Let's see how long I can keep this up. I'm a fan of New Year's Resolutions. I'm a fan of starting anything. I love starting projects! It's so exciting with the potential and the expectations, the lists, the organizing, the research, etc.
What I'm not overly brilliant at is the follow through. Therefore, I go into this thinking I'll be providing a couple weeks (months if I'm amazing) of these weekly posts. But time will tell.
I have a very dear friend who tries to keep both of us "on task". She inspired me to write out some goals. First, I wrote a few goals for the year (2020). That short list looked something like this:
- Revive the website(s)
- Blog consistently
- Increase gallery sales by 50% over 2019
- Learn champlevé, cloisonné, and filigree
- Get six tutorials out
- Make 10 pieces of jewelry per week
Following that, I made "monthly goals". There are things I want to do and it's SOOOO easy for me to put them off one day after another until before you know it I'm some massive flake who doesn't get anything done. So I wrote out a timeline of sorts of the things I want to accomplish each month of 2020. Maybe looking at it (constantly!) will keep me on track. We shall see.
Then I also made a "daily planner". For each day, I have a list of tasks I want to complete. At the end of the day, I strikethrough what I've done (hey, I want a physical record of my accomplishments! Anything I didn't complete, gets moved to the next day.
Here's a typical day of tasks:
- Write up HH meeting minutes
- Update inventory file
- Work on custom orders
- Take jewelry to AOTG
- Get SMM photos from AOTG
I don't include things on the list like: clean dishes, do laundry, go grocery shopping, mow lawn, etc. My list is supposed to be more business-oriented. But trust me, those other things can take up huge swaths of my time.
In case it hasn't dawned on you yet, I'm a "list" person.
Anyway, I actually HAVE started to revive the website... and blogging counts as an aide to revival. In the first week of January, I did spend an entire day photographing then listing some earrings (sold several pair right away... whoohoo!). But the point of today's blog post has to do with that last item there... "make 10 pieces of jewelry per week". I actually didn't THINK of that until the second week, so there exists no "week #1".
Now, a perfectly reasonable reaction is, "Hey, quality is way more important than quantity! What's the big deal about pumping out 10 pieces of jewelry a week. Don't you CARE about quality?"
Yes, I do care about quality, but I also know me. And me can find other important things to do like trying to tackle the massive burn pile in the orchard or cut down all the Eucalyptus saplings on the property or go through the storage garage and purge and organize, etc. You see, there is no shortage of things to occupy my time, but I have to make some decisions. And if I want to keep the three galleries as well as my website stocked with jewelry, then by golly I have to spend some time MAKING jewelry. And 10 pieces of jewelry COULD consist of one totally elaborate "art" piece and nine pair of simple hammered metal earrings. It's all good. Not everything I make has to be an amazing experiment. Nor should everything I make have to be something quick merely because my gallery spot is looking empty.
Another cool thing about "10 pieces per week" is it gives me a chance to work on things consistently, and consistent practice of techniques results in improvement. Yay! You can see (below) that most of this week's creations used similar techniques so I got to practice. Flitting from one project/technique to another (which is normally my style) doesn't work as well in regards to practicing techniques.
So here are the 10 pieces I made in week #2. And since I've completed THAT task for this week (8th - 14th), I can spend the rest of today doing something else (I choose to blog then organize my studio).
And if you'd care to leave a comment, I'd love to hear what new year's resolutions or plans YOU have for 2020.
