haul culture + finding your niche

This is a post I've had sitting in my drafts for some time - I have been debating posting this, and generally I don't like stepping outside the box and discussing Bloggers as a wider issue - mostly because I feel like it inevitably rocks a few boats.

However I've recently realised that I just don't care upsetting people that much - and I wanted to talk about two topics that have become my main gripes with this little bubble we've created for ourselves: the haul culture that we have created, and this drive to find your 'niche'.

Let's start with this culture of 'hauling'... If you look back in the Uncia + Tigris archives (please don't, those posts are awful! haha), you'll see that I used to be a beauty blogger. I even ventured into the world of beauty youtube, and had some relative success in that arena, before packing it in and realising it wasn't for me. I kept up with the blogging, though, for several years: I was a bit mad about it. I used to do friends makeups for parties and proms, and did a bit of work at college for photo shoots and stuff, and I sort of felt like that justified the amount of makeup I had.

It was a weird thing, though, because even though I knew I had a ridiculous amount of makeup, I felt like I never had enough, there was always the newest thing I felt I had to buy - my favourite makeup artist or YouTuber was recommending it, it had to be good! I look back then and I realise how naive I was, I didn't realise that all those YouTuber's and makeup artists are paid, sponsored, or given products for free. I felt like I had to have designer bags, shoes, clothes, sunglasses, makeup, because all the blogs and things I read had them too. I used to go to London and spend £200 on makeup, because I felt like I needed it all, or get my dad to buy me all of the newest MAC collection on his trip abroad.. I justified it by lying to myself, saying that I needed it I wanted to become a makeup artist, or that I wanted to share in on my blog (which was getting popular, but not by that much). I was spending it just to flash about in a new haul video or post, and it was ridiculous, really.

I think it was when I was in my first or second year at university, I realised the money I was spending on that kind of stuff was stupid, and it gradually faded out. I'm still sort of ashamed at the amount of makeup I own now, as I know I'll never use it all. I try and give it away to friends that I think will use it, or my mum to try and convince her to wear lipstick (never works). Even still, though, I get the urge to spend. I was in London recently and I literally had to walk away from the shops, because I was going to buy stuff for the sake of it! I actually left the city that day, with only a few pens from Muji in my bag, and it felt amazing!

I remember reading this post by Michelle from a little while ago now, and thinking that she was exactly spot on, and I felt so much better that I wasn't alone in this way of thinking. These days, I try to be a lot more savvy with my purchases. I rarely buy things on a whim, I research products properly, outside of paid advertisements on some pretty coloured youtube channels. I try and use stuff up, only buy new mascaras or foundations when I've run out, and although I do have a lipstick vice, I am getting better in that arena. I didn't like that desperate need to keep up - what was I trying to keep up with and why? Obviously, if you are super passionate about beauty products, have the funds and the love to buy everything, then there's nothing wrong with that, I would just suggest caution...!

This brings me nicely to the topic of finding your niche. I had a bit of a crisis, when I decided that beauty blogging, in it's current form, was not for me. What was I then? Was I a food blogger, or a craft and knitting blogger? At the time, I had an allotment and spent a lot of time outdoors, I was also studying art and had a real passion for that... I was at a lost end. If you look back through my archives, you can probably see my phases!

Which leads me to where I am now... It's taken a long time, but I'm finally happy with what I post here. It's completely me, completely honest, and I don't have to spend a penny on it, if I don't want to. And really, it's only recently that I've discovered that I am a true lifestyle blogger. Essentially, I have no niche! If you came here hoping for a how-to-guide to what you should be blogging about, er, sorry? As I have been blogging for so long, I have noticed that there is this real trend of blogs become identical. Same photos, same style, same bloody marble trays and peonies! The same churning out of content, like 75+ 'Blog post ideas', etc.

I just think there is less individuality about these days - I always find it so refreshing when I see blogs that I think are really unique! I follow a few super cutesy blogs, all dyed pink hair and kawaii images, and some dark, all-black wearing goth bloggers, hippy wannabes and wanderlust filled travellers, stay at home mums and career driven bloggers... But the one thing they'll probably have in common is a uniqueness - they do something different and step outside this cookie-cutter blogger image that saturates the market these days.

If you've found your niche - good for you! But if you haven't - don't worry, you might never find it. I am finally happy with the little space my blog has become, but it's taken me six years of blogging to get to this point.

I hope this makes sense, and if you want to start a discussion in the comments, please do - I'd love to hear your thoughts. Do you have a niche, or have you ever felt the need to buy something, just to keep up with your favourite blog?

