My Word of the Year, Checking In.
We're at the half way point. Half way through 2018. It's wild. Years are flying by. In my endless search to learn more and improve myself I decided to pick a Word to define my focus for the year, in January. As many have done throughout the years, I just haven't till now.
I chose Discipline and promptly used the above image to guide me. So far my year of discipline has, honestly, gone the same as any other year. I've done nothing different. I'm working through my business, designing fabulous homes for fabulous people, momming, exploring Berlin, and basically coasting. And it hasn't been terrible.
But it's not exactly going to make a happy end of year review. You know you sit down to review what worked and what didn't over the year to decide what's on deck for the upcoming year. Well I need to check some items off my What Discipline Means To Me list.
Now what does this have to do with Interior Design?
My love and life force is making things beautiful. And I'm good at it. What I'm not so good at is metrics & analytics & detailing specifics in design, business, and accomplishing. Or sharing what's going on. That's where, for me, design meets discipline. Here's the plan:
- Blog writing. I'll be writing a bit daily with posts coming two to three times a week plus my Saturday Weekender post of interesting things I've found.
- Newsletter. Back to the newsletter. The first coming out again August 1st and then monthly there after. My newsletter, It's On The House, is a more personal check in with you about design, what's going on in our studios, and first peeks at new designs & ideas.
- Organizing. I am a constant organizer. I love an organized closet, drawers, storage. You name it I'll label it. I do have room to improve here, as I scan my office I notice piles of who knows what just sitting around. I'm betting you have room to improve as well. I'll be revisiting Marie Kondo's book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I'll post on the blog as I begin and work through it. I'd love for you to follow along and see what we can create when we finally find a place for everything.
- Back to Design School. My design school. I've pulled together numerous design books and have created a plan to reeducate myself. I'm sure there are numerous design school basics I've forgotten along the way. I'm excited to review the books and see what I can learn from them. I'll do a separate blog post about this concept with more details. I'll post what I've learned along the way.
- More transparency. I vowed to be transparent about my policies, design projects, and fee structures when I redid my website. I am going to go ahead and add visibility and take this vow to the blog. This blog is a place for you to see the beauty and chaos of design. The good and the difficult. Because, you guys, there are difficulties. It's not all shopping and paint colors. Mostly it's not shopping and paint colors honestly. But I love it and I think you will too. The difficulties don't take away from the beauty, they add to it.
So the takeaway, those are the ways in which I'll add more discipline, for you to see, this last half of 2018. Do you have ideas you'd like to see? I'll open up comments on this post so feel free to chime in.
Ok, talk soon!