Archive / keepin it real

life is cray cray

Yeah, cray cray. But i’m still alive! If you’re wondering where I’ve been, here’s a quick life update!

I’m crazy busy but for all good reasons.

We found an amazing house that we hope to move into at the end of May! And when I say we, I mean Chris. I’m leaving for New York with the ladies in my family in two weeks which leaves my poor guy to make the move alone. Thankfully we have some pretty great friends who are going to help him out.

My days are currently filled with packing up our house, meetings with clients ( like the image above ) and working on design projects that must be completed before I leave.

I will be sharing finished design projects, amazing clients, adventures in New York and our new home very soon! Until then, I’ll be in my design cave. ;)

Thanks for being awesome!

it’s time to take a step back

Dear friends, today’s post is going to get real.

As you know, last week I took a break from blogging while I was sick. In between the ridiculous amounts of sleeping as I tried to kick the nastiness, I did a lot of thinking and reading – the main topic seemed to be time management. This is something that has been on my mind a lot lately and last week I was finally honest with myself about how I spend my time.

I’d say over 50% of my “work” time is spent blogging. While most of my design clients find me through the blog, I don’t make any money from the blog itself. Something needs to change. I’ve decided to slow down my posting schedule, at least for now. Here are a few reasons I’ve made this decision:

I’m done with the fluff. If we’re being honest, I think we’re all done with it. We want high quality, original content. Everything else could be considered a waste of time. Because I value your time as well as mine, I’m only going to spend time preparing posts that are worth your time to read.
My business has been put on the back burner for too long. I constantly feel the need to update contracts, polish my process and create products for the shop and these are the “to do’s” that get pushed back day after day. I want to offer the best service possible so I’m going to have to devote more time to making that happen.
I need to make time to let life happen. Let’s be real… if all I do is blog, my posts are going to be incredibly boring because I’ll have nothing to talk about! Speaking of that… want to know a secret? We’re moving soon! Just to a different area of Jacksonville but we’re hoping to buy a house so it is super exciting.

So, in order to create time for finding a house, moving, taking on more design jobs, bettering my business and making big changes in my business ( more on that later ), I am only going to commit to posting twice a week instead of everyday for a while. Of course, if inspiration strikes, I’ll post more than that!

Thanks for being awesome!

I’d love to hear your thoughts. How often do you post? Why do we put pressure on ourselves to post everyday, anyway?

the year

It’s Monday and I’m actually super excited to jump back into work after being sick! ( I’m not totally better yet, but I’m getting there! Yay! )

My creativity was completely drained last week but I have a good feeling about the next few days. Today I’ve carved out some time to sit down with Sarah and Taylor to brainstorm plans for 2013 and really talk through our business goals. We’ve said 2013 is the year for a while now. Not quite sure what it’s the year of yet… maybe change?
What plans/goals do you have for your life/business for the rest of 2013?

Photography by Sarahdipity Photos for Create Like Crazy

easter + tissues

We’re back home from a great weekend making memories and eating a LOT of good food!

Apparently my body couldn’t keep up with the excitement of the weekend so please excuse the shortage of posts this week! I’ll be hanging out with my buddies NyQuil and Kleenex for a few days. I’m going to try to keep up with emails and design work while taking the hint – I need to slow down a bit!

I hope you all had a fabulous Easter weekend celebrating!

embarrassing/encouraging

From where I’m sitting it seems that most creatives that are doing really great work don’t think of themselves as being the best. They’re never completely satisfied with their work. Don’t get me wrong, we should all be striving to become a better version of ourselves, but confidence is something a creative entrepreneur absolutely must have. After all, if you don’t believe in yourself and your work, why should your clients?

I’ve found that when I’m feeling discouraged and needing help in the confidence department, a little look back to the past is just the encouragement I need. ( That’s why I keep a list of accomplishments + exciting moments – I’ve started calling them “yay moments” )

This time, I found that confidence boost when I looked at the first images I posted on instagram for the world to see.

Eeeeek! They’re so dark and cluttered! After I got over my embarrassment, I was encouraged by the huge improvement in my work. It’s really exciting to think about the growth that is possible is such a short time! I’ll probably look back at blog posts a year from now and be completely embarrassed all over again. Haha!

So friends, be encouraged. And remember that you have to do a lot of really bad work to get to the good stuff – so start cranking out some work! ;)

learning to manage my time …with post it notes

Whew, we made it through another Monday! Most of the time, the first day of my week is spent feeling a little overwhelmed with all that I have to accomplish before the next weekend. I try to devote part of my day to creating a game plan for how I will get everything done. Time management has been a struggle for me since I became my own boss and I don’t think I’ll ever have it completely figured out, but I can share what I’ve learned so far and what is working for me right now.

When I posted this picture on instagram of my organized mess of post it notes, a few of you asked how it works so here it goes!

I’ve tried multiple ways of organizing my work flow, ideas and schedule. Since I have so many different things I’m juggling on a daily basis, I was having trouble finding a way that really helped me get all of the lists out of my mind and organized clearly where I could see it all easily.

Side note: I’ll talking about clearing brain space in today’s email to the CLC insiders. If you’re not on the list you can jump on right here!

Since most of my work is done online, I always find myself going back to paper and pencil whenever possible. My gold planner never leaves my side! Because of this, I always found myself writing things on post its and sticking them all over my desk + wall where I could see them easily. Of course, this got so messy it just added to my stress so the post it time management board was born! Hah!

It’s super rough ( I’m kind of embarrassed to show it on here ) + I’m planning to take this idea and clean it up a bit – maybe with a more legit board and some paint – but this is what works for me right now! In the left column I’ve organized the different categories of my life/work by color and then brain dumped in the lower section. Then I moved all of the tasks/events that need to happen within the month into the lower right section. Each week I organize things that need to happen within the week into the day columns. Some post it notes say “laundry” and “lunch with mom” which happen ( or should happen.. haha ) every week and stay on the board so I can make sure to plan around them.

Like I said, this is what works for me right now. An app or online calendar might serve you better and thats great! The key is to find something that helps you get all of those “to do’s” out of your head so you can use that valuable brain space for actually creating and marking things off your list.

I’m always looking for ways that will work better so please, share!

How to you manage your time? Have you found any creative ways that work for you?

CREATE LIKE CRAZY

empowering the creative in you

☰ Navigation