Last year, I published a video detailing my favorite things of 2015 and it ended up being really popular, so I’m recreating the magic by sharing my top 10 favorite things from 2016.
It ranges from my favorite non-fiction book to my favorite candle to my favorite planner. Some are personal and some are business-related.
Here are the links to all the things I mentioned in the video so that you can easily find them:
1. My embroidered watercolor painting: I used this for the cover of my ebook, Blogging for Business.
2. Day Designer: I use this for all of my daily planning.
3. Bullet Journaling: I use this to keep all of my lists, plans for upcoming projects, ideas for blog posts and marketing and more.
4. Grit by Angela Duckworth: If you think success comes from persistence and passion, you’ll love this book. I wish we could make this required reading for all teens, entrepreneurs and parents.
5. Master Your People Skills with Vanessa Van Edwards: I learned so many things from this course including how to be memorable when first meeting someone, how to be a better public speaker and when you should approach someone at a networking event. Attending a conference this upcoming year? Take this course and you’ll feel confident walking through the doors.
6. Tobacco and Patchouli Candle: It’s an intoxicating, warm scent. This is what my house smells like all the time. I burn them every day and I have the reed diffusers of the same scent in every single room.
7. A Color Story App: Stop struggling to edit photos on your phone. This app will make your photos pop with brilliant color.
8. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah: If you like historical fiction with romance, you have to pick this one up. It was engaging and sad and beautiful.
9. Sunday Society: My membership program for creative entrepreneurs.
10. My new website design and Amanda Creek: Amanda did such an amazing job of combining my photos, watercolors and copy into a modern, bright design. Amanda deserves a parade of giant unicorns blowing glitter into the air for the work she did on my website. Love you to bits!
What were some of your favorite things in 2016? Did you have a favorite business book? A favorite course you took? A favorite beauty product? Share it in the comments below.
None of the links above are affiliate links. I want you to know that I genuinely loved every single one of these things.
I have a couple of top 10’s April. One is Sunday Society 🙂 and my twin grandsons were born and I made my first Calendar with my Flower Photo Art. Love your top 10 especially the phone apps you mentioned.
Last year I discovered my all time favourite book series! Throne of Glass.
I swear I read each book in 1-2 days!
Last year I also re-discovered my passion for art & craft (which will be the focus of my blog!) & I decided to go to Grad school and do a grad diploma in Computer Graphic Design.
AWWWW – Yay Amanda! This website is so gorgeous!
My top 3 for 2016 :
1. My website redesign (also!) I totally get how much work goes into it and I’m so thrilled with the way my new site came out!
2. My Signature Art Journal is finally going to be ready to ship soon – I worked nearly all last year on it and I’m so so proud of it.
3. Sunday Society for sure! This group of amazing ladies and of course the amazing April, have been a game changer for my biz. I’m forever grateful to have found a biz home here!
Oh my goodness! I’m on your list?! What?! How can that even be a thing?! hahaha
This totally made my entire day. 🙂 Thank you for making my 2016 one of the best years ever.
Eeeeeee! just added those to books to my amazon cart. I absolutely adore bullet journalling and Amamnda Creek 😀
A couple of my favourites in 2016 are:
*my iphone SE. I have tiny hands and did not want to have to get the iphone6, I kept dropping my husband’s because it’s too big. The SE is all the awesome tech in a smaller phone 😀
*My Plan your Dreams class at Big Picture Classes. I poured my heart and soul into that class, and am sooo proud of it. The best part though, is when I get messages from ladies telling me how much I helped them change their lives 😀
Favourite or memorable or both?
One of the top 2 is certainly you & the other is connected to you -CreativeLive!
l know you’ve been around awhile but I had no idea and while researching travel blogging came across a right hand bar ad for your blogging course on Creatuve Life on Adventurous Kate blog. Inhad never heard of creative Live either for my luck your course was On Air that day. Otherwise I wouldnt have stayed on Creative Live perhaps. The timing was perfect at the start of the summer holidays with enough tine to be the internet addict that I am – and how glad & grateful am I that I clicked on that advertising link and didnt go on to another webpage.
It’s been a gane changer – not only did I go onto buy all your Creative Live courses and offers here but I alao got my inteoduction to all the goodies at Creative Live. They should pay you a commission on everything I have bought there since then 🙂
3. Listening to & getting all the tips on the New Economy business finally consolidated my desire to set up my own adult education & training school and also its format – not bricks & mortar but online and coming up in 2017!
4. I also retrasced my steps back to my creative self – after more than a decade thanks to you and am so grad about that too and enjoy working with my hands creatively a bit again.
5. My MacBook Pro – my first Apple laptop! I hace been an iPhone user from the first one and love all my latest iPhones and iPad Minis but was not using the MacBooks. Again I was inspired by seeing you and all your friends here using them 😉
6. Tolkien – Lost Tales. What can I say? I devour the Ring series every year but this is my first foray beyond them and Silmarillion is waiting on my bookshelf too.
7. $100 Start Up – got it at last unscramblimg my brain after mixing up its and 4-Hour week authors on your book post comments 😀
8. A new big institutional training client with long tern training contracts
9. New course series at an old institutional client and at a better rate 🙂
10. Jewellery – a real gold cased watch and a real pearl necklace. This is very rare for me as my money usually goes on books books and more books.
There is a good lot to be gratehul for and that is so inspiring for me at the start of 2017 April. Thank you for making me reflect. At the start of writing I had only you & CreativeLive in my head as positives !
