- I’ve spent an enormous chunk of this year aware of a vague panicky feeling that the year is ALMOST OVER and I haven’t done ANYTHING. Now, yes, you’re looking at the calendar and you’re a bit confused; don’t worry, I’m the confused one, there really wasn’t any reason for me thinking June was basically December. And yet. Now here we are, one month away from the end of T2 (remember, I divide my year into thirds in line with school holidays – T2 = the second third) and I look at my list of goals for the period and I haven’t done ANYTHING.
Except spend really quite a lot of time interviewing for jobs, and finally getting two jobs, kind of at once. So that explains the lack of progress. But, yeesh. The last third isn’t really going to be any better. So basically, I was right; by the time June started (and with it, my job), practically speaking, my year was OVER. - So I’m going through my goal lists for this third AND next and giddily deleting projects. Wheeee! Such release! This and that and that: I mean sure would be nice but it’s NOT gonna happen, and really, I don’t care.
Many of these are marketing things. I actually decided a while ago that I’m just not interested in marketing my knitting designs particularly. I like Instagram when it’s personal expression. I love my Revue newsletter, but not when it’s a sales pitch. I don’t have time or energy or frankly motivation to work on my design blog. So what. I could put a lot of work into all those things, and still not raise my profile to anywhere near the level I’d need to make it pay off. So. I’m letting go. I put out a tiny handful of quality designs every year, and I’m proud of them, and that’s enough. Especially when I have a Real Job not only taking up my time and energy, but providing validation. Finally.
Wheeee! Goodbye, Mailchimp and blog and Insta related projects! Goodbye! - Also goodbye: all the various challenges I took on with such gusto in January. Some of them (daily photo walks) really didn’t last out the month. Others faded more slowly. But none of them are going to be met. Well, maybe reading 40 books in 2018; that’s possible. I think I’m on track there. But not the Book Riot list, and basically nothing else either.
- Mind you, I keep taking on new freelance clients (designer stuff: tech editing and copywriting and so on). Which is maybe an odd choice when I’m feeling so overcommitted. But I have only a tiny handful of clients, and the work typically takes only an hour or so at a time, which of course makes it all extremely unviable (for me) as a real career. But I enjoy it. I love combining the things I’m really good at with the thing I really love, and I’m proud to be working with some truly excellent designers. So I’m going to keep squeezing in those few hours, because in the long run I still have idle hopes that it could develop into something a little more. My client list has been quietly and slowly growing entirely without my effort, so that’s nice, anyway.
- I do wonder if I’ll ever learn to make time to simply BE. I believe quite deeply in the importance of actual leisure, and yet, I don’t seem to allow myself any. I’m always busy, always struggling to find corners of time to do anything at all. And I complain vigorously about that, but then I make choices that deprive me of yet more time. Got to sort that out, self.
Woolly thoughts (and fuzzy logic)
Sometimes I sits and knits, and sometimes I just sits.
Woolly thoughts (and fuzzy logic) 