Out of time 🥶
Winter is coming creative folks
Winter is coming
What are your autumn activities? Do you celebrate Halloween? Do you turn into a baking nerd? Are you suddenly going through your TBR book pile like a toddler through diapers? What’s your secret?
Mine is to look for all these tiny things that will make dark afternoons and evenings more pleasant. A movie date? I’m in. Checking out a new restaurant? I’m coming. An overpriced pastry? Yes, please. Fancy soap? Love it. Thrift-store 90s sweater with geese on it? I want it. So far, I have to say, out of all the strategies I’ve tried to make the ‘dark months’ (which is how I call autumn and winter) nicer and cozier, this one is the most effective.
This time, I decided to capture the whole vibe in a YouTube video—there’s a bit of everything: cozy moments, some favorite little indulgences, and glimpses of my illustration work. If you’re looking for inspiration or just want a virtual friend to unwind with, I’d love it if you kept me company while watching!
I’d love to hear from you, too, either under this post or on my latest video. What are your ways of cozying up and organizing your freelance life? Let me know!
I Do have Time
Last year in December, I made a small collage and printed it out. I used some snippets and sketches of all my open personal projects and put them all together to have a visual representation of my ideas and creative ventures that I want to complete in 2024.
I knew they were ambitious and complex, and I reasonably assumed I wouldn’t complete all of them in one year, but I firmly believed I’d finish most of them and would make significant progress with the others. Guess what.
That’s right. None of them are completed, and progress was made in only one of them. One.
When I realized that, I was so surprised, I didn’t even feel bad because this year just flew by. Every time someone asked me how this year has been for me work-wise, I always tell the same comparison I’ll tell you now.
Do you remember that feeling when you skipped or didn’t pay attention in a math class in primary school, and at the next one, you felt like you’d fallen behind “but no worries, I’ll catch up,” and you spent the whole rest of the year working to feel a little bit less lost?
That’s the feeling that has been accompanying me this year.
I’ve been lucky enough to work on several big projects interlaced with smaller (but equally cool) ones. Many of them have been long-term, present in my work agenda for months, with a few extending beyond 12 months already. I’ve traveled a few times this year, and on each one of my short trips, my laptop and tablet stayed close to me while I was finishing illustrations or sending concept sketches to clients to stay in line with my deadlines. So no surprise, my personal projects—and hobbies included—have been set aside.
The thing is, my ambitions grow, but the time I have at my disposal doesn’t. You won’t hear me saying “I don’t have time” a lot though, because I really believe that if you want to make time for something, you’ll find a way.
That’s also why I think it only depends on me if and how I allow myself to do the things I do. After all these thoughts flooded through my head, I automatically thought about my organization system and how sometimes my good organization could be more time-efficient.
These right here are my messy thoughts, and it feels nice to let them out here. My next step will be to improve my organization of both my work and personal time, and I promise I’ll let you in on whatever I come up with
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