Some great posts I've read on similar topics, that have inspired this one:

• Haul Couture by Michelle
• Things I wish I'd known when I started blogging by Lorna
• Why Bloggers do not need a niche by Becky
• The current state of blogging by Hayley

doing what you love vs doing what you must

I need to preface this post with a short statement: I wrote this a little while ago, and had it saved in my drafts, unsure of whether or not to post it. I mentioned to you on Friday that I start a new job this week, and it looks like it could be something I'm going to really love - but I wrote this when I was feeling a little disheartened with my job search and my old job. Whilst I love the people there (most of them haha) and the skills it gave me... wasn't challenging me in the way that I wanted from a job. But It was a job, and I know that in this climate, I am extremely lucky to have one! And that is the point of this post, even though my bitterness may come through, that any job that pays you decently enough, you should be grateful for, because a lot of other countries and millions of other people don't have it half as good as us.

-  -  -

This idea for a blog post sprung out of a recent twitter chat I had with some other bloggers: the idea of loving what you do for a living. Whilst I think this is a lovely idea, it does present it's own set of problems...

I wish for a day when I can do solely what I really enjoy most in life (which is essentially baking, knitting, blogging, and going to the gym) and not worry about money, as do a lot of us, I suppose. But there are very few people I imagine, who can say they they really love every aspect of their job. And if you are one of those people, well done, you have it made! 

But for the majority of people, I feel like that isn't the case. When I was at uni, I shared a studio with a relatively nice, middle-aged lady, who decided she didn't care about getting good grades, good feedback, or looking for a job afterwards, because she had done all those things when she was younger. She had a very well off husband, which allowed her to just, sit around and paint all day. There was no need to earn money from it, her children were grown up so she had the time. She had it made, and yeah, I envied that, but it's not a common reality for a lot of people. To me it all felt very... boring. 

If I just sat on my arse all day and did what I loved, I'd have no money, my parents wouldn't let me live with them, I'd have no cash, no way of getting a job, either, probably, without references and current employers. I probably wouldn't love that. Also, you can't enjoy the daytime without a night, can you? If I never worked, I probably wouldn't enjoy the sitting around at home, baking and knitting, because it wouldn't feel special! I relish my weekends and days off, because I can fill them with the things I adore, and they feel like little treats to me.

I don't wish to belittle people who are genuinely doing what they love, because deep down, who doesn't want that? But the do what you love mantra is bandied about in a way that borders on derogatory towards people that aren't doing what they're MOST passionate about; it degrades people that work to get by. If you're lucky enough to be doing what you love, that's cool, but I often find those people that are, are quite militant about other people following their dreams. It's good to have dreams and passions and wants in life, and it's good to work towards them, but you've got to be realistic at the end of the day.

I'll be honest that I'm not sure where I'm going with this, maybe I'm just confirming to myself, that it's okay to not do what I'm most passionate about in life, because doing that job that I must do enables me to do all the things I love. It gives me money and stability through which I can then pursue my dreams, etc. I can work for minimum wage because I need to eat, and hopefully one day I'll be able to do what I really and truly want that will put money in the bank and food in the fridge. Until then, there's the job I've got and the job I do love, in a weird way, because it gives me that freedom. 

If you're interested in this, here is an article I read recently on Jacobin Mag about the do what you love mantra, which talks about this all in much more depth!

how to create and use an editorial calendar

I've wanted to talk about how to create an editorial calendar for blogging for the longest time, because it's really changed how I plan blog posts, how I schedule content and keep myself organised in general. 

I mentioned last week how I love to use a little handwritten planner to keep track of things I want to do, ideas that spring to mind, or content that I need to write, and I do really love that method for the creative side of things. However, once the copy is written, photos are taken, and posts are are ready to be published, I like to bring my up editorial calendar to have a look at when I'll post. 

There are so many ways out there to create an editorial calendar, from traditional diaries, printables, and even apps like CoSchedule, but I prefer this method, which I had sort of attempted doing before I found the lovely Gillian' tutorial over at Elevator Musik for how to set this up properly and a lot of this post is inspired by hers, so please go check it out, it's all much prettier than mine! I've been using this for blogging since May 2014, and it's been so brilliant! The amount of posts I wrote in 2014 tripled from 2013, and I think this is in part to getting organised. Some of this organisation may seem like over-kill for something that is a hobby of mine, but I enjoy getting myself organised!

GET YOUR SPREADSHEET SET UP

You can use any format you like, obviously, but I love to use my Google Drive for my calendar, as it's accessible from anywhere, saves automatically, and is just really easy to bring up when I'm blogging, as I have it bookmarked on my toolbar. Go to your Google Docs, and from the drop down menu at the side, select Sheets, then press the green cross in the bottom corner to bring up a new spreadsheet - it's pretty much as easy as that. Name it something obvious, that you can find, like Blog Calendar 2015, then you're ready...

