What are you going to do different?

If what we are doing in our business isn’t bringing us the results we want and if Insanity is defined as this (see below)?

Then why do we keep doing the same things over and over in our business and expect different results. So my question to you is WHAT are YOU going to do DIFFERENTLY this year? How are you going to change the status quo? This has been the question that has occupied my mind the last five weeks. Yes, this question was going through my mind during the Christmas rush. It was a good Christmas season for the shop. Not as good as I had hoped for but quite good anyway. There were some things that I had done differently in the shop and it did pay off.

Since I have been mulling this thought over and over in my mind and the start of a new year is a time for reflection. I was getting frustrated with my inability to come to some decisions. It seemed like the year started with a huge rush of activity; getting kids back to school, kids getting sick, getting some appointments made, updating some paperwork, insurance paperwork, and house keeping stuff. All of it was keeping me from really working on the shop. I felt behind the curve already and we hadn’t even really started the year.

I even worked on this questionnaire  from Etsy and was going to do a great big blog article on it.  http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2013/reflect-on-2012-t/ It was a great place to start but it built in some frustrations as well. I may still do the blog article but really you have no desire to read about my goals unless it is a bullet list and you can scan it quickly.  I am not sure I can condense it down to a bullet list. I even tried to photograph the studio and motivate myself to clean it up because cleaning always has the ability to start a rush of ideas. I did indeed clean up the studio, but then we found some boxes downstairs that had studio items in them… and you can guess the rest.

It is a big year ahead of us with some pretty major changes. Like all families some big things and lots of little things are ahead of us. Some of them we have advance notice of and some we don’t.  So here is…finally a short list of things I am going to do in 2013

1. Try and blog more consistently
2. Feature other artisans once a week….
3. Make 12 tutorials for my blog…that is roughly one a month… This is a huge hurdle and one I am rather frightened of.
4. Keep the studio more organized
5. Diversify the items in the Studio shop…same style of items just different kinds of things…
6. Read 4 good books about business… I have two titles that were reccomended by my husband. Since he usually only reads non-fiction he is a great resource.
7. Try to find 4 brick and mortar shops to consign my items here in my region.
8. Limit my work time to a more regular schedule which includes time off for family and other activities.
9. Build a link up spot once a week to help others market their shop items.

Then like everyone else I also have the goals to lose weight, exercise, eat right and save money that fit into the personal list along with

1. Do the budget thing
2. Continue working on home improvement projects
3. Get the veggie garden and flower gardens back looking good.
4. At least once a week do something fun with kids….
5. Teach DD to cook and sew…she is the last one to learn. I am on the down hill side of child rearing and she deserves to know learn as much as they did.
6. Make time for friends.

Talk to you later…

Karen