COS×Market Art Fair

I just stumbled upon COS' Market Art Fair for past Summer and as everything COS does, this too is absolutely stunning. To celebrate this year's Market Art Fair, an annual gathering of leading Nordic galleries in Stockholm, they created a temporary social space and store installation inspired by the shapes and textures of the COS Spring Summer 2016 collection and by the looks of it, it was a brilliant success.

Photography: COS

COS × Market Art Fair

Why Your Blogging Efforts Are Not Paying Off

The Blogging world — what a mystery, am I right? One day we seem to be riding an endless wave of opportunities and the next one we feel like we’ve hit a sand bar face first. This, believe or not, is a common sentiment among all bloggers, myself included.

It’s no surprise that as our achievements ebb and flow, so does our passion and emotions about this career... and it’s a given that at some point we will all fall into a state of complete disinterest or anxiety about what the future has in store for us.

The thing is, we get used to the feeling of sending things off to the virtual world and having an immediate reaction from people — we send off a picture on Instagram and like counts start rising, giving us a feeling of accomplishment. 

Because of how automatic everything is nowadays, we forget how personal something like blogging is. Very unlike social media channels, blogging requires three things of you in order to get that feeling of satisfaction:

1. That you have an unwavering mission
2. That you know who you are in this story
3. That you have a strategy to get you to where you want to be

In my e-book, 30 Days To Minimal Blogging, I explain how essential mindfulness is in creating the blog of our dreams. That sense of awareness is what makes the difference in our lives day in and day out. It’s was solidifies that feeling of achievement even on days when nothing seems to be happening for us in this blogging career. Why? Because we know why we are doing this, who we want to be and how we will achieve it. There’s no undue fear... and that is a beautiful thing.

I’ve personally learned a lot in my years of blogging. I’ve learned about quality. I've learned that follower counts say nothing, that value is hidden in things that touch every chord in our lives and hearts — and above all, I’ve learned the value of focusing my efforts and mapping my steps, so that I can not only give of my best, but I can also do so without fear, anxiety and uncertainty.


“Although life and business are unpredictable, we need to set up a strategy (or safety net) to fall back on so we can continue to put one foot in front of the other without exhausting all of our resources and creating an antagonistic relationship with our work.

Real entrepreneurs do not simply turn over every stone until they run out of options. They follow a blueprint and are systematic about what they do, so they can see what gives them result when. That's clever not only in the business sense, but also in the sense of providing value to your clients. My technique of poking at things and investing an excruciating amount of time, money and energy only paid off insofar as qualifying me to write a dissertation on “How to Try Anything and Everything — and Still Hit A Brick Wall”. Now I can sit here and tell you... that's not going to work for you. 

I blame my lack of an immediate and appropriate response to the workaholic-glorified days we live in. Everything tells us to do more — which makes us feel lazy or guilty, because we think that productivity should always translate into money, lack ... ...of sleep or both. Thankfully, that is untrue — and we can still look at our future with the expectation of being successful and having something that more than resembles a life.”

Excerpted from 30 Days To Minimal Blogging — Chapter “Strategy” Page 252


If you feel like things have not been working out for you the way you wanted, it's important to understand that you haven't completely and utterly wasted your time...  you’ve actually gained more than you can imagine — and it can all pay off sooner rather than later. Right now, you can choose to throw in the towel... or you can do something unexpected and take a new approach to the blog you love so much.

This is not about visualizing, it’s not about expecting returns by doing nothing — it’s about knowing what you’re doing in a state of full awareness and feeling every day that you are doing what you love, because you will be doing exactly that.

Who of you feel like your efforts have not been paying off? Say “Me” in the comment section if you identify.

Feel free to learn more about my book, 30 Days To Minimal Blogging and purchase it today. Your download will start automatically after checkout and you can jump into it as soon as you receive it.

Photography: Kristina Krogh with thanks.

Why Your Blogging Efforts Are Not Paying Off

Outdoor Chairs

These stunning designs are part of Living Divani's new collection featuring brilliant designers: Massimo Mariani, David Lopez Quicoces and Piero Lissoni to mention just a few. Living Divani is a dynamic and vibrant family-owned company, that has successfully made its trademark of upholstery since the 1970's. Out of this wonderful Outdoor Collection I'm the most enticed by the George's Chair by David Lopez which displays a black supporting frame and wave in waxed rope, seat in solid Iroko wood — that of course, in combination with the Notes Table by Massiomo Mariani, as shown above, is a stunning work of art.

