START NOW!

Big plans for 2009? Starting the new year with a fresh ad campaign? Updating your brochure? Designing a new flyer? Updating your website? Starting your website? Are you planning on marketing yourself, bragging about yourself and presenting yourself to the world…later?Don’t wait for January! Start now, before the holidays put your productivity on hold or into slow-motion.Kick-start the new year by being ahead of the game and ready to roll when 2009 arrives. Here’s how:In the next 6 weeks, set yourself a goal of doing these three things: <ol style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><li style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1">Develop your goals and the audience for your project. What is the ideal outcome of this marketing project? Who do you want walking in your door or going to your website? Are they homeowners, twenty-somethings, eco-conscious buyers, grandparents? Jot it all down, in bullets or sentences or song lyrics, whatever works for you. Just get it in ink. It's not supposed to look pretty! Dump your thoughts onto paper so you can sift through the ideas later.</li><li style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1">Outline your visuals. Decide what form your project will take and sketch a mock-up of it to pin above your desk. Sketching is making rough visual image. No rulers. No software. Feeling creative? Use sticky notes in a variety of sizes to represent text boxes and images. Seeing it laid out in a very rough draft will stimulate your imagination. Not sure? Make two! A flyer and a tri-fold brochure, or a serious web page and a more casual web page.</li><li style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1">Get that sloppy first draft in ink! Writing the first draft of anything is often the hardest part of any project. Don’t judge yourself. Free-write or think aloud into a tape recorder. Whatever your method, PRINT IT OUT and put it up next to your mock-up. Again, Don’t Judge Yourself. This is an information-only draft; the ideas are the raw materials you just dug up that will be sent to the refinery in January. Now leave it on the wall and go enjoy yourself.</li></ol>When you are back out of the holiday whirlwind and stress, you can march right up to these three rough documents with a clear head and start ripping them apart and building them up again. It’s amazing how much energy we gain when we can start a project at Step Two, instead of Step One. And when Step One is really a three-step process, we’re actually starting at Step Four! How cool is that?The trick to making this plan successful is in limiting yourself. By only requiring yourself to create a concrete concept, without zing, verve, SEO, illustration or embellishment, you allow yourself to get the entire thought onto paper, without the entire project puddling on your head like wet cement, waiting for you to sink under its weight. Deciding what physical and visual form your project is going to take, and placing a mock-up of it just above eye-level, gives your back-brain or unconscious, thinking room without the pressure of a production schedule. We look up when we use our back-brain for recall and for creation. Keep your project up there, so your eyes see it and your unconscious has the opportunity to ruminate on it.Now, you can relax during the holidays, knowing you have started your project and have set it aside until January. You aren’t putting it off. You are proceeding in stages. Marinating is a stage. Let your ideas marinate, while you marinate in egg nog, mulled cider, chai, lassa, family kvetching, closet cleaning, or whatever seasonal activity takes your attention during November and December.Come January 2nd (or 5th), you are back in action, already in motion and underway, sailing into your new project with work in your hands, not just in your head. Let the refinement begin! Happy New Year! 2008-10-16T04:06:11Z

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start-now

2008-10-16T07:17:11Z

Are you planning on marketing your business and bragging about your skills to the world…later? Don’t wait for January! Here are 3 things you can do between now and December to get your productivity hopping in the new year.

START NOW!

2009-02-24T09:46:34Z