Archive for the ‘time management’ Category

This image is from my time with adult coloring books last year – trying out colors, experimenting. I love symmetry, but then I also like something a little unusual….which is where I am right now as I approach a new project. I really need to develop  more sources for passive income. I’m taking a free class right now from Convertkit on Product Creation – great ideas, and after two weeks of reading the information (a daily lesson), I decided to start at the beginning and develop a series of products that are useful to others. Hence, Organizing for Marketing.

The title is going through some revisions – still not catchy enough for me. But I already have all this content – in an iBook that isn’t selling  – and yes, I really haven’t done much to market it in the three years it’s been available (or is it four? Funny how time stretches out when you’re not teaching….).

So this is my first brainstorming at trying to make sense of what I want in this ebook product. I am very good at marketing and creating and organizing, so it makes sense to focus right there. When I reviewed the book last night, there is enough information to make it into three or four smaller ebooks and develop a continuous stream of ideas and techniques for people.

The first key is targeting my market. I work in fiber and textiles – pretty much a niche market when looking at the art world, although we are slowly making progress into mainstream. Thus I want to focus this on those of us who do art that is generally out of the mainstream. What can we do to get our work looked at, sold, appreciated?

Here’s my accountability checklist for this coming week, ending Tuesday, May 16, with my initial thoughts:

• Determine revised structure of the ebook. I need to break up the information in the original book into smaller segments for action, and increase the information included in each of the segments.
• Determine my ideal customer for this book. Who is my audience…artists without a lot of money to spend on marketing, artists with unique products, artists who have issues getting organized and accomplishing tasks.
• Write two additional blogs this week – what questions do you want answered in a marketing book for those of us working in a niche market, and how would this be different from all the other marketing books out there? I need to make sure I start getting feedback from folks to help direct my work.
• Evaluate ebook publishing sources and ease of use. CreateSpace seems mostly for print; research it more fully. Kindle seems easy and quick to do. IBooks seems too limiting, although I do have experience with that platform.
• Plan for a “bonus” for people who buy this ebook. Already thinking about many of the blog posts I’ve already done in my Top Ten series. I think these could be manipulated into a bonus, once links are checked, and focus determined. Happened to just think about expanding ideas for Top Ten for other Bonus offerings.
• Keep playing with title ideas. Suggestions certainly welcome! Organize, marketing, niche products…….
• Determine launch date for the ebook – probably beginning of August.

Feel free to give me ideas and help keep me accountable to this project! You can be in the book with your website and product for helping out.

ORIGINAL BOOK

Ready, set, go – give me feedback!

Sometimes life gets in the way……actually, a lot of times daily life intrudes on our best of intentions. It has happened to me in designing this series, and probably many of you right now are having life get in the way of your organization. I chose the picture on the left because life certainly got in the way of the creature fossils 1200 million years ago – and still today there is a remarkable work of beauty as you walk along the rim of the Grand Canyon.

Just go with it. Just. Go. With. It. It’s okay. Life happens along the way. When I was writing the backplanning blog, I sketched out the plan to complete my marbling book. Once I got hired for a new part-time job that is ten days a month, I realized I would have to change some of my plans. Again, It’s. Okay.

What’s happening with your planning and organizing is that you are becoming very aware  of what you would like to do and the time restraints on you. Most of the time we just make lists of what we want to get done, but we really don’t understand just what the actual time allotment is. So I want to introduce you to the 80-20 rule, as it can apply to organization.

I think most of us are familiar with 80-20. Think about the 80% of things that are really important to you. Then think about the 20% of things that are not so important…..and now think about how much time you spend…….do you spend 80% of your time on the things that are most important to you, that will move your business ahead, that will increase your creativity? Or…..do you get stuck doing a lot of the 20% things because you feel you should?

Stephen Covey (2004) said, “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” The 80-20 rule can guide us in determining how to use the very limited and precious resources we have of time, energy, and money.

When you look at what you will do backplanning on, on what you will spend your time and effort on this year, think about the benefits…..will you be able to spend 80% of your time, energy, and money on the things that matter most to you. Backplanning for me on the marbling book is a place where I want to spend my time and energy. The book will be a potential source of passive income, once it is finished. I have decided to go with a different publishing platform, because I simply don’t have the time to learn a new coding system, even though the publisher is fabulous, and I don’t have the money to pay for them to code. So I will work (probably) with Create Space so the book is available on all epub platforms, and not just iBook – even though I know that platform now. This is a worthwhile priority for us, so I will spend the time. Taking an online class in science fiction will no longer be a priority beyond skimming through the basic notes and making a list of what I would like to read in the future. I do not want to give up my time to read several thousand pages in six weeks. Not worth my time – although it would be interesting – but it will have to wait till a later date.

Some links on the 80/20 Rule:

Pareto’s Principle

Why will this change your life?

The 80/20 Rule of Time Management

So what do you think? Thoughts? Insights? Share! I’m interested in how you are organizing yourself.

This is one of those Mondays where you find yourself doing everything on the business but creating. I am slowly making progress in that area, including a new system for scheduling the actual creativity (to a point…) and getting hubby to pick up more of the business loose ends. Making progress…..

From Kate Harper’s blog comes 38 Amazing Apps for Designers: worth taking a look, as there might be something you can definitely use. Web Elements by Visual Lightbox looks intriguing – and might save me some time.

Also from Kate: Free Photoshop Brushes for Designers. Both links take you to the original pages, but it’s great to see all the goodies Kate posts. I’m thinking the Free Floral Brushes from Graphic Design Junction (now I have to figure out how to download…..advice??)

Bamboo Textures in Photoshop – these also look cool….

And….How to be Funny  – excellent article on finding humor anywhere, especially if you are looking to write greeting cards.

Pinterest seems to be the rage, and I have been slowly checking out articles, as I am concerned about copyright. So from SewCAlGal comes Thoughts on Pinterest…..

And…a new spot on line to check out: Tophatter, which is daily online auctions. I “sat in” on one, and it looks like something I want to try…but it’s kind of at the bottom of my list ot to-do’s right now, as there are a couple of commissions that need finishing. Handemadeology put up this buyers’ guide.

The latest I have found was off a link from a graduate student friend who found Pomodoro, which is a new organizing system (new to me, at least). I’m trying it this afternoon, and I’m pleased to report I am getting a lot down for these few hours. I downloaded a timer as an app for my iPad, and I’m liking how the whole system is helping. I downloaded their free e-book this morning (and multi-tasked by reading it and eating some fruit). You could get really in to it, but I like the overall approach, which is not very gimmick-y. If you do use it, let me know what you think.

…and that’s the pomodoro……