Free friday - question

1 comment

Today the last free friday question of the year!
If you have questions for 2013 about, blogging, being or becoming an illustrator, selling your products or having an Etsy shop, send me an email!

This question is from clix bee design:

Do you have the problem of having loads of ideas sometimes in different fields and not knowing where to start first, how do you select and get organized to get successful goals?

Oh yes, this is a classic! Having to many ideas and not enough time, a tricky fella...
a list of tips to get you organized:

1. write your ideas down, when they're on paper, they're no in your head.
2. keep a good journal or planner in which you write down all your appointments,
    projects and commissions. This way you know how much time you have left
    and what you can or can't do in a day.
    A easy way to do this is to print a sheet with 'planner: week/month' and hang it
    above your desk. You can fill in the projects and things to do on your wall planner.
3. learn to say 'no' to things that are not inspiring or helpful and by doing so, create
    time for the projects you love doing.
4. deal with one big project at the time. Trying to juggle all at once will only make
    you feel frustrated and inefficient.
5. make a collage above your desk with the things you love most, this will keep
    you focussed.

Let's say you have 5 ideas you'd love to pursue, which one do you start with?
Well, the simple answer to this question is: whatever you like most!
But sometimes you like more than one 'most' at once. In this case, try the project that looks like the easiest one that will take you not too much time to finish. During a short project you can learn just as much a during long projects and when beginning small, it's more likely you'll finish it with succes. This will motivate you to eventually start with a bigger project.

If you have a idea in mind that you need more knowledge for on a certain subject (let's say you want to make your own printed china), start with collecting information. Are there people around you who might know more about your subject, maybe someone on the internet? When I started my china I asked Camilla Engman where she had hers printed, that got me on straight on track.

If you have a clear endgoal in mind (for example: selling your china online), make a list of the steps you need to follow. In the printed china example your list could be like this:

1. gather information
2. find pretty china to print on
3. make
4. promotional material: business card, postcards, wrapping paper for orders, a logo, etc.
5. make good photos
6. open a webshop (on Etsy or somewhere else)
7. get the word out there: blog, tweet, write to magazines, or...

It helps to add a time schedule to these steps but be reasonable. Don't set it to tight, this will only make you fail to keep on track and that's very demotivating! Don't let it take too long either, or you'll have lot's of new plans in the meantime and want to move forward to that without finishing the current one.

The time schedule for the list above could be like:
1. week 1
2. week 2
3. week 3-4
4. week 5
5. week 6
6. week 7
7. week 8

This means you have reached your goal in 1.5 months.

Keep in mind you are a person (and not a robot) and you can only do a certain amount of projects at once. You have written you ideas down and they'll wait there till you're ready for the next one, no stress!

Have a good (and organized) weekend!

ps. I have to admit that although I am a very organized person, I too sometimes am overloaded with ideas and projects and get a bit lost one the way. But it's an ongoing learning proces... ;-)

1 comment:

  1. I just love your friday questions. You're so open and willing to help others! Thank you!

    With today's question, I only realized I was struggling with this myself when I was reading it. So I'm definitely gonna bear this in mind.

    ReplyDelete

all content on this blog © Kim Welling unless stated otherwise. Powered by Blogger.