MAKE IT LOOK PRETTY

This is the fun bit, you can make this look like whatever you like. I copied Gillian's format for this, in having the days across the top, and then Week 1-5 down the left hand side. I made it match my blog colours/font, cause I'm ridiculous like that, simply put. You can make all your cells the same size, highlight all the columns/rows you want, then right click and select Resize columns, and enter a defined value for them. You can use the colour picker to select a colour that suits your blog, and make the font match and all sorts.
At the bottom (which I annoyingly cut off in these images, but you can see in my main image, at the top of the post) you can see that I created tabs for each month, and I fill in the dates manually using the calendar on my phone or laptop. 

FIGURE OUT A SYSTEM YOU'LL USE

Like with my blog planner, it takes using the calendar to find out how to make it work for you. I set myself up with a key, using different coloured highlighted squares to figure out how to plan my content. For example, you can see that his month I didn't post any recipes because I was posting other kind of content that I enjoyed writing, so it's all sort of swings and roundabouts. I have regular features on Friday and Sunday, so I fill those columns in ahead of time, as I know that they'll be frequent features. You can see that the beginning of January was a bit all over the place, because I was getting back into the swing of things, post-Christmas, but it really does help me stick to my posting schedule. When I've scheduled a post, I strikethrough the whole box, and it makes me like I've accomplished something! 

SOME EXTRA TIPS:

• I like to be able to see the last month, to compare the kind of content I've posted, but anything before that clutters up my workspace. Right click on the old page tab at the bottom of the page and select hide sheet. To view the sheet again, select View > View Hidden Sheets... From the toolbar, and you'll have access to them all again.
• I used the Notes column more frequently untilI set up my blog planner, but I like to still have there, just in case I need to add comments or reminders to myself, and I haven't got my planner to hand.
• I've recently started adding the 'buffered' comment to my calendar, to remind me that I need to scheduled tweets for that post, also. 
• I use italics to add in posts that I write, that are 'last minute' additions. They're ones that I haven't planned on posting necessarily, they're written then and there and published on the spot. 
• I highlight boxes bright red, as opposed to their corresponding colour, if I know I haven't yet completed everything for that certain post, and it reminds me that the post needs something doing for it!
• I like to stay about one-week ahead of schedule, so I have some time to write some posts if I feel like I'm short on content that week. You can see that like 95% of my content is scheduled, and I know from recent Twitter chats that some people have a problem with that, but I don't see how it make a damn bit of difference! haha

And there we go, hopefully this helps a little bit! There are hundreds of ways out there to make an editorial calendar work for you, though - if this doesn't float your boat, try looking on Pinterest for inspiration, or turn your hand to making your own. 

Do you use an editorial calendar? Share how it helps you in the comments below, I love finding out new things! 

how to: make a blogging planner

I've been trying really hard to keep my blog organised this year, it was one of my goals for the year, to try and keep up with my blog whilst working and looking for new jobs. It's hard to keep everything organised and ticking over, and I was always making lists that I would lose or accidentally delete on my phone... Fed up of this, I looked into blogging planners, and all sorts of things, before deciding to make one of my own.

For this, all you need is a notebook (I like a squared one), a black pen and a coloured pen (or several, if that helps motivate and organise you!). It's really that easy and simple! I like to use a plain notebook, because this way I can adjust it to suit my needs and I'm not constricted by other peoples design. It does take a wee bit of configuring, to find what sections you'll use most, and what you don't. I've been trialling this for a few weeks, and I've found these headings the most useful for me, but you may want to play around with it for a bit until you find the right system that really works for you. 

TO WRITE: These are blog-posts that I need to write for that week or the coming week. When I've finished them, I cross them through, or I highlight them to make a note of overdue post. I also make a note here if for example, I've written and note scheduled it, or it needs photos to be put into the post, etc.

TO DO: These are things that I need to get done, which might not be writing blog posts, etc, maybe it's replying to a certain email, finding an image for a post, editing some photographs or images, or updating an on-going series post... Just little things that I need to get done, that have a deadline on them.

TO REMEMBER: These are tasks that are important, but not imminent. It might be that I need to check when one my advert campaigns ends, or to take part in a twitter chat, follow up links from a chat, or to schedule something for in the future. Like the to do section, but less time sensitive.

TO PHOTOGRAPH: This tab is pretty self-explanatory, but it helps, particularly in the winter when light is a precious commodity. If I need to photograph something, I can make sure I get ready to take the photographs the day before, and won't have to faff about and wonder what else I need to get photographed! 

You could make this a daily system, but I don't have that much to do in a day, so I make it for the week, writing the date for a Monday at the top of the page. At the bottom of this page, I also make a note for Sunday night, to check my followers on Bloglovin'/GFC, and a total, so I can see if I gained a certain amount of followers that week, whether it was due to a certain post, or chat, etc... It's just helps to keep me motivated, I find.

