Tutorials & Time Management

For ages now I've been meaning to up date my tutorials, the ones for basic wire skills. I've got several already written - making eyeloops, wrapped loops, ear wires for example - and I used to use them in workshops alot, but since improving my photos of my jewellery I've realised just how bad the photos on the tutorials are! One of the problems is that it is very difficult to take photos of the wire actually being worked on your own - you can't hold the camera, look through the lens and hold the wire on the pliers all at the same time, and using a tripod doesn't help much!

Anyway, one of the reasons that I decided to use a zen cart based website was so that I could easily offer pdfs for people to download. So this afternoon I decided to stop procrastinating (what a big word for this time in the afternoon!) and get to work! I've improved the writing of several of the tutorials and sorted out what photos I need while B has been asleep, and I'm going to ask a friend with an excellent camera and a photography course under her belt to come round and help me take the photos over the next couple of weeks. I'll swop her for some jewellery or silversmithing tuition!

This stopping procrastinating is all part of something that Nicky and I have been talking about for a little while now - time management! We both have young children and so obviously work around them, so organising our time efficiently is so important if our businesses are to grow. She showed me a blog called Bead Nerd (I love that name!) that's all about encouraging people to fulfill their potential. It's written with bead makers in mind but the advice is fantastic for anyone who runs (or wants to run) a craft-based business. I've also been talking to Tracey, the owner of the gallery where I teach my weekly jewellery class, Spice Art Studios, about time management. Anyway, as I result of all this I have decided to block out my diary into time set aside for certain jobs, both household and business. Tracey calls it a default diary - unless there is an emergency, holiday or something like that, a default diary sets out what you are going to do each week at that particular time. I've realised that I have been doing that more or less with household chores, so now it's time for the business. It'll hopefully make me get the non-creating jewellery jobs done rather than allow them to get pushed to one side! I'll let you know how it goes - well, hopefully you'll see the results in terms of tutorials on the website, new jewellery listed more regularly and more magazine articles - oh, and another outlet or two would be good too!

Tomorrow morning is photography time, so look back for some photos then!