{Studio Office Renovation} Almost done!

The renovation of an old 'shed' into my new office has been a long, long, and frustrating saga. Several times, I thought I'd secured a builder to do the work but it seems my job wasn't big enough to warrant their skills so, disappointment invariably followed.

It was serendipity that brought a young builder to my notice earlier this year and he jumped at the opportunity. So, nearly a year after stripping the shed and being excited that work was about to begin, I can finally say, "It's done!". Or, at least it's as done as it needs to be to be put to use. Nothing has been done to finish the interior but, after waiting so long, I don't care! Prettying up the inside is a luxury for some other time. Right now, the priority is to get my house back.

The outside is still being painted but here it is:

New studio/office

It's an incredible relief to have this space finished. Now I can separate work and home and hopefully, be better at both. 

Cheers,

Diane

Learning to be Self-Employed

The last 12 months have been an extraordinary learning experience. Even though I've run my online business as a moonlight job for a number of years, in reality I've been a salary earner my whole adult life. Walking away from that apparent security has been tough but incredibly liberating.

I readily admit I squandered a great deal of the first six months of 2013. Some of that time was devoted to 'decompressing' but an awful lot of it was also, although hard to admit, lost to floundering aimlessly.

By the second half of the year I was beginning to get a feel for working for myself and working from home. I started thinking about goals, revisiting dreams, taking stock of my life and making the time to appreciate everything for which I am grateful. It's amazing the impact this change in mindset had on everything around me. 

Unfortunately, the brakes were slammed on some of my plans when I tore the cartilage in my left knee. Thankfully not badly enough to need surgery but it certainly slowed me down considerably. However, this enforced inactivity gave me an opportunity to read and listen to audio books on time management, motivation and similar subjects so the time definitely wasn't wasted.

One of the books that helped get me back on track.

Once I was able to, I started walking in the mornings. My morning stroll takes around 40mins and is sufficient to get the blood circulating but not overtax my still temperamental knee. Other than helping with physical well-being and stress management, I find my morning walk fires up my motivation and imagination. I walk in silence and just let the thoughts wander in and out as they choose. On my return, I know, as I walk through my front gate, I'm ready to tackle anything!

As 2014 begins, that's me, ready to tackle anything!

If you too are self-employed or a small business owner, please feel free to share any hints and tips for beginners.

Cheers,

Diane

Studio / Office Renovation

As I'm now working from home exclusively, I ran out of excuses for not getting the old dilapidated outbuilding (circa 'around the same time as Stonehenge') on my property spruced up. 

The goal is to use this outbuilding as my office, warehouse and studio. 

Unfortunately, in order to rebuild one has to tear down. And, that my friends has been a herculean task. Partly because I can always find something other than hard work to occupy my time and partly because it really is hard work! 

Luckily, wrecking stuff takes very little skill, just determination and as you can see from these images, I am getting there.

Outbuilding Interior - North/East

Outbuilding Interior - North/West

Outbuilding Interior - West

Now that I can see real progress, I'm getting excited about having a dedicated area in which to work.

What a luxury it will be to be able to shut the door on work at the end of the day rather than being surrounded by it 24/7.

Better get back out there!

Diane

Line in the Sand

My concept of 'patchwork economics' has always been about creating a financial 'blanket' that didn't rely solely on one source of revenue or benefit. So, earning money from multiple sources is one aspect of its construction and finding ways to reduce expenditure another.

Over the last eight months, I've been busy. So busy working on the first part of the equation that the second (reducing expenditure) had gone to hell in a hand-cart! 

Working four days a week in an IT company, plus running my online retail party supply business and supporting my daughter in her final year of high school left very little time for art of creative non-spending.

As we move into winter, my vegetable garden is overgrown with weed, stray cherry tomatoes and a self-seeded pumpkin that looks as though it has only produced two stripy green pumpkins. There's more grass in the garden beds than the lawn and the gravel paths are looking quite jungle-ish... The only highlights of my garden are the lawn (because someone else mows it!) and the fruit trees although the Eastern Rosellas have enjoyed most of the apples this season.

Again I'm reminded of the adage about time and money; you usually have a surplus of one or the other. The trouble is (for me at least) it's very hard to ignore the allure of convenience when you're working 60+ hours a week. I've found takeaways have become common place for us. Food I used to always cook from scratch like bread, soups or desserts now come from the supermarket in shiny plastic packaging.

Other than the extraordinary cost financially, I've noticed physical effects, too. We've both put on weight and feel sluggish most of the time.

This then, is my line in the sand. It's time to go cold turkey on convenience. I know I have another seven months of IT work but beyond that, I'm not sure. So, there's no time to waste. I have to get myself back in the swing of spending (and living) consciously. Not just for my financial well-being but physical and probably psychological, too.

Wish me luck!

De-cluttering – One Area Done – 17 to go!

Remember the out of control book case I wrote about in De-cluttering, still...? Well here it is. 

Not perfect, but considerably tidier.

It took hours to sort through all the old papers, magazines, photos and junk that had been shoved into any and all available spaces on the bookshelf. There was a sizable box load that got dumped into the recycling bin, too.

De-cluttering really is seriously cathartic. Choosing to let go of stuff that no longer serves you is empowering. I’ve always had a problem throwing out photographs. Not sure why, but there you go! During this sort out I found a couple of envelopes of photos from a long, LONG time ago... and a heap of them were truly awful. Blurry, over(or under)-exposed, chopped off heads... why was I keeping them? I’ve given it a lot of thought and I still can’t come up with a good reason. Actually, I can’t even come up with a bad reason. So, into the bin they went. Talk about liberating!!!

Now the question is, what’s next on the de-clutter schedule?

De-cluttering... still...

The de-cluttering is still under way. It really is a BIG task and it’s SO easy to get distracted, procrastinate or simply find something else to do... anything else! The major motivation though, is that I know it will be so much easier to keep the house tidy once all the superfluous stuff is gone. The other motivation is that clearing out the unnecessary means  there'll be more room available for the important stuff; like pantry supplies and other stockpile items.

There’s even a chance my life in general might be a bit more orderly, too! At least that’s what the experts say. I could certainly do with a good dose of ‘orderly’!!!

Here's the next project: One of my bookcases.

Before
Stay tuned for the 'after' picture...

The next choice is: donate the items worth donating or try to recoup some money by selling them on eBay or a garage (yard) sale. I’m not exactly sure which way to go yet so the ‘good’ stuff is being boxed up. The less than ‘good’ stuff is being donated immediately and the junk is going out in the garbage.


The big trick will be making sure we don't end up in the same situation in a year's time!

Stuff...

Lately, the chore of keeping my little house tidy has reached Herculean classification and it comes down to one reason: too much stuff.


I know I'm not the only one in this predicament. Self storage businesses seem to be popping up everywhere. And, the crazy thing is, I don't remember solving clutter problems being a serious business proposition twenty years ago, so what's changed? Why do we all have so much stuff?


I'm sure there are multiple reasons and they'll differ depending on who you ask but I know that sometimes, just sometimes, a little bit of retail therapy sneaks into my life. Especially in stationery stores...


So, today I'm setting aside some time to do some serious de-cluttering. I'm also going to watch The Story of Stuff again to remind myself why I need to make conscious purchase choices not impulse ones.


I don't expect I'll get it all done today but I do expect to get A LOT done today.