On the opposite page, I use a few different headings that I'm still sort of configuring...

IDEAS: A little vague, but obvious at the same time - this is where I brainstorm and make notes of future blog posts, it might be a title or it might be a list, or a sentence, or just a word, it's just some space for me to jot down ideas when they come to me (this is usually whilst I'm writing other blogposts, so it's good to have this to hand). 

TWITTER CHAT SCHEDULES: For the longest time I was awful at forgetting when all the chats were, despite very helpful people taking the time to make blog-posts scheduling them all! I've taken to writing down the times and days of the chats that I actively take part it (mainly, #bdib and #lbloggers, but #healthyselves sometimes, I always forget about #fdbloggers). I like to tick them off when I've participated, to keep a track of when I can make it or not.

HAVE YOU...: This is to remind me to do all the blog admin that I need to do, basically! I'm shit at remembering stuff, plain and simply. My friends will know how rubbish I am at replying to texts, and blog admin is no exception. I think I'll adjust this in the future depending on how much use I find it, but I have a few main things to check off; Replied to comments, checked emails, scheduled tweets (the bane of my life, I always forget!), pinned posts (likewise!), shared on twitter. 

Have you tried a blogging planner, or have any tips on how to use one? I've found it's really motivated me in terms of planning posts and checking off lists. For example on Sunday, I knew I had a lot of things to photograph for future posts, so I made a small list of what things I need to photograph, for what posts, and blasted through all those pictures in about an hour! I'm finding it really useful, and hopefully I'll keep using it.

How do you keep organised on your blog?!

honesty, advice & integrity whilst blogging

A little while ago I got into a somewhat heated discussion with a couple of other bloggers on Twitter about honesty vs not telling the truth: I was slated for not explicitly telling everyone my mental health history, and in their eyes because of that, I was completely not allowed to talk about it as such. To me, this was ridiculous. I think everyone should talk more about mental health, regardless if you have diagnosed issues or not - this is the only way stigmas will end..
However, these thoughts have stayed with me since then, and now that I've gradually started talking more about ways to look after your mental health on my blog, and felt it was about time to post this disclaimer, even though it's sad that I even have to. 

For starters, I am so very intensely wary about talking about mental health on my blog, incase I say the wrong thing. I am no professional, obviously. I want to give people links here for the Samaritans, the NHS, Childline and the Mental Health Foundation, Time to Change - more links to help pages at the end of this post. When I talk about mental health it is very different to mental illness: to me, mental health is just looking after your general wellbeing, your psychological state of mind, etc, and mental illness will be a condition diagnosed by a GP or other health practitioner.

I touched on the subject in some of my more personal posts and generally in my life, and on my blog, I have never hidden the fact I have suffered from depression in the past; I am quite open about it. If you ask me, I will tell. If I think I can offer advice on the situation as someone who suffered badly when younger, I will. If I think I can help someone from doing something silly, sad, dangerous, or that they might regret, of course I will help. 

Unfortunately, stigmas surrounding mental health do exist, and despite the excellent work of campaigns like Time to Change, people do perceive people with mental health problems as lazy, or crazy, or any number of awful things. I exist in this world (how existential), and have to live with how other people perceive me, which makes me hesitant to present my entire medical history (I know, how surprising..). I'm not putting it all out there online, for future employers, partners, or friends to find out, before I tell them in person.

However, just because I don't share every last detail of my illness, it doesn't mean that I don't care, it doesn't mean that I can't help other people, it doesn't make my opinion invalid, it doesn't mean I cannot offer advice, and most of all, it does not mean that I am being dishonest with you, as readers. This is not an either/or thing, it is not that black and white, there is a whole spectrum of emotions and situations in-between honesty and lying.

The other thing to address is that in a world where impressional people (at any age) are so present online, I am wary of glamourising the illness in any way - there are other internet personalities out there that do this, and I find it highly disturbing. 

Most importantly, I am not trying to shy away from the fact that I have some problems with depression, and if anybody asks me, personally, I will offer advice if I can. I am not ashamed of it. Not in the slightest, I think it has made me a much stronger person. What I'm not going to do, though, is parade about my figurative or physical scars, in a bizarre attempt to convince people of my authenticity.

To summarise; I'm going to talk more about mental health and how to look after your mental health in general, on unciaandtigris.com, but I'm not giving you my life story, I'm not going to tell you the 'gory details' - for lack of a better phrase - but this doesn't make me any less able to talk about it.

Some links that I could find, not an exhaustive list, but hopefully a place to learn more: Samaritans, the NHS, Childline, the Mental Health Foundation, Rethink, the NHS depression help-page, Depression Alliance, Anxiety UK, beat, Bipolar UK, OCD UK, Royal Society of Psychiatrists.