A Day In The Life of Brittany | Podcast Episode #50

Episode Transcript

Brittany:
Welcome to episode number 50 of the Be Hooked podcast. I am so grateful that you’re here. I’m really excited that you’re sharing in this special episode with me.

50 is a huge number, no matter how you look at it. But when you’re thinking in terms of podcast episodes, for me as a creator, to get to that 50 mile mark when at the beginning, I didn’t know where it would go is… it’s just a big deal and it’s a very special time for me. So I wanted to reserve this episode for something a little bit different than we normally do.

I have given you 49 episodes where we talk nothing but crochet and occasionally knitting. And so in this episode today, I wanted to peel back the curtain a little bit and talk about me — a day in the life of Brittany. I have learned so much about myself over the last three years. And it’s my goal today to be able to share some of the things with you that I have implemented in my life — some things that are working now, that used to work, that maybe aren’t working anymore.

And I want to give you these things so that maybe you can hear them and apply them in your life as well, because some of these things that I’m going to talk about have really just been a big game changer for me. And I think that they could be for you too, if you’re looking for the same things that I was looking to fulfill before I started them.

So I’m going to talk about my weekly routine, because that is really working for me right now. I’m going to talk about my daily routine as well. And throughout our chat, I will talk about some resources — just refer to some of the things that I’m talking about, the tools that I use. And you can find all of that information on the show notes page. Just go to behookedcrochet.com/session050. You can find it all there. Of course, you don’t have to worry about taking notes or anything like that. I’ll have it all right there so you can just find the resource that interests you and you can check it out when you have the time.

I also wanted to take a moment to thank Yarnspirations for sponsoring this podcast. Yarnspirations is the online destination for inspiration in the yarns you love like Patons, Bernat, Caron, and Lily Sugar’n Cream. Be Hooked listeners, you’re able to get a special offer to redeem at Yarnspirations.com. All listeners can get 20% off your order of $40 or more at Yarnspirations.com by using the coupon code at checkout, and that code is BHOOKED. That’s B-H-O-O-K-E-D.

Now, I want to say right off the bat that my weekly and daily routine today is very different from a couple of years ago. And you’re probably thinking, well, yeah, people change, right? As time goes by, people change. We pivot. We find things that work for us. We keep the things that are continuing to work with us. And honestly, I’m no different from that.

I want to take you back a couple of years to 2016, where I had sort of like my aha moment. I heard about this book called The Miracle Morning by a guy named Hal Elrod, and that book really shifted my perspective. Now in the book, Hal talks about the different things that you could do — or that you should do — in the morning to change your focus.

For me, the solution to the problem that I had at that time was that I was experiencing so much dread when I would get up in the morning. It’s so much to the point where I was almost dreading going to sleep at night because I knew I had to wake up and go through this blah routine that did nothing for me.

So I was reading through this book and I realized the essence of the book is… it’s kind of brilliant, really. I don’t even know why I didn’t think about it before, but Hal preaches — or teaches — in this book that when you start your day by waking up for you and priming yourself for the day, it has an amazing effect on: one, your motivation to wake up (which was the problem I had), and two, setting the theme for the rest of your day.

What I realized was that I was waking up for someone else’s priority. My alarm was only going off at that time in the morning because I knew I had to get up and get ready to go to work and fulfill someone else’s agenda. Then, after I had given all of myself to my employer, I would come home and continue to do things for other people.

Now, I was genuinely happy to do these things. We have some fur babies to take care of and dinner to prepare and a house to clean. And I was doing all of these things without sparing a couple of minutes to do something that I really wanted to do.

I think the trend that a lot of us seem to follow is that we give all of ourselves away to everyone else — our jobs, our spouses, kids, pets, family. We are so willing to just give everything to everyone else. That only lasts for so long, though, before you hit that breaking point. You have to feel almost a little bit selfish, and I hated that, because I would get to a point where I would just give and give and give, and then I would have this selfish day where I just… I didn’t want to do anything for anybody else because I had neglected myself for so long. And man, that was just a really crummy feeling. I did not like feeling selfish.

