/

So, at the start of the year I announced a few changes that you’re going to see coming into play throughout the next few months on this blog and also in my work more generally.

I’ve made those changes because in 2018 I want to really find some more focus in my work. I feel like last year I laid a lot of groundwork, I got my hands dirty, but in order to grow I need a focus to grow towards. In order to achieve a goal you need to know what that goal is*. That meant doing some serious thinking at the start of this year.

Having a focus or purpose behind your work is often described as this moment of divine inspiration. You just need to “find your niche” or “follow your passion”. For me at least, it hasn’t been that simple. I’m interested in lots of things, and I don’t know that I have an automatic “niche” especially within my non-blog work.

So, I decided to set myself some homework, in the same way that I would for a client. Now that I’ve done it myself, and seen what works, I thought I’d share it with you in case anyone else hasn’t had their purpose just leap out and grab them, or if you just want to have a bit of a refresh and remind yourself what it is you’re trying to do.

I wrote out the 8 questions below out on cue cards and did my best to answer them. I used cue cards to give me something physical to work on because I always like to have a tangible outcome. Using individual cards also meant I could switch around the order, and answer the ones I knew first and then move onto the harder ones. I divided my cards down the middle so I could answer the questions for the blog and my personal work separately, but you could also go with a project per set of cards.

While they’re only simple questions, don’t be fooled into thinking that answering them is a quick or easy task. It took me a good chunk of time to work out what the best answer to each one of them was.

I’ve put my answers below each of the questions to give you a bit of an idea as to how you might answer, and to keep me honest.

1. What do I want to get out of this?

  • Share my learnings and encourage others to pursue their creative interests
  • Establish myself as a thought leader around design, creativity and productivity
  • Add depth/credibility to my design and illustration practice

2. Who is my audience?

  • Essentially people like me
  • People interested in learning more about design/creativity
  • Young professional women mostly

3. How do I want my work to make people feel?

  • Informed
  • Empowered
  • Like they have a slightly different take on the world around them

4. What can I offer?

  • Illustrated blog posts – something more editorial compared to a lot of lifestyle blogs
  • Insight into my dual roles
  • My experience as a junior illustrator/service designer
  • Researched editorial content – use my English degree
  • Curation of the wild web

5. What are my core values?

  • Honesty
  • Consideration – work that’s thoughtful
  • Inclusivity

6. What is the personality of my work?

  • Credible
  • Friendly
  • Straightforward

7. How do I want my work to be known?

  • As smart and good to look at

8. Can you sum that all up succinctly?

I want to create work that’s considered and well easy on the eye, which encourages people to see design in the world around them.

 

Now that I’ve put some work into finding a focus for my work. I’m going to try and anchor everything I do to that purpose, because it’s a big one. So, every blog post I write, every time I take on some work around this platform, every time I start to think about a new social media series I’m going to ask myself how does this link to my mission statement?

I might even pin it up in massive lettering above my desk so I can’t avoid it.

*By the way, in all of this it’s also 100% okay if your end goal in your blogging or creative outlet is just to have fun. In fact, it’s super useful to identify that, so you can use it as a reminder not to take on anything you’re not going to have fun doing or get something enjoyable out of at the end.

/

I know we’re already in mid-January, but I know I, at least, am still trying to organize my life and get on track for 2018. One of the tools I’ve been using to do that is the Kanban board I set up towards the end of last year. So, I thought I’d tell you a little bit about it, and why it can be such a useful way of managing tasks.

WHAT’S A KANBAN BOARD?

A Kanban board is a productivity tool that allows you to visualize your workflow and all of the tasks you have to manage. It’s often used by teams (I learned about them at work) but they can work just as well if you’re a one-person band.

The idea was developed by Toyota in the 40s, as part of their revolutionalisation of manufacturing. As a side note, there’s a great This American Life about Toyota’s approach to productivity that’s well worth a listen if you’re interested in this kind of thing.

Workers in the Toyota factory would use coloured cards to display where they were in a process and to let their other team members what was ready and what was needed, and, perhaps most importantly where the process was getting stuck. This process has since been adopted by other factories, as well as industries like software design and human resource management because it allows teams to visualize their work and manage the flow of tasks.

