Try Something New Challenge

Hello lovelies!
Thank you for being patient while I revamp a few things on the blog. Sometimes it can be hard to keep up with all the new ideas about what makes a small handmade business thrive out in the wild world.

I'm excited!
I have been able to invest a little more time in some of the many aspects of running my little biz other than just filling orders and answering questions about custom stamps.

By the way...
Thank You to everyone who ordered stamps and other products from the shop for keeping me busy as a little beaver last year!

It's truly an honor to make something so unique for each of you who have ordered from me. I love doing it and I hope 2018 brings many more opportunities to create even more wonderful stamps and hopefully many more new products as well.



Each year when we say goodbye to the previous year and welcome in a fresh new one, I am so inspired by the newness of it. It's a blank canvas just waiting for that very first stroke.
Every year, I ask myself, "What will the first stroke be? What are the priorities I'm going to work on THIS year?"



For 2018, I have several goals I'd like to accomplish with the biz. One of those goals is to maintain a much more regular blogging schedule. As you can see, it's been a very long time since I have been able to spend much time on here with all of you and I miss it.



So how do I change that? 


Well, in the past I would just blog whenever I got the chance, but obviously, you can tell how that worked out. Trying to fit blogging into a life that's already brimming with activity "whenever I can get to it" is not a recipe for success in most any situation. Sitting down to think up something right on the spot is not always the best way to do things. Time runs short or you get a brain-block and can't think up anything to do so you don't blog that day. Or that week. Pretty soon, it's that month. Ugh.

Our days are like water; they flow by us constantly. Some days the stream is slow and languid... ::Be still my heart for more days like these:: ... and sometimes the water is rough and fast, but it never stops flowing. We have to make the effort to navigate the stream effectively. With purpose.

Sometimes this means we need to try something new.

Sitting down to analyse the past year and dream about the next one, I realized that in order to see a change in what had always been I would have to step out and try something new. YIKES! For those of us who like our routines, this is a terrifying notion.

But we are built for braveness. It's in our DNA. I promise. So, I took a step back and was brutally honest with myself about what was working in my business and what was not.
More importantly, I looked at WHY it wasn't working.

Enter the idea of an editorial calendar.

I'd read a bit about several people who used them and they swore that it helped them stay on track and even ahead of the game in various aspects of their own businesses, but even though I understood that I could really use that, I didn't really understand how to make it work. My brain, I tell ya. Sometimes I make things so much more complicated than they really need to be. Sheesh.

During my searches of the interwebs, I kept hearing people refer to using Trello for their editorial calendars, but it was all so confusing and their descriptions were so nebulous that my mind just couldn't wrap around the idea. Then, I came upon an article from one of my most favorite fellow Etsians, Kara Benz from BohoBerry, explaining how she uses Trello to organize her editorial calendar. The more I read, the more convinced I was that this was exactly what I needed to do. It helped that she generously offered to let us all copy her editorial board template with all the checklists she actually uses on it right to our own Trello boards. Oh. My. Gosh.

Huzzah!




I finally feel like I have some tools to help me be more successful at this part of my business. I can't wait to see it all pan out and I already have several blog post ideas in the works to share with all of you. Hooray! Even though stepping out and trying new things can be really scary, it's worth it.

So, what new thing are YOU going to try this year?

I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

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