So I learned through this book that if you spend a little bit of time on yourself every day, then you’re able — well, you’re not only able to give all of yourself to everyone else that you want to genuinely give yourself away to — but it’s then that you’re truly at your best self.

Now, for a lot of us — and this is kind of Hal’s argument, we’ll say — not really an argument, but his point is that those minutes for us to spend on ourself are typically going to be in the morning for a lot of people. I’ll be honest, I resisted following anything that I was reading in this book for a long time because I am — well, was — not a morning person.

The thought of setting my alarm for 30 minutes extra or earlier just to spend time doing the things that he was telling me that I should be doing just seemed a little bit crazy. In my mind, I was giving myself some time by allowing myself to sleep those extra 30 minutes.

But I had read about — and heard about on another podcast — that every successful person has some kind of morning routine. And I couldn’t help but wonder if that was the ingredient that was going to catapult me to where I wanted to be. And so I begrudgingly set my alarm 30 minutes earlier on those first couple of days.

And they weren’t easy. It was not easy getting up extra in the morning. A couple days I snoozed for 15 minutes, but I still got up and I still tried some of the things that Hal talked about in the book.

So in the book, Hal talks about several different things that you can do in your morning routine — or that you could or that you should be doing in your morning routine. And I knew that there’s no way I could implement all of those things. But I figured I would just dip my toe in, get my feet a little bit wet, and try a couple of the things that he recommended.

So the two things that I knew I could easily implement — I could set my alarm for maybe 15 minutes earlier and just give 15 minutes to bettering myself through these two activities.

The first activity was exercise. Now I wasn’t one to go to the gym or go out for a run in the morning, but I knew what I could do was some just quick exercises in my office. And so that’s typically what I would do. I would get up, do some push-ups, do some sit-ups, and that really did help to just kind of instantly wake me up.

Now, after I would do a couple of those — I would do push-ups or sit-ups for five or 10 minutes — I would do some stretches. I found this to be really, really helpful. I guess I kind of didn’t realize how stiff my muscles, my body was until I was down on the floor trying to do some yoga poses and that sort of thing. But what I quickly realized was that I felt so much better after I had done that.

So I would spend about 10 minutes or so on some quick exercises and some stretching.

And the other thing Hal talks about is journaling. I was a little bit skeptical about this because I was never one to write or keep a journal. But he mentioned a tool called the 5-Minute Journal. And I’d heard about this through other podcasts as well. A lot of really successful people who have the mentality that I want for myself — they use this journal.

So I bought one of these journals on Amazon, and that was the other five minutes of my morning routine. I really love the way this journal is set up. It’s not like a blank page where you have to just “Dear Diary” and write about whatever. It’s guided. And it really only does take five minutes — not even that sometimes — to fill out the day’s page.

So it’s really simple. You have your quote for the day, and then you have three lines, three opportunities to write something that you’re grateful for.

And I will admit, I had a really hard time with this at first, and I felt so bad about myself because I thought, “Wow, I don’t know what I’m grateful for.” That just made me feel like a bad person or an ungrateful person. But what I realized is that I never spent any time thinking about what I was grateful for. And so this was a new exercise for me.

And it was funny because at first I struggled with it so much that I found myself throughout the day thinking about things that I could write in the next day’s journal entry. So it was a complete perspective shift for me — going from completely taking everything for granted to actively thinking about the things that I was grateful for in my life so that I could write them down in this journal.

Now, in addition to those three things that you’re grateful for, you also write the three things you hope to accomplish that day. And that really helped me because I am one of those people — I want to do everything right now. If I get an idea, I’m just squirrel syndrome, right? I just dive right into it and I have to kind of keep myself in check.

So with this journal, I only have three opportunities, three major goals for the day. What I found is that when I would write down these three things, they always got done. I always accomplished the three things that I wrote in that journal because I had some accountability for it.

Now, moving on to the evening section of the journal — you have three lines to talk about the three great things that happened that day. And that was another one of those aha moments because I struggled with this at first too, because I never, I never put any focus into the good things that were happening in my day. I was always fixated on the bad things. And I think that’s just human nature.