In practice a Kanban board is just a board, whether that’s digital or physical, divided vertically into stages of a process e.g. to do, doing and done. The board is then populated by cards including the details of a task what it is, who’s doing it etc. These cards are then moved through the stages of the process as they are completed.

HOW DO I USE MINE?

I have a very simple physical Kanban board. It’s just some washi tape and post-it notes.

Mine has four stages: to do, doing, done and a backlog of things that need to be pulled in in the future. These are then divided into two lanes, hygiene, and development.

Hygiene tasks – these are things I have to do but are basically admin e.g. queuing posts

Development tasks – these are things that take more work which help me develop those might be commissions because they’re good practice and help get my work out there or courses or just an illustration for fun.

I also colour code my tasks: blue for recurring work (e.g. blog posts), pink for one-offs (e.g. commissions), yellow for anything super important. Then I add the date the work has to be finished, so I don’t forget if it’s a one-off. 

I review what’s up there on a Sunday night, and see how I’ve done, what needs to be pulled in, and what should come off the wall.

I personally find it really useful to see all of the tasks I have for the week out visually and to physically move them through the process. It’s so satisfying to pull a post-it down. I can also see how I’m dividing my time between hygiene and development work, and where the holdups are. When I started using the board I found that by the end of the week the only tasks I was completing were the hygiene ones rather than the more interesting development stuff. That really made me realise how I was prioritising work and made me shift in how I did things.

 

If this is something you’re interested in, you can modify your Kanban board to suit however you work, whether you want to divide up tasks differently or you want to have more stages in your processes. Plus, if you don’t have the wall space, or you just work digitally, there are so many online versions of Kanban to get you started!

/

I’m back and I’m, hopefully, going to be better than ever!

Based on your feedback last year (thank you to all of the wonderful people who filled in my survey) and some thinking I’ve been doing things are going to be changing a little bit around here.

I’m still going to be producing the content I want to make and I’m still going to be posting at the same times. But I’m going to be prioritizing quality over quantity which might mean that some weeks I’m only going to post twice.

I’m also going to be doing a few more regular features including a monthly “how to” design based post, monthly roundups of some of my favourite people/reads/links and a few more researched long-form pieces a bit like my design stories series last year. I also want to share a few more reviews, but we’ll see how that goes.

I’m also going to be way better at replying to comments – I got super overwhelmed at the end of 2017 and pretty much stopped, which doesn’t help foster the kind of community I want.

Personally, I’m implementing a few changes as well. I know that new year’s resolutions aren’t for everyone. A new year doesn’t have to mean a new you. But I’m the kind of person who likes to have a marker to review against, and a new year is as good an arbitrary marker as any other. So, I’ve set myself a few habit based challenges.

Just like last year, inspired by a friend from uni (the inimitable Tucker Cholvin), this year I decided to put together another poster of my new year’s resolutions to hang above my desk to remind me to stay on track because I really think it helped me stay on task. 

I’ve gone for 5 habits again this year, because it felt like a doable stretch last year and I succeeded (with a minor blip) on 4 out of the 5, which isn’t too bad. This year I’m going to:

  1. Read 25 books. This is 5 more than last year’s goal. I know for a lot of people, this might not seem like a lot, but my time to sit down and read full books for fun rather than articles is always very tight
  2. Take a photo/video of some kind every day. This is building on how much I enjoyed doing my one line a day journal last year (and am continuing).
  3. Learn 10 new skills. I really want to push myself to go to more classes and to try my hand and making a few new things – I’m kicking this one off with a screen printing workshop next month which I am super excited for!
  4. Do 120 hours of exercise. Last year I ran the equivalent distance from London to Edinburgh, this year I want to keep up that momentum but also start to try a few new things rather than just running, so I’ve gone from distance to time.
  5. Implement a better sleep schedule. Last year the resolution I failed (really hard) at was getting up without hitting snooze. One of the big issues was that I didn’t address the fact that I hit snooze because I’m tired, so this year it’s all about having a better, more regular sleep schedule.

