16. Links I saved in April + new co-worker

So, I now have a new co-worker.

Meet Luna. She contributes 0 in terms of productivity, 400% in sweet cuteness.

But she has a habit of falling asleep in places that put her in mortal danger.

Exhibit A: The metal wheel of my very metal, very heavy chair

Other places she’s fallen asleep at:

• Right in front of a hot oven

• In front of the door

• On the desk leg

I think all her favourite spots are places that put her in mortal danger lol.

OK, she’s quite cute. And she’s brought us a lot of joy. Even though we have to think about pee and poop regularly 😂 

Just look at that face!

It’s times like these when I’m quite happy I work from home, honestly! Am I slightly overwhelmed and tired? Yes, but it’s also a good kind of tired.

However, ever since becoming a paw-rent, my relationship with time and getting out of the house has drastically shifted.

1. This girl needs to be walked three times a day (Corgis are active bread loafs, ya know.). She also has taken to destroying rope toys.

2. Leaving our dog at home is still a work in progress. (We’re slowly building up that muscle and leaving her at home for a few hours is fine now. (I honestly think she’s fine but we do less dilly-dallying outside now cos we need (want to?) go home to our dog.

3. One perk of self-employment is full control of your schedule and time. When you have a dog, that balance shifts. You technically still have control over your schedule, but that now needs to account for another living being. Something I’m still coming to terms with! I guess I’m forced to get shit done with the smaller pockets of time I have!

I’ve never related so hard to a TikTok video in a while too.

@oakley_toks

Passive income streams = mom and dad #petsoftiktok #dogtok #dogsoftiktok #goldenretriever #goldenretrieverlife #puppytok #passiveincome

Tbh, I’m not sure how to connect this to marketing at all. Maybe it doesn’t have to be.

But this entire series of events and major shifts got me thinking about my relationship with time and energy. My content consumption and brands I look for have shifted as well. For now, it’s 70% influx of dog-related products and services and 30% cleaning products, lol.

Thoughtful links I saved in April

OK, so that this newsletter isn’t 100% about my dog (although I can talk about her for days), I also stumbled upon some pretty awesome links.

• Supporting each other (especially as small business owners and creators) can be your new marketing and networking strategy. Fantastic post and thoughtful guide on how to put this into practice by my friend Esther! I love this approach as it’s a positive breath of fresh air (shoutouts always spread good vibes!)

• What do people think about brands posting AI blogs (Threads). An eye-opening (informal) poll from Studio Cotton. The quantitative results were interesting, but what really got me thinking was the qualitative responses. Standout gem: “Blog posts should be where we get to see a business’s heart and personality. Getting that from a program that stole that ‘personality’ from thousands of unconsenting writers is horrible”. The entire poll and the thoughtful comments are worth a read.

• Overcome comparison with cake theory (Substack). This lovely essay rewired my brain out of scarcity thinking into abundance thinking. Really helpful if you’re a small business or solopreneur who’s comparing yourself to other people, something I struggle with at times!

• Massive library of team facilitation examples (SessionLab). Useful as examples if you’re writing about these topics, or to use in your next in-person workshop. It’s also a fantastic example of a content marketing resource!

• How Reading Patterns Can Help Us Optimize Content for Organic Search (Moz) Key takeaway: Many people who land on your content will just skim it looking for particular keywords. If they can’t find them quickly, they’ll bounce. Headings and subheadings are obvious places to pop those keywords to grab the reader’s attention. But don’t sleep on anchor text, which also stands out on the page and catches those scrollers’ eyes (while boosting your internal linking structure to boot)

   

Another random thing I found out recently. Pets.com redirects to petsmart.com and Toys.com redirects to toysrus.com/. Seriously good job to whoever secured these domains and made the redirect.

See you soon,

Joshua

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