But this journal trained me to start thinking about those positive things because I knew I had to write it down. So what I would do when I was on my way home from work, I would think about the three great things that happened that day so that I knew what to write when I got to that evening’s journal entry.

Now the last thing that the journal allows you to do is reflect on one thing that you wish you could have done differently. That’s also been really instrumental to my outlook on the day. Because as a person who was constantly looking at the things that went wrong and figuring out what I could have done differently, I’m only allowed this one chance to talk about or to think about something that I wish I could have done differently.

And I will say I’ve had to train myself to only find that one thing and kind of let go of the rest. It didn’t happen overnight. But I will say that none of this shift in perspective would have happened had it not been for this journal. So I still, to this day, a couple years later, use the Five-Minute Journal as part of my morning routine.

Now, I will get into exactly what my daily routine looks like today, but I really can’t get into the daily routine without talking about my weekly routine.

I had learned somewhere, and I’ve actually even read about it recently in a book called Essentialism, which, by the way, is a fantastic book if you are looking for a way to simplify things, simplify your life. Read Essentialism by a guy named Greg McKeown. I probably… did not say that last name correctly. I’m going to put it in the show notes page so you can just find it right away. It’s a longer read, I will say, but it is, so far, my favorite book that I have read.

Now, somewhere in that book, he talks about the time that it takes to transition from one task to the next. And that’s something that you don’t really think about, right? I mean, we get pulled in many directions all throughout the day. Being a multitasker is something that we’re proud of typically, right? I mean, it’s something that we put on resumes. It’s a perk for somebody to hire us — that I’m able to multitask.

But the reality of it is that you only have so much bandwidth to put into something. So if you put all of your effort into one thing, you’re able to make sure that you get it done right. And you can probably get it done quicker because you’re not trying to shift from thing to thing.

So keeping all of that in mind, I started implementing a weekly routine. I had heard somewhere that having themed days tend to work out really well for entrepreneurs. I know it’s not necessarily always practical for people in the workspace, but I do think that there are little bits and tips that you can take from this and apply to your work life as it is now.

But I want to focus in on what my weekly routine looks like. So the first thing I did was I thought about the big picture — the five things that I do on a regular basis every single day or every single month or week. I am always incorporating some one or all of these five things into my week.

The first of which is filming, right? I do a lot of filming. I do a lot of recording. So that’s theme number one.

Theme number two is editing. When you film and when you record, it doesn’t just magically turn into a video or a podcast episode. Somebody has to go through and edit that. And right now that person is me.

Theme number three is writing. I do a lot of blog posts, a lot of typing up patterns, and all of that for the website and the blog.

Theme number four is social media and administrative work. Answering emails, replying to comments and questions, just in general being social and being present in my community is a really big priority of mine.

Theme number five is to make the things, right? I am actually making every single one of these projects that I put out there. So if I’m doing a guest blog post for a brand, I’m making that thing so I can give you a true perspective of what it is to work through that project. When I’m making my own designs, I don’t have contract crocheters or knitters at this point. I am actually making everything. And as you can imagine, that takes up a lot of my time.

So those are my five themed things. And so I just structured that into my week. So Monday through Friday — and I actually follow in that order.

Mondays are my filming days. And so I know that when I wake up on Monday morning, I’m going to put a little bit more effort into myself. I’m going to put some makeup on, do my hair, put some nice clothes on. Really just get myself in the right frame of mind to be behind the microphone or be in front of the camera teaching and sharing my knowledge, my enthusiasm, my experience with you. And so I know, I know on Monday morning when I wake up that I need to be in video mode or I need to be in recording mode.

On Tuesday, I have reserved Tuesdays for editing and I know that editing these resources takes me a lot of time. So on average, if I’m filming — we’ll say a lot of my tutorials are anywhere between 40 minutes and an hour. Some tutorials even have a couple of videos. But that’s just something that I want to do because I wanna make sure I’m giving you everything that I know. And sometimes that just takes a long time and I’m okay with that.

