Categories
creatvity design Design Work Experience Inspiration Latest Posts learning

Just keep Swimming!

We’re in a third lockdown in Wales. The kids are homeschooling once again. The house is in a perpetual state of chaos and the cat constantly wants feeding! 

 

This is hard. And I don’t have any words of wisdom for you this time. Except for “Just keep swimming!”

 

Running an online business, whatever it may be has its challenges at the best of times. If you’re a sole trader/self-employed like me, then you wear many hats. Marketing, accountancy, business strategy, web development, blogging, project management.

 

It all comes down to you. And that can get a bit much at the best of times. let alone during a pandemic, with three school-age children to home school. Although, I am lucky in the sense that the three of them are at an age where they are 90% self-sufficient. They can cook simple meals, like beans on toast, make a cup of tea. They can get through their school work on their own no problem (With a little help from mum checking they’re doing more than the bare minimum of course!) But what they can’t do so well is manage their time and recognise when they’re spent a little too much time on Minecraft. 

 

So this is where I have to step in! I’ll be honest. I’m guilty of much the same. Too much time on Twitter and Facebook and my brain gets fried with trying to process all the information. Social Media seems to be full of political debate, negativity and people wanting to be right about everything. 

 

So I switch off….

 

And concentrate as much as I can on my little (but growing!) business and the kids. Hubby is in there somewhere too 🙂 

 

Last spring, right around when the lockdown was just starting. I wrote about surviving the whole work from home situation we had all been thrown into. In that article, I gave you some tips on how to organise yourself, and manage what we thought would be a very short term solution to a situation we knew very little about at the time. 

Today’s plan is to get back to the “Sunday Plan Day” Or maybe just get back into planning altogether!, Print off some time tables and stick them to the fridge, feel more in control and be able to plan more days out to the beautiful coastline on Anglesey.  – Current restrictions considered of course!

 

Anything just to feel more on top of the day to day running of a business. 

The printable planners I designed a while ago were designed with one thing in mind.

 

“Sometimes planning, and sometimes not planning”

 

Because let’s face it. There are times where we are more inclined to plan our days down to the minute, and other times we don’t. We just want to get through the most basic of tasks for that day so that we don’t feel like a potato!  This is why I enjoy using my own perpetual calendars so much. Sometimes I feel on top of my game and in the zone to plan everything down to the smallest detail. Other times, I stick to a list. Sometimes, I just totally wing it, and won’t put pen to paper in my planner for ages. 

 

Whenever I missed a few weeks of planning, I’d go back to the Filofax and feel guilty for all the missed pages. The weeks of wasted paper. That’s why I decided to design my own planner pages, without the dates! 

 

As a thank you for getting this far with this article, and my droning on!! Here’s a 50% off voucher for any of the printable planners in my Etsy Shop. 

 

Just type in PLANNER50 to the vouched code section at the checkout and you will receive 50% off the total of your purchase. 

 

If this article has resonated with you, please share it to someone who you think needs a little boost in their day. 

 

Remember, we are all in this together, and there will soon be a time where Covid-19 coronavirus will be a distant memory. 

 

But for now, Just Keep Swimming!