My daughter Chloe's just turned 6 and one of the biggest daily (or rather twice daily) battles I used to have with her was about brushing her teeth...
I don't know what it was about it but she would make the biggest fuss, 'But Mummy do I HAVE to? But Mummy it's boring! But Mummy the toothbrush makes my nose hurt (!) so I'd have to chivvy her along and stand there while she brushed to make sure she actually cleaned her teeth.
Anyway, one day she'd been watching TV and she ran in and said 'Mummy, can we download the Oral B app onto your iPad please?' It's the first time she's EVER asked for me to download anything apart from games so I was surprised: 'Tell me why you want it, please' I told her. She told me it has Disney princesses that you can uncover while you brush your teeth.
So we downloaded it and sure enough, you have to scan a Disney character from a tube of toothpaste (phew, luckily we had some of the right kind) and it opens up a Disney scene that's covered in bubbles. There's a 2 minute timer and boppy music. And as you brush along, the toothbrush on screen brushes away the bubbles till, after 2 minutes, you get to see the picture.
I swear my daughter is a changed child...
Now she RUNS up the stairs after breakfast and before bed so that she can brush her teeth. She wants to see who the princess is this time - and she earns virtual stickers each time she brushes, with occasional EXTRA stickers as a reward. The 2 minutes fly by and she has FUN! And it's not just princesses, there are LOADS of Disney characters you can choose, so she'll never get bored.
Now let me share a little secret with you...
I used to dread writing blog posts (I know! Who'd have thought!) until I had my a-ha moment a year or so ago.
I realised that I was making it hard work.
I was trying to think of serious topics that you'd like to read but they all involved research and that just switched me off.
Until one day it dawned on me as I was reading something from my Facebook page that I have all the material I'll ever need because I'll write about what I see and hear and watch, day to day and how we can use it in our business. And that's fun!
So I've written about Chloe's swimming lesson, about things that ladies on my Facebook page have said, about issues my clients have faced, about The Hotel Inspector, about stuff I've learned.
I'll never run out of ideas now I've found a FUN way to write my blogs. It's not hard work, it's easy because I say what I see.
So it got me thinking about you, as these things do.
What are you making hard work in your marketing?
What's been sitting on your to-do list forever because it just feels like it will be boring?
What's been staring at you accusingly from your desk as if to say 'you'll have to tackle me sooner or later, or else!'?
And whatever it is, how can you make it FUN? How can you take the slog out of it? How can you make it easier for yourself?
Life's too short to spend time on stuff we don't enjoy so instead of avoiding it, I challenge you to find a way to make it fun and get it done.
Love, Claire
PS I'd love to hear what you came up with! Share your ideas in the comments about how you turn your 'icky' jobs into something fun x