But a tutorial that lasts 40 minutes to an hour takes me anywhere from three to four hours to edit that. That’s a half workday, right? If we set aside eight hours to work, I know that I’m spending at least half of that editing a tutorial that I just filmed.

Now a podcast episode doesn’t take quite as long, but it still is a couple of hours to edit a podcast episode. So basically what that tells me is that I need to make sure on Tuesday mornings when I wake up, I’m not hitting that snooze button because I know I have a full day scheduled. I know I’m going to be sitting in front of the computer with my headphones on and in like strong, focused editing mode.

Because I want to get those things done before my husband comes to work so I can spend some time and be present with him. So I know that on Tuesdays I need to be hyper-focused on getting those things done.

Now Wednesdays are my writing days. And I also jokingly call them my introvert days. I am — I’m not a closet introvert. I will say that a lot of time I am stepping outside of my comfort zone by being on the other side of the camera. And I’m doing those just for my own sense of personal development.

But as a true introvert, I need that time to just kind of feel like I can be an introvert, that I can just be in my shell, in my comfy clothes, not have to worry about performing, and I can just write and share.

And so I know that on Wednesdays, I can wake up feeling a little bit more relaxed, a little bit more rejuvenated, and also in that creative frame of mind, because I want to be as creative as possible when I’m writing up these blog posts and the show notes and all of that stuff.

Well, because I’ve implemented this weekly routine, I know exactly what frame of mind I need to be in when I wake up that morning.

Now, moving on to Thursdays. Thursdays are kind of like the start of my weekend, really. It’s kind of like one of my fun days. I spend a lot of time doing mostly social media, connecting online with people in the community, answering emails, replying to comments and questions, doing as much of that as I possibly can.

Now it’s getting to the point where I’m going to need some help in the very near future, I think. I’m gonna have to start growing and expanding my team because connecting with you guys — that’s my number one priority. And I’m realizing that one day really just isn’t enough to do and to help as many people as I can possibly help.

But right now, until that time comes, Thursdays are typically my days to be in and around social, scheduling posts, finding resources for you, answering your questions that come in through email. So if you write me an email, you’ll probably get a reply the next Thursday. So just keep that in mind for now.

Now on Fridays, Fridays really are my fun days. If you follow me on Instagram, you know that Fridays are Fan Fridays. And that’s the day that I want to share people within the community. I want to inspire people to start new things, to try different projects. And it’s also an opportunity for me to help those people in the community.

A lot of times when I repost something through Instagram, that person will often get a lot of likes to their account. And I’m really happy to share these creative people with other people in the community.

Fan Fridays are my favorite day of the week. If you haven’t gotten involved with that, I definitely recommend that you do so. I’m only able to share a few posts — usually I’ll share two to four photos per day — but it’s also an opportunity to connect with other makers in the community.

So the purpose or the way you get involved is to use hashtag #BeHooked on your photos. And so what I do on Fridays is I typically will find a really comfy seat and park myself there for most of the day, my phone in one hand with Instagram, scrolling through hashtag #BeHooked, just being genuinely inspired by what I see. And then I always have a project in hand. So Fridays are also my days to make the thing.

So I’m always crocheting a project or knitting a project for a couple of weeks out. So that’s what my weekly routine looks like right now. It hasn’t always looked this way and it still continues to change.

It’s not completely rigid. So there are some exceptions. Some days I just can’t get all of the film completed. So maybe on Tuesdays, I’ll spend a little extra time filming. But I really do try to stick to this theme so that I know I’m in that right frame of mind — because that has been another one of those aha moments for me.

My productivity has really just skyrocketed since I have been able to theme my days, kind of batch my work. And it’s also helped me to get ahead of my schedule.

So on Wednesdays when I’m writing, I might only have two posts in my task list to write, but I know that I have a full day that’s just dedicated to writing. So if I get those two posts knocked out in three hours, well, I still have four hours, five hours to dedicate to writing. So I’ll go into next week and I’ll say, okay, what am I supposed to write on next Wednesday? And start typing up those posts.

