it wrong and it will spill on my computer.

Business class international, I have yet ... no wait, have I done it? I've done it on a four hour flight, five hour flight, that was sort of international, but not in the United States, and that was luxurious and wonderful, and I would love to do it again. I've done sort of a five or six-hour in business class, but that was on a night flight, so all I wanted to do was sleep. That was also wonderful.

What I do love about long-haul flights, even if I'm in economy, is that I get to think. I get to unplug, I get to binge on podcasts, which is work in itself because I might be doing research for a particular topic, so I'll go in beforehand, put in my keyword, pull up all the podcasts that are relevant to that, download them, and so I'm doing research while on my flight. And the other thing is again sketching Blue Sky Thinking, and putting things in my calendar I find is very useful.

That's how I work on planes, trains, and buses. Thank you for listening. This is Janice from The Career Introvert. I look forward to helping you with your business, or your career alongside your introversion.

Shownotes:

Video interview is one of the most convenient ways to get to know the person without having to meet up with them in person. Usually, people who are looking to hire freelancers are the ones who do this, but it’s also utilized by some clients who want to reach out to their network. Either way, the video interview is something that we should be 100% prepared. How do you make sure that everything goes smoothly in a video interview?

Hello and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today I'm going to talk about how to make a bad impression on an interview with a video. And this has come across and around because all of a video interview that I did recently for a speaking engagement. So first thing's first, try not to be late. And I say try because I know there're so many different ways to do a video interview these days that you might not have the software on your phone or your computer and you have to download it or maybe your computer restarts. I know that all of these things happen at the most inopportune times.

What I would say is if you are going to have a video interview, make sure you download the software and try and test it in advance. Test your microphone, test of the camera, make sure everything's set up the way that you would like it to be set up. Two, with your background try and make sure that it is, if it's just a plain background or maybe just some books or it's not kids running around in the background. If you can help it or it's not anything that might be distracting to the interviewer. You want them to concentrate on you and what you are saying or what you might be displaying, not what's going on behind you. And also you don't want to be distracted. So try not to have a window that you can be distracted out of.

Actually speaking of distractions. While you are being interviewed or if you are interviewing somebody, please, please, please try and look at them on the screen. Don't look off at a window. Don't play with your shoes. Don't play with your phone. Don't play with something off screen or off camera. Please at least look like you are interested in what the person is saying and what they are showing you and because they're showing up. So that's another thing. It might be hard. Put a sticker on your computer, whatever it is you have to do to make it look at least like you are paying attention.

The other thing is interviewing for something, knowing full well that it doesn't exist. I recently interviewed for something and it was a speaking engagement and I got, it was a 20 minute slot. We'd been 15 minutes into the conversation before they said, well actually we're not holding the event ever. So they had 15 and they've made the decision with enough time that they could've just canceled. Send me an email and said, hey, we won't be moving forward with this because we're not moving forward with this event. Instead they spend 15 minutes asking me sort of questions, not really giving anything, only to tell me that they weren't doing it. And it wasn't like they wanted ask me questions to see if I'd be a good fit for somebody else. They will literally just asking me random questions and ask me feedback of stuff that they obviously hadn't taken a look at what I do.

Another thing with a video interviewing is make sure you have a headset. There's nothing worse than sort of hearing the feedback came from your computer and hearing your own voice repeat and re-roll because someone doesn't have a headset. Even if it's just the headset, your ear buds that you got with your phone that is perfect so that it stops any feedback.

Now the other thing with video interviewing is be careful of what colors you wear. So if you have a white background for example, and you wear a white shirt, you might just be like this headless thing. This neck and bodyless thing, not headless. And so that can be a little discombobulating for the person who's looking. So just make sure that you were maybe playing colors and structured colors, not patterns because patterns can be also very distracting.

And then there's background noise. Make sure if possible that you have control of your environment and that you can eliminate as many background noises as possible. If you can't, I highly recommend the mute button in between whatever you're saying and listen to the other person so the other person doesn't have to hear the background noise if it's unavoidable.

And so these are things that I think are really important when you are thinking about an interview that is done via video. Make sure the person knows in advance what it is they're doing, what platform it is, where it is. There's nothing worse than sending an email five minutes in being like so ... because you haven't been able to log in because they haven't sent you the login information. Also being on time helps. And if you are late, apologize, not apologizing is rude.

All right, those are my tips for today. Thank you for listening. This is Janice from the Career Introvert. Looking forward to helping you move your business forward or your career forward in line with your introversion. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions, please email me [email protected].