How to Dress for Remote Work – Fashion Trends for Pandemic Life Part 2

After a year of remote work, are you ready to set aside your hoodies and sweatpants and dust off your business suits? I miss how dressing up for client meetings made me feel. Let’s capture that feeling again! If you’re still working from home, start off the new year by looking powerfully stylish. Here are some fashion trends for pandemic life to release the negativity of the past year and dress you up for remote work.

Masks and Fresh Faces

Like Superman and Clark Kent, or Supergirl and Kara Danvers, the pandemic has given me a new fashion trend and a new identity. Bear with me for a few paragraphs while I explain. I miss wearing full makeup when I go out. Wearing lipstick and then smearing it on my mask seemed counterproductive. Instead, my mask became the fashion accessory for the lower half of my face.

A disposable mask says, “you’re practical.” A homemade mask with patterns or solid colors became an extension of my wardrobe. Mixing and matching clothes and masks is now the “in” thing. I learned to smile with my eyes as a new way to connect with people, instead of smiling with my mouth. Walking into a bank with a mask on was finally acceptable.

A half-hidden face was like a Supergirl identity. I revealed the real me when I got home. I could wear makeup and try a new hairstyle for my next virtual meeting. The camera was my fashion runway. My secret identity, my entire face, was exposed to the world only in the virtual world. When I next go out, I’ll be disguised again, at least, until this pandemic is over.

Recycle It or Do It Yourself (DIY) Fashion

A fashion trend I’m seeing on Instagram and TikTok is making old clothes new again. Most of us have a shirt or a cardigan. Now if you tuck in that shirt or cardigan just above the waist, you’re accenting your waist and wearing old clothes a new way.

Updating old looks is easy if all we have to do is find what we have and wear it differently than before. These days, with restrictions on our social lives and where we can go, it’s handy to be able to shop at our own homes and be trendy. For those of us hit hard financially during the pandemic, being able to refresh old items is especially good news. Recycling is also good for the environment.

Do it yourself fashion is also a trend. Creating new looks seems as simple as watching a video and following a few steps. I’m a bit hesitant to cut away at old items or colour old items to create something new that I’ll wear in public. But if you’re handy with your hands, DIY is an option to look into.

After dressing down for almost a year, it’s time for a change. Some people are dressing up with brand name yoga wear. It’s still casual, but trendier. I’m ready to update old clothes – wearing my skirt, shirt, and cardigan 2021 style. Dressing up to work at home can put me into a professional and productive mindset.

Online Vs Brick and Mortar Trend

Another fashion trend for pandemic life is online shopping. For those who have a sense of what clothes fit them just by eyeballing photos, online clothes shopping is both convenient and safe.

You can avoid the malls and lineups. If you have health issues, online shopping keeps you safe. Most conveniently, you can shop during your coffee break while you work from home.

As an entrepreneur myself, I would encourage people to shop brick and mortar small businesses, such as clothing boutiques.

Summary

It’s time to refresh your look for the new year. If you’ve been working remotely for a year, you can liven up your pandemic life by trying out some new fashion trends. Dressing up can make you look and feel good. Most importantly, we can recapture how wonderful it felt to look fantastic while at work.

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to make sure you don’t miss the next post!

Mindset Monday: Dealing with Distraction

Distractions can be relaxing. Distractions can be harmful. How you deal with distractions determines if you can manage your time or watch it slip away on you. This week, keeping myself focused has been challenging, but I’ve been able to stay on task by working on three key things.

First, I divide my life into compartments to avoid distractions. My personal life stays in its own room and my work life lives in another. This week a close relative has been very ill and I’ve been tired from running errands on her behalf. The situation has been stressful for the family. I’m constantly worried about how she’s doing. However, when it’s time to work, I mentally go into my work room, close the door, and focus only on the task at hand.

Second, I deal with negative distractions by making a list of priorities and assigning an amount of time for each priority. What work tasks do I need to get done by today and which tasks can be done another day if an emergency arises? Sometimes I need to drop what I’m doing and deal with the family situation. Often this means letting go of original plans and revising my list of priorities and tasks to complete.

Third, I set aside time for self care. You could also say I give myself time to become lost in happy distractions. Most times I can keep different aspects of my life in different rooms, but sometimes my mind wanders while I work and I start to worry about my family and how we are all coping with the situation. Setting aside time to do something you enjoy, such as listening to music, watching a movie, or savouring your favourite dessert is a needed break.

What do you do when distractions pull you in multiple directions?

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to make sure you don’t miss the next post!

How to Make New Year’s Resolutions You Will Keep

Should you make New Year’s resolutions? A quick search on the internet revealed that only 8% will achieve their resolutions for the year. That statistic suggests that it may be easier not to make resolutions at all! However, by making one small change, you can make New Year’s resolutions that you will keep.

