Oh man, so -- where to begin?!
On a whim last week I made this baby website public and then I wondered, "Oh no, what is my next step?"
And to be honest, at the thought of figuring out that next step, I felt paralyzed.
A part of me wanted to just grab a bunch of my work samples from school and the last year, and stick them on the website, just to have work to show. I came really close to doing that, but when I started to look over my work samples, I realized I wanted to change all of them some of them. Especially the ones from when I was in school; I've learned more since then and there are other design decisions I'd make now!
Another part of me wanted to show progress of some kind to you, my readers, but then I didn't have time to make any progress in the website design, so I couldn't.
So I did what I always do when I have a brain full of ideas and no idea where to start: I dumped them out. On paper. With a pen.
The first sheet is ideas for what I will blog about in this new space.
The second sheet is ideas for what needs to be done on this website.
Now, my other strategy for working through my ideas and figuring out needs to happen next, is to take a walk, and that's where the photo at the top of this post comes in. It's from a walk I took in the woods near my house, the other day. It's funny how I forget, until I am outside walking along, just how much good a walk does for me! The fresh air, the blue sky, the silence surrounding the crunch of my boots on the snow... all of that is a healing balm for my soul.
So, I guess this is my progress since last week! I've been walking, and scribbling, and thinking about what my plan is for this blog and this space.
Here's what I know so far:
- I want to blog once a week. This is way less than I used to post on my old blog (I aimed for daily), but it's about what I can handle right now. Being realistic and working with the time I have available is key, I think, to actually succeeding. Plus, my goal right now isn't to build a big blog audience (which is when you would want to blog consistently and daily), it is to work within my real life, and share progress, and I think once a week is a good sort-of "check in" point.
- I want to treat myself like my own client, and go through the whole process of design, from start to finish. That includes the hard work at the beginning of the process, of digging in to what my goals are, what my brand is, and spending time polishing up the samples of my work. All this work is not sexy, and it won't look on the surface like much is changing, but if I'm building a business that will last 40 years, it should have a solid foundation, right? These things take time.
- Part of treating myself like my own client is making sure I have time available to do the work. This means not taking on any new clients at the moment. Committing to myself that much, by saying no to potential work and let's face it, money, is kinda scary! But it also feels really good.
- I'm excited!
I'd love to hear from you... if you have questions or thoughts on my design process, or on building a business, or on anything at all really, get in touch!