And when you do that so much, you get to the point where you’re a week, two weeks, three weeks ahead of your schedule. And then you have some free time to kind of put back into yourself.

And so that’s typically what I’ll do. If I get ahead of my schedule, I will make it a point to put that time into something for me that isn’t necessarily work-related. That’s one of my big concerns as an entrepreneur who genuinely loves their job — is to have some boundaries between my work life and my personal life.

Now for so long, they have kind of just been one and the same and it all sort of bleeds together. But in order for me to make sure that I continue to love what I do, it needs to not feel like work. And the way I do that is by creating those boundaries.

So I have set work hours for myself. I have a targeted time to turn my computer off every single day. And I have projects that I’m working on for myself that I maybe am not writing up a pattern for. Or maybe I’m just following somebody else’s pattern because I love this yarn that I found.

My hobby is still my hobby. I still crochet and I still knit in my free time. But I make sure that I’m doing projects for myself during that time.

I want to bring you into the present and talk about my daily routine as it looks today. Because like I mentioned, it looked different before. 2017 was really an exploratory year for me. It was the first year that I called myself an entrepreneur 100%. And I spent a lot of that time dealing with my squirrel syndrome and figuring out what worked, what didn’t work.

And so this year in 2018 is kind of like my refining year. I have figured out what works, what doesn’t work, and I’m just working on solidifying those things, those routines, and trying to stick to my habits.

I’ll be the first one to admit that there are some days that I don’t feel like doing my morning routine. And I can say from experience that those days I, one, feel guilty because I didn’t do my morning routine. And I genuinely have a lesser frame of mind.

So as it sits right now, my morning, my day starts at about 6 a.m. I have recently started a new goal in 2017. Actually, I started in December of last year in 2017. And it’s continued through the year. My personal goal was to read at least one book a month. And I knew that was going to be a little bit difficult for me because finding the time to read throughout my day is just going to be difficult. For me, that felt like I was making a sacrifice. So I was either sacrificing work time to read or I was sacrificing my time with my husband in the evening. And I didn’t really want to sacrifice either way.

But what I found is that in those few minutes, that first 15-20 minutes or so that I’m awake after I flip the light switch on and I read my book. So I start off my morning by reading and by learning something and that really fuels my fire because I love learning and I look forward to those moments. I actually really look forward to getting up at six o’clock in the morning because I know I’m going to be reading and learning something that I can use to achieve my goals.

Now, what I do after I read is take care of our fur babies. So I will take care of them. We’ll go for a short walk. I’ll get my husband out the door for work. And immediately after that, I will typically make some kind of breakfast. And that’s another thing I didn’t always do for myself.

I love cooking for myself and my husband on the weekends. But last year, I skipped breakfast a lot. And I realized that I really wasn’t my best self. I wasn’t very productive when I forgot that really important meal. So I’ve made it a point now to always get some kind of good breakfast. I’m not talking granola bars, but I’m not talking a grand meal either. I’ll usually try to make something that’s healthy and full of protein that I know that’s going to fuel me until lunchtime.

So after I’ve taken care of the fur babies, I’ve eaten my breakfast, I’ll usually go into my office, my home office here, and I’ll meditate. Meditation is another one of those things I learned from reading The Miracle Morning. I didn’t implement right away because honestly, I didn’t know how. But now I have, and even before I got this birthday present this year, I was practicing meditation using apps on my phone, but I really just didn’t know if it worked.

Now for my birthday, which was just a couple, about a week ago actually, January 29th is my birthday. My husband bought me something that has been on my Amazon wishlist for at least two years, and that’s called the Muse. Now, the Muse is what they call the brain-sensing headband, and it’s a meditation device that gives you instant feedback, like audio type of feedback, on how you’re doing or how you’re meditating.

Now, I have used this tool since my birthday, so about a week and a half, we’ll say. It’s been about a week and a half. And I’m already seeing the benefits of it. I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking too much about the Muse and its perks and all that stuff. I would probably like to share more about it with you in the future after I’ve used it a little bit more so I can make sure it’s a product that I would recommend. But I will link to it in the show notes.