I admit that I’ve made resolutions in the past and failed to achieve them. Over the years, I’ve alternated between making resolutions and deciding they are a hopeless cause. For 2021, I’ve decided to return to making a few New Year’s resolutions that I will achieve by year’s end. Here is my strategy for making this year a successful one for setting goals.

Firstly, I’m going to make my list compact and realistic. I have a habit of making an ambitious list with 10 to 20 items, a smorgasbord of personal, professional, health, and financial goals. The list was more of a description of my ideal reality instead of what I really could accomplish. For example, writing a fiction novel was one of my resolutions for many years. But as the years progressed, time and time again, I got sidetracked with writing projects that immediately paid the bills.

This year, I’ve chosen three main goals that are achievable. To check if my goals are achievable, I’ve made a list of questions for myself. For example, is my goal aligned with my career priorities? Is my goal aligned with my life priorities for 2021 (not any time five years into the future)? Have I made a step-by-step plan that I can easily follow from day to day and week to week? Goals are easier to complete if you break them down into smaller pieces.

With only three main goals, it’s easier to track what I’ve done. Each week, I’ll check how much progress I made on my goal. I will reward myself for working on the goal, even if my progress is as small as baby steps. Sometimes we judge ourselves too harshly and we become discouraged if we don’t get as far as we like.

Finally, have a clear end point in mind. “Writing a bunch of blogs” does not have a clear end goal, but “writing five blogs a week” is crystal clear. If I have been writing five blogs a week for twelve months, then at the end of 2021, I will have succeeded at my goal.

Flexibility is important also. If I find writing five blogs a week is too overwhelming, then I’ll change or modify the goal to make it more achievable. For example, I’ll write five short blogs instead of long ones, or write only three long blog posts.

Resolutions are achievable! Keep your resolutions simple and realistic and constantly track your progress.

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to make sure you don’t miss the next post!

Pandemic Year Fashion: What to Wear New Year’s Eve

What will you be wearing to say goodbye to 2020 and to usher in the new year? After nearly a year of working from home and spending most days at home, I’m craving sparkly party dresses, heels, make up, and a night about town. A return to the normal, so we can pretend this past year never happened.

Reality has different demands. In this part of the world, large parties have been cancelled and at-home celebrations with immediate household members have been encouraged. That demand from health authorities may be a relief to some.

Especially in a year of economic hardship, this year may be more difficult than in the past to out-do yourself with party planning. Elegant New Year’s Eve wear and extravagant NYE events can be stressful for more than your pocketbook. Now we have an excuse to tone it down and not spend hundreds of dollars on fashion and venues.  

If you’re planning on your party at home with your family and household, will you be dressing up for a night about town home? I want to be optimistic about the coming year. We all want life to return to normal.

Let’s celebrate that and put on our best New Year’s Eve party wear. For you, that may be New Year’s Eve formal black tie or cocktail wear. Or it might be your best shirt and jeans. Doesn’t matter. Mindset is what matters on the inside. On the outside, we project what we believe. Let’s look our best to say goodbye to 2020 and an optimistic hello to 2021.

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to make sure you don’t miss the next post!

What Job Skills Should You Improve On If You Don’t Have a Job

This year – 2020, the pandemic year – was a rough one. If you’re one of the thousands who lost your job and you’re not having any luck finding another, what should you do with your time? Working on your job skills is one option, but what skills should you improve on?

Learning a whole new profession is probably not the best option unless you’re absolutely sure that your current career doesn’t hold a future for you. A new profession would mean learning a new set of skills and building a new network of professional connections.

Instead of a complete change, you can work on a new skill or skills that are similar to the skill set that you currently have. For example, if you were working in the marketing field, learn something new about social media or branch out into affiliate marketing if you weren’t working on that before.

Look into taking free courses such as those offered by HubSpot and LinkedIn, paid courses, or educational YouTube videos. I’ve learned new job skills, new ways to find work, and new platforms and software just by investing a few minutes each day into my professional development. Don’t forget about reading some juicy books that will teach you new skills or a new mindset as well.

Other options include joining Facebook groups for specific fields and industries to find work. These are a source for job leads as well as learning about job finding tips and trends in job hunting and in your industry.

Subscribing to online magazines are another source of information about trends in specific industries as well as the latest information on job hunting.

By learning about latest trends, you can stay on top of the skills that specific markets are looking for. These skills or this software should be the ones that are top of mind for what you’ll learn next.

Don’t forget to read job postings in your field that you aren’t interested in applying for. Maybe you aren’t interested in working for that company or the job isn’t an exact match for what you want, or you aren’t yet qualified for the job. However, it will give you ideas about what is available in the job market and what jargon to use in your job application. 

Volunteer work is also another way to build your skills. Work on projects to develop new skills or keep current ones fresh. Add these projects to your resume.

Improving on your job skills will help you find work in the same or similar fields. It will also keep your resume current and may even open doors for jobs that you didn’t qualify for before your skills upgrading.

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to make sure you don’t miss the next post!