Super fun video April!!! Yeah, I would never think that candle would be all that, but you have me intrigued. Especially the tobacco part. How is that a thing????? But I trust you completely, as you know!!
Ok,so some of my favorites for 2016 are
1. Investing in a Micro 4/3s camera system. I bought an Olympus Pen 7 to use for my tutorial and instagram photography. It’s been life changing. It’s light weight and easy to use, and I can shoot the same work flow as my dslr, so there is continuity in my photographs which is important to me. I can’t recommend the camera highly enough. I also bought the prime 25mm 1.8 lens which is what I use 95% of the time. Love it.
2. Investing in a new computer. This was hard, because of the expense. But my old machine would not handle video files, and I want to get seriously into doing video now. I felt stuck. So I made the decision to invest in the new machine that allows me to start making my videos. I knew I was limiting my growth by not getting into video, and that was not acceptable.
3. Working with you early in the year in a private coaching arrangement. That really got me on the road with my business and got me to think about what I’m doing in a new light.
4. I also put together a new website this year, and I love it! I get complements on it all the time and it does exactly what I need it to do. It’s a huge expense, but it’s important.
5. Taking photography classes with Makelight. I adore Emily Quinton of Makelight, and I learned sooooo much from her when it comes to making the most of your instagram account. Even though I have taken photos for years, coming up with interesting styled photos for instagram was a serious challenge for me. And creating interesting photo tutorials for the blog was really difficult. Taking her courses really helped. I have a dream of traveling to England to participate in her in-person photo and craft retreat. Hoping lucky 2018 will be the year I can make that happen.
So I invested heavily in my business in 2016. My goals for 2017 is to work the heck out of those investments and get them to start paying me back. An online business is a long term plan and I’m excited to finally have the bits and pieces I need to get me to where I want to go.
Great suggestions, I’m always looking for inspiring books to read so now I could add more to my list.
My top 10 things from 2016
1. Double Your Followers with Creative Marketing on CreativeLive
2. Storytime Daycare in Richmond Hill, Ontario where my son goes (the best and reasonably priced daycare in my area with amazing staff). My son laughs and had a big smile every morning.
3. My ballerina pink planner from Green & Lyme
4. My Nespresso Pixie machine – best coffee every time, no more need for Starbucks
5. Minimalist Baker everyday cooking from Dana Shultz
6. Fascinate by Sally Hogshead
7. The Yoga Studio app for iPhone
8. Lightcase Flatlay for taking perfect flatly shots for Instagram with your iPhone
9. Richmond Hill Public Library – in my opinion libraries are great work environments for suburban mompreneurs who want to escape from household duties and stay productive
10. Trans Siberian Orchestra concert – a must see for everyone who loves rock music and Christmas
Hah, I made a list of my favorite things in 2016 as well 🙂 (linked in the CommentLuv below).
I didn’t mention any of my own stuff though, so here’s what I’m most proud of:
* My first paid workshop with over 30 people, and it was amazing.
* My first conference talks, and being chosen the best speaker by the audience! Woot!
* My new free class “Revamp Your Brand In One Day” – I recommend this to any biz owner.
* Calligraphy plus drawing experiments that uncovered a whole new art direction I want to try.
There was a lot of good stuff to celebrate this year.
The book I can’t recommend enough is “Start Something That Matters” by Blake Mycoskie (the founder of TOMS). It changed my life and the way I look at my business!
I’ve also been loving Sunday Society. Such a great resource of minds, ideas, and organization for 2017.
What a fun video, April! Definitely gonna try some of your favs. My top favourite things of last year:
Blacksburgbelle – helping me move forward, motivation, inspiration
Girlgaze project on Instagram highlighting female photographers
My mum’s rescue cats
Jari Rättyä & Käärmekeitto – my favourite band that I have also worked with as a designer, photographer and video maker
Dita von Teese – for inspiring a whole new feminine side in me, her perfume Erotique, lingerie and book – Your Beauty Mark
Redesigning my website finally
Red lipstick – an instant pick-me-up (e.g. Loreal Color Riche – JLo)
iPhone 6 – finally having a fast phone with a good camera
Hours app for time tracking projects and tasks
Keeping a notebook with my ideas, projects, things I learn etc.
Thank you so much for sharing your passions with us. I’ve made a tonne of notes. I love love my daily planner too! Besides being so pretty with pictures of Paris all over it, it helps me sleep! I can relax when my next few days are organised properly. The worst thing is getting a great idea and my planner being out of arms reach, especially as I usually have 3 sleeping dogs on the sofa with me! I’m often trapped under a fluffy mound! Can they be in my list too…?
I love the bullet journal, too. I’ll need to exercise with it a little more. But I am using some of it’s principles of keeping track of tasks into my planner.
Awesome list – I’m a proponent of a good planner. My list …
1. Coolpad phone. It’s a $20 Android and it’s been perfect. Not fancy, just functional.
2. A Dog’s Purpose, W. Bruce Cameron. This audiobook gave me a whole new take on man’s best friend. 2017 will see me become a dog owner as a result.
3. The Future of God, Deepak Chopra. As a practicing Buddhist, I felt closer to my Christian roots after hearing his words.
4. Lovely Beards ointment. 2016 saw my first beard. It’s under construction, but this product makes it feel soft and … you know, pretty.
5. Meditation. It’s gone from a weekly to a daily routine.
I totally agree with you in your top 1. Blogging for business. I’m actually teaching myself different platforms to make my blog. I am using Weebly right now. I am planning to open my own online store as well. Thanks for sharing your top favorite things of 2016. Mine is for 2017. Have you made a list for this year?
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