Trying a different format today. I ditched the unordered lists & bullets.

So my thing is shaping up. I finally named it, bought a domain, won a free site design, bought some cards from Moo.com and have my first client. Yeah, things are moving. And scary. And moving.

It has to do with artists & business. But not in a stuffy traditional way. Cuz really – the artists I know are so over traditional.

And in true-to-me form, I forgot to add a post about my studio sale. Oops. Well, here are the details:

15% off everything in my shop until it’s all gone (already marked down).
Free Shipping until December 15th to US & Canada for orders over $50.

Go here to shop.

So here’s what I’ve contemplating since last time:

In praise of women: magnificent, spacious, fiery witnesses: I need to meet this woman someday. And I need more girl-friends.

Why you owe it to the world to be your true awesome self: Anyone who secretly knows they’re awesome but refuses to show anyone just how awesome they are better read this. Stat.

Is Traditional Goal-Setting Broken?: Just when I was getting a grasp on how to actually set goals that make sense, Cath Duncan goes and messes it up for me.

Ok, not completely.

She makes some good points: mainly that the traditional “SMART” (simple, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-based) goal setting method is narrow, hyper-focused, too future-happiness oriented and so very left-brained. She doesn’t really offer a solution as she’s still mucking around with it herself, but I’m anxious to see what she has to say.

I am, however, inclined to agree that goal-setting tends to be very myopic and doesn’t allow for happiness now, the loads of new opportunities that pop up and it completely ignores the creative psyche (as in the shiny object syndrome… which sometimes leads to new and exciting possibilities).

How to make a living doing what you love: the enigmatic Keri Smith breaks it all down. “You have nothing to lose… The universe is waiting…”

Introduction to the Middle Way Method: a system somewhere between GTD’s “bottom-up” and Franklin Covey’s “top-down” system. Still way too much complexity for me (my eyes glazed over).

Organizational systems are sort of a mystery to my mostly-creative brain. I only got through school because I was told what was due when and given a calendar in most cases. I was such a genius then.

Now that I’m on my own and forced to organize myself (hah!) I’m a bit at a loss. I live by lists, but I always end up looking a little flaky (hello, double-booking…) I just stuck up a huge yearly dry-erase calendar up on my wall so we’ll see how that works.

I swear once I make enough money I’m going to hire minions (insert evil giggle here). But until then I have to figure out a system (eew…) that works.

So… any creatives out there want to explain how to merge time-management, organizational systems and goal-setting in a way that allows for the free-wheeling, right-brained, non-linear mind?

photo credit: .susanne

Tags: awesome, creative, goals, organization