I love my life. I love my business. But it hasn’t always been that way. 

I had a great start. 

I was raised in an amazing family with parents who loved me. I was the typical teacher’s pet in elementary, overachiever in high school, valedictorian of my graduating class, and worked hard to keep everything in my life perfect. 

Then my 20’s arrived. And with them, the consequences of trying to keep everything together for so long. 

When you think of the stuff you're getting done for your business this week, you probably think of a never-ending mix of To-Dos you need to check off so you can succeed. But most of us don't include one thing that also leads to success: self care.

You might think self care's less important when you have a team relying on you and customers to please. You want to succeed at being your own boss, like, yesterday and that means hustling as much as possible. Sure, you'd feel better if you took care of yourself but that doesn't relate to business, right?

Do you know what the funny thing is? Most of the time I spend on the phone is texting back and forth with clients, because for some reason people these days don't check their voicemails, but with a text you're getting a response back almost right away. And you know what? I'm ok with that. I text a lot for non-work-related stuff too, and as old-fashioned as I'd like to think I am sometimes, I don't think there's any going back to the days where calling someone trumped texting. Because let's face it: in today's day and age, few people will pick up their phone or check their voicemails (what's that noise? my phone is ringing?! I didn't know it could do that!) yet they will respond and communicate rapidly via text. And to be completely honest, sometimes answering a simple question doesn't really warrant a phone call and can be easily and efficiently taken care of with a quick text exchange.

But have you ever thought about how much time you spend texting the same thing over and over again? My guess is that it's more time than you'd like to be spending, given that you could be using that time to do something more productive. If you're at all like me, you might feel like texting slows you down. Every time my phone pings with a message, I feel a sense of urgency to respond right then and there. Then somehow, I wind up getting completely and utterly distracted from what I was doing and sucked into the black hole of social media with the alerts that have popped up since I last checked my phone… omg look at this video…hilarious…mom-in-law would love this one…ding…oops let me see who just texted me back...ping…stop it Facebook alerts you’re distracting me…ding…GAH I need to be working… *deep breath*… ok FOCUS Courtney, focus.

If you’ve been around Nora’s blog at all, I’m sure you can tell that she’s a huge user of Evernote. I’m the same way, absolutely loving Evernote. I first discovered it in high school as a way to take notes on my laptop, but now it’s so much more than that. 

I think my favorite thing about Evernote is the ability to put just about anything in it, and over the years, I’ve created this crazy resource library of almost everything in my life. Today I’m going to break down the different areas of my life that I use this resource library for, and how I use tags to keep it all organized.

Early December I did a periscope about hope I prep my social media using Buffer. I sit down and write 100 days worth of content in a couple of hours. (That's 800 tweets, 50 facebook posts, 300 Pinterest pins and 100 google plus posts). That periscope was by far my most popular and I got countless requests to go more in-depth, so here's a whole blog post for y'all.

I’ll be honest. Learning how to integrate God into my business was not something I knew how to do right away. I mean..when you first hear from God, it’s kinda weird..right? Or is it just me? 

There’s a part of me that was kind of like..uhhh, God is this really you? Ok ok, how about one more confirmation? Ok...how about another one?! Ok...I’m sorry buuuut..I’m still not sure..can you give me another one?

No for real, that’s how I am almost on a daily basis. 

Did You Succeed—And Miss It? I did.  

After two years spent writing a manuscript (a brave step for an ex-math teacher) and then pursuing publication (with no contacts and no idea what I was doing), I signed a contract with a small traditional publisher.  My book was published—there it was on Amazon.com!  Success!

Or was it?

Proverbs 31: 10-31 is a passage in the Old Testament written by King Lemuel's mother around the 10th Century B.C.. The passages were written as poetry to the King as advice on how to find a Godly wife and a "woman of valor". The whole idea of the passage is to describe "the perfect woman" and someone who would be fit to rule alongside a king as a strong and Godly woman. 

A tattoo is a huge decision. When I decided to get a tattoo I researched everything I could. I wanted to know exactly what to expect. I watched YouTube videos, read articles and talked to my tattoo artist but I could never find a full explanation all in one place. I just got my second tattoo so I thought I would write a full explanation and post pictures as my tattoo heals so that you know what to expect.