If you’re experimenting with meditation and you’re not sure if you’re doing it, you feel like you need that instant feedback, the Muse is going to be something that will do it for you. But I will say it’s an investment. It’s not a… With the Muse, it’s not only my meditation practice and how I’m actually doing, that it’s helped me validate my most focused time of my day. And so I’m able to take this information and apply it to my routine.

I had always had the suspicion that mornings, anytime before noon was my most creative time. That was my most productive—when I did my best work was before noon. And in the afternoon, I always seem to be more distracted or that’s when I’ll do my grocery store runs or my errands or things like that. And so the afternoons always just seem to slip away very unproductive.

Well, the Muse validated this for me because I’m meditating in the morning and in the afternoon. So what I found is that I’m hyper-focused. I’m able to get a better chart or a better reading from this device in the morning because my mind is a lot more calm and it’s giving me that feedback. But in the afternoon, I’m finding that my brain is just all over the place. I have things running through my head and that just tells me that my suspicions were true—that I do my best work in the morning.

Thinking about tools like this is going to be what helps you to achieve what you want to achieve. It’s going to help you find a routine that works for you and make sure that that routine works in your favor.

So after I do my Muse meditation for the morning, I do some yoga, and that helps to just make me feel better, right? It makes me feel better… almost lighter, I’m going to say. I do a lot more restorative yoga, so I love stretching. And so I do all of this right early in the morning. And it just sets the tone. I’ve got a clear mind. I have a body that feels rejuvenated.

And the last part of my morning routine is to write in my five-minute journal. And so I go through that, write down the things that I’m grateful for, write down my three goals for the day, the three things that I want to accomplish, and then it’s off to the races. Whatever day it is, that’s what I focus on.

Now, there is another tool that I’ve talked about before that I use on a regular basis that really helps to keep me on task and focused and know exactly what I need to do. It basically takes out all the guesswork.

So what I was doing before I used this tool was spending 30 minutes or so, sometimes more than that, writing out all of my tasks for the day because I knew I was in my creative focus at that point. So I wanted to write down all the things I knew I needed to do while I was focused so I didn’t forget them.

Well, this tool has saved me that time because now I go into my dashboard at CoSchedule, and that’s at coschedule.com, and my task list is right there waiting for me. So when I finished my routine this morning, I went into CoSchedule and it says, okay, you need to create the outline for this podcast episode. You need to record the podcast episode.

And it has just been a huge part of my team, this app called CoSchedule. It’s actually, it’s a software that you pay for. It’s a monthly recurring thing. But again, I would not recommend it if I didn’t find so much value in it myself.

Now, after I go through my morning—so kind of pre-lunch—I go through my tasks for that day. I try to set myself up to do the tasks that require more focus early in the morning. And then maybe the tasks that I know aren’t going to take nearly as long, I’ll save those for the afternoon. And that’s because I have been given that feedback from the Muse and just paying attention to when I do my best work or when I feel the most focused.

And I’ll typically break for lunch around one o’clock. And that’s something I really try not to skip. That was one thing I learned last year. I didn’t need to break for lunch because I could just eat at my desk and continue to work and get even more things done.

But what I found is that I really do need to have that time just to let go of the things that happen in the morning, not think about the things I need to do in the afternoon, get some more fuel so I can get through the rest of my day. And so I make sure that I don’t skip lunch. I don’t always take an hour lunch or a half hour lunch.

Sometimes it’s shorter. It really just depends on the schedule for the day. But I always make sure that I’m taking that time for myself.

So after lunch, I’ll usually just go back into GoSchedule, figure out what tasks I need to do for the rest of the day to check all the things off the list. This is also the time that I’ll spend on doing some housewife things. So I typically like to do my grocery shopping in the early afternoon hours because that’s when there’s not a lot of traffic there. I can do my meal planning for the week, go to the grocery store, get all of that stuff done, running some errands if I have to go to the post office or whatever. I usually reserve that for the afternoon hours.