Did you set any new resolutions or goals for the year? How are they going? If you’re struggling it’s not too late to put up something visual as a reminder (I really like the fill in as you go aspect of these posters) – they actually work!

/

Earlier in blogmas I shared some top tips for staying productive during the festive period. Today I want to talk about 4 of the best things you can do to set yourself up for the new year in these last few weeks because the plan I have right now is pretty simple.

Clear

I know that having a clear out is usually associated with spring, but making space and clearing the clutter can be a great way to set yourself up for the new year, especially if you’ve received any replacements of things for Christmas. If you need some guidance, earlier this year I wrote up my complete guide to doing a spring clean that’s just as relevant now.

Plan

Set your goals for the new year ahead. These could come in the form of new year’s resolutions or they might just be things you want to achieve in work or your personal life. Last year I put mine up on an A3 poster on my wall, and I think I’ll be doing something similar again this year. I’m also going to review the goals I set in September and check they’re still true to what I want. Give yourself some focus for the next 12 months, it’s hard to achieve something if you don’t know what it is. If you can’t think of a big year-long goal, start with something you want to do in the first 6, 3 or 2 months of the year and use that to drive yourself forward.

Prep

Once you’ve set those goals, set yourself up to achieve them. If you want to eat healthier, make sure your cupboards are properly stocked. If you want to try a new class, book it now. If you want to reach a work goal, come up with a strategy to get there. This is a great activity to check that the goals you’ve set are actually doable as well. Give yourself a fighting chance to get where you want to be.

Rest

Finally, take the end of the year as a time to rest and recharge. You’ve achieved a whole lot this year, I don’t know you but I know you have. Just surviving a year on the planet is a big achievement. So, take a moment to reflect on all you’ve done and then take some well-deserved time off so you can come back and do even better (not necessarily more, something I’m learning) next year. There are so many excuses to put your feet up and just enjoy yourself at this time of year it’s hard not to.

/

We all know that Christmas is a great time to get together with friends and family, to enjoy the festivities. But just because Christmas is happening doesn’t mean that you don’t have work to do anymore. For a lot of us, December is actually one of the busiest months of the year so balancing what you have to get done and making sure you pack in enough festivities to tide you over til next year can be a challenge. Here are my tips for making it to the end of the tight rope walk that is December successfully.

 

LEAVE SPACE TO RECHARGE

I’m putting this right up at the top so you don’t forget it. You need time to rest. That means time not doing exciting Christmas things, time not working. You need time purely to rest. That could be taking an hour for yourself every day, or blocking out a full day to work from home and just recharge. If you don’t take just a little bit of a break you’ll end up struggling through the last few weeks of the year, not enjoying the celebrations and not working at your best, and who would want that?

 

BLOCK OUT TIME IN YOUR CALENDAR

I have spoken at length in a number of productivity based posts about the importance of time-blocking, but it is never more relevant than when you’re busy and juggling lots of priorities. Work doesn’t get done unless you give yourself the time to do it, especially if there’s the temptation of mulled wine right around every corner.

 

BE SENSIBLE WITH YOUR GOALS

Don’t set yourself an impossible task (this is always good advice FYI). I think you have to be understanding with yourself that you might have a little less time to do things than you might normally, and that will mean that you get less done, and that is okay. Taking the time to enjoy yourself is so important. So set yourself a sensible, achievable goal and don’t beat yourself up if you don’t quite meet it because Rudolph and his friends stopped by.

 

MAKE YOUR WORKSPACE A LITTLE BIT FESTIVE

There’s nothing worse than feeling like you’re cooped up away from the fun. Work, even if it’s tough, shouldn’t feel like a chore. That doesn’t make you inclined to do it, or to do it well. What works for me is to spruce up my space a little bit so that I can still feel like I’m in the Christmas spirit even if I’m churning out blog posts. I also like to reward myself with festive treats as I go – hello 3 empty packets of lebkuchen!

 

BE HONEST WITH YOUR FRIENDS

If you’ve got lots to do, don’t be afraid to tell people. Rather than making excuses, or anxious because you feel like you need to go out and work, just explain your situation. I promise you’ll find people are way more understanding than you might think.