Nicole Bianchi

Writing, Copywriting, & Marketing Strategies

5 Strategies to Boost Your Productivity While Working From Home

Published | Last Updated By Leave a Comment

Photo by Sixteen Miles Out

Since I’ve worked from home for over ten years, my daily routine hasn’t been affected very much. Everything feels like normal until I read the news or hear my neighbor’s high school age son playing basketball in the driveway during school hours.

But maybe you’re like many of my friends and family members and suddenly find yourself working from home for the first time. It can be a big adjustment from working in an office, especially if you have kids at home too.

That’s why I’ve written this article for you.

I’m sharing several tips and strategies I’ve collected over the years that help me boost my productivity while working from home.

I hope they will help you too as we all adapt to this difficult situation we’re currently experiencing.

Let’s dive in. [Read more…]

A Look Back at January 2020

Published | Last Updated By Leave a Comment

Notebooks with words "Field Notes" on cover and compass
Photo by Jordan Madrid on Unsplash

Hey, friends! Last August, I wrote up a recap of the month and thought it was a fun way to keep you updated on projects I’m working on as well as a way to share books I’ve recently read or movies I’ve watched that I thought you might enjoy.

Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to write any more monthly recaps in 2019, but I thought, “Why not try to revive it this year?” If you like this format and would like to see future posts like this, let me know in the comments.

Without further ado, here are some highlights of what I wrote, what I read, and what I watched this past month: [Read more…]

Two Essential Journals That Will Help You Achieve Your Goals

Published | Last Updated By Leave a Comment

Brown leather journal with compass on cover rests on top of a laptop | Two Essential Journals That Will Help You Achieve Your Goals
Photo by Colton Sturgeon

Have you set a big goal for the year? Maybe you plan to finally write a novel or start an email list or go to the gym each morning or learn a new language.

But maybe you’re also a little worried because you’ve broken New Year’s resolutions in the past.

You made significant progress towards your goals at first, but then your schedule became busier than you expected, your motivation ebbed, and those goals looked further and further out of reach.

Studies by Dr. John Norcross show that 60% of the people who make resolutions in January will no longer be following them by July.

Why are resolutions so difficult to keep?

“It’s human to slip up,” Dr. Norcross says. “Our evidence-based research shows that people who are successful at keeping their New Year’s resolutions slip as many times as people who are unsuccessful.”

It’s just that people who are unsuccessful slip up and give up. But people who are successful have systems in place that ensure they stay positive, pick themselves up, and learn from their slip-ups, tweaking their plan of action so they don’t fail again in the future.

Journaling is one of my favorite systems to use to help me stay accountable to my goals. In today’s post, I’m sharing my two journaling methods that help me track my progress on different projects, learn from my slip-ups, and motivate me to keep working towards my goals and not give up.

These journals have helped me build a successful blog and email list, learn three foreign languages, and finish many writing projects. I can’t wait to hear what they will help you achieve.

Let’s dive in. [Read more…]

Why I’m Joining NaNoWriMo This Year (And My Top 5 Tips on How to Win)

Published | Last Updated By 36 Comments

Closeup of typewriter keys
Photo by Camille Orgel on Unsplash

This is a post I first wrote in October 2016. Since I’m planning on participating in NaNoWriMo again this year, I decided to update and republish it.

November is only a few days away, and that means that National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo!) is nearly upon us.

If you’ve never heard of NaNoWriMo before, it’s a month-long event where writers challenge themselves to pen a 50,000-word novel (about the length of novels like The Great Gatsby or Fahrenheit 451).

The goal is to begin writing on the first of November and finish by midnight of November 30. You can plan and outline your story as much as you like beforehand, but the actual writing of the story can only be done during November.

Now, those are the official rules, but many writers adapt NaNoWriMo to their own goals. [Read more…]

What Charlotte Brontë Taught Me About Being a Writer

Published | Last Updated By 18 Comments

Portrait of Charlotte Bronte
Public Domain Image via WikiMedia

Charlotte Brontë dips her pen in the inkwell and begins to write. She and her sisters, Anne and Emily, have brought their desks into the parlor and are busy working on their stories. The rain taps soothingly on the windows of the parsonage, and Charlotte pauses from her work to stare out into the garden. Though she feels in her heart that this is the best story she has ever written, she still fears that the publishers might turn it down as they did with her last manuscript.

The gentle scratching of her sisters’ pens against paper rouses her from her thoughts. Shaking off her doubts, she examines the paragraphs in front of her. There isn’t time to worry about the future — she must only worry about putting her words on paper and getting her protagonist Jane out of this latest predicament with Mr. Rochester.

That was how I envisioned Charlotte Brontë, the author of Jane Eyre, as I gazed at her portable writing desk last December. No, I hadn’t been transported back to the 1840s to her home in West Yorkshire, England. (I wish I had, just for an afternoon! I would have loved to have taken tea with Charlotte and talked about writing with her and her sisters.)

Rather, I was visiting the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City for a special exhibition celebrating the 200th anniversary of Charlotte’s birth in 1816. [Read more…]