Photography: Tommaso Sartori
Styling: Ossino Studio

Outdoor Chairs

108 Restaurant by René Redzepi

René Redzepi is the renowned genius behind NOMA and now also the proud owner of the high-end restaurant 108.

SPACE Copenhagen is responsible for NOMA'S interiors as well as for transforming an ordinary warehouse into a stunning minimal industrial space for René's clients to feel comfortable. The furniture has also been designed by SPACE Copenhagen. The pendant lamps have been manufactured by Bomma and the restaurant’s woven chairs by Jørgen Bækmark.

The restaurant seats around 80 guests and includes a small bar serving coffee and wine. Altogether this space is a display of René's characteristic organic, Scandinavian approach. In fewer words, it is perfect.

Photography: Joachim Wichmann

108 Restaurant by René Redzepi

I wanted to tackle a topic that I know interests most of you and after a bit of lurking I came to the realization that Productivity is general concern, and rightly so. Most of us who blog are usually multi-passionate which puts a lot on our plates every single day.

Having a custom strategy is important to ensure that you don't have deadlines coming out of your ears, it's also essential in preventing burn out - but sometimes just taking the time to build a realistic plan is far from possible.

I'm not an expert when it comes to time management and productivity but I haven't gone insane... yet. I believe that at least qualifies me to tell you which bits and pieces of productivity advice have worked for me when I didn't have a strategy or at times when life's challenges have thrown that carefully planed structure out the window:

01. Write Sh*t Down
Dave Kolo's WSD productivity method is the thing that makes the most sense. If you have something in writing to remind you of what you're supposed to be doing and when you're supposed to do it chances are, you will do it.

02. If it takes less than 2 minutes, do it now!
Is part of Davi Allan's GTD philosophy. Why write it down or stress out about it when you can get it out of the way? Quick calls, short emails or even small household tasks. Get them out of the way before seeing them in writing overwhelms you. Now, this is only successful when you focus on 1-2 tasks. There's no point in this if you end up spending an hour doing 2-minute tasks.

03. Eat your frogs
"If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first." - Mark Twain.

Certainly Mr. Twain didn't paint the prettiest picture but it's great advice for those of us who constantly feel pushed to the point of not knowing where to get started completing our tasks. Work on the most difficult task first.

Simple.

04. Focus
This is something I've always done, even before reading more about productivity. My approach is similar to the Power Hour technique. It's about limiting yourself to focusing on one task for 1 hour - my only exception is that I change the time-frame according to my needs.

This works only if I don't reply to messages, personal emails or even worry about other work that might be queued. If you're a natural multitasker and you're happy juggling things all the time, this will be difficult but it's done wonders for me.

After completing the task, I allow myself the time for out-of-work activities for 10 minutes, I use those to stretch, fill up my water bottle or maybe send out a quick tweet about something completely unrelated to work and then carry on with the next task.

05. Relax and drink water
Believe or not one of the things that stop us from being highly productive is that we are in constant reaction mode, to the point in which our productivity becomes sporadic through out the day without letting us maintain a healthy pace.

We're also trained to think that caffeine equals alertness, therefor ups our productivity. The reality is that caffeinated drinks not only make our stress hormone go off the charts it also dehydrates our bodies. Dehydration causes mental fatigue which results in lack of concentration. I make it an every day ritual to drink at least 2 liters of water and you should too.

Not taking care of our minds and bodies is the perfect road to hitting brick-walls. When you are not working it is important that you give yourself true relaxation time, be as intentional with the "doing nothing" part as you are with the work. Make it a practical and mental exercise to disconnect from your lists and deadlines.

Whether you want to take your weekend off or a couple of hours of your every day, this will change your complete approach.

Try it.

You can apply one or all of the tips above by determining if it fits your lifestyle or not. The key thing to understand is that we will either run our day or the day will run us. Reclaim your productive life back by making it work for you.

How do you keep yourself from getting distracted throughout the day?

For more advice, tips and a full productivity strategy: Purchase my book 30 Days To Minimal Blogging.

Photography: Nina Holst with thanks.

How To Stay Productive When You Don't Have a System

Solid Studio

The beauty of natural fashion becomes more captivating as I see it evolve. The Russian-based Solid Studio Wear is a brilliant demonstration of organic fashion. Their minimal and conscious approach is pure perfection — touching on all key points without compromising look or quality.

I thought it would be hard to ever admit that I'm very much a supporter of wearing chokers — but that one above, I feel, completely justifies (and maybe even encourages) my opinion.

Photography: Solid Studio

Solid Studio