And I also take a break somewhere around in mid-afternoon hours and go for a short walk. It’s usually only about 15 minutes or so, but it gets my body moving again, gets the blood flowing, and sets me up for kind of finishing my day. It’s almost like my end of the day routine. I know I’m going to go for this walk and I’m going to come back. I might have a couple of small little things to button up, but my computer is turning off at 4 o’clock. That’s my goal—to turn the computer off at 4 o’clock.

And I don’t necessarily stop working at that point. Sometimes I’ll do some crocheting or some knitting in those early evening hours, but I do make sure that that computer goes off, that I get out of the office, I shut the door, and I get back into non-work mode.

Now, it’s during that time that I like to do some of my housework and cleaning. And I know that I can do these things because I’ve already finished the work for the day. I’ve already checked off all the tasks in my co-scheduled dashboard. And so I don’t have to worry or feel guilty that I should be doing something else.

That’s the problem that I had last year working from home—just feeling like I should constantly be doing it because I could, right? But that was not working for me. I got to the point where I just felt like I was working all the time. And I felt guilty, or I would rush through the things that I knew I needed to do, like cook dinner or clean the house, and those sorts of things. And then I felt guilty because I was rushing through that stuff, and that just wasn’t working for me either.

So creating these boundaries has really been an instrument to my success and my overall well-being. I’m often asked how I get so much done. It probably looks on the outside like things are easy or glamorous and… I’m here to tell you that it’s not always glamorous. It’s not always pretty. It gets messy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I go through life and I learn things about myself just as much as you do. And I’m here to encourage you—if you’re at a point, especially if you’re an entrepreneur, if you’re working from home, or if you work part-time and you feel like something is missing—maybe take one or two of the points that we’ve talked about here, one or two of the things that have worked for me, and just explore that and see if maybe it’s right for you.

The other thing I always make sure I do is goal set. I know that if I don’t set a goal for something, it is not going to get done. And I recognize that there’s always room for improvement. So my area, my room for improvement right now, is exercise.

Yes, I do get up and I do some stretches in the morning, and I do get out in the afternoon and go for a short walk, but that is not exercise like I want. I really want to get to a point where I can not feel so out of breath for some things.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever experienced this, but when you talk for a long period of time, if you don’t know how to properly breathe—and I’m assuming if you’re not in great shape—it’s difficult to actually sit and talk without having to take a moment to breathe.

So one of the things that I’m going to strive for in 2018 as a personal goal, aside from reading my monthly book (at least one book a month), is exercise. And I’d really love to know what your personal goal is for this year. I encourage you to tell me over on the show notes page. Once again, you can access that at behookedcrochet.com/session050.

And if you already have a morning routine, I would love to hear it. I think we can really help each other by just sharing these experiences and sharing what works and what doesn’t work. And we can just connect a little bit more as a community in doing so.

Thank you so much for listening to today’s podcast, for giving me the opportunity to do something a little bit different—to even help answer that question that I get so much that says, “Brittany, how on earth do you do what you do? How do you get so much done? Or just what does it look like on the inside of BHooked?”

Once again, I’d like to thank Yarnspirations for sponsoring this podcast. Whether you knit or crochet, Yarnspirations.com is the online destination for inspiration, free patterns, and of course the yarn you love, like Patons, Bernat, Caron, and Lily Sugar’n Cream.

In case you missed it at the beginning of today’s episode, listeners can receive 20% off your order of $40 or more at Yarnspirations.com by using the coupon code BHOOKED.

Thank you so much. It’s been such a pleasure today sharing a little bit about my day and my week with you. I hope you’ve enjoyed it, and I hope you’ll stay tuned for next week’s episode.

We’re going to continue with our monthly theme of garments, and I have a very special guest who just laid it all out there. She shared so many wonderful tips with you, and I’m excited to see your response.

That’ll be next Thursday, so be sure you don’t miss it. If you haven’t done so already, go ahead and subscribe to the podcast. You can do so on iTunes or Stitcher, whatever podcast player you like using. And then you’ll be sure that you never miss an episode. And it also helps the show when you do that. And for that, I’m super grateful.

All right, guys. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful weekend. I’ll see you next week. Bye-bye.