When we think of a new project sometimes it’s hard to know exactly what we want to do and how. This results in us getting dizzy and losing our way. I’ve been dedicated 100% to this blog for over a year now and I’ve learned a lot of useful tips to make a project a reality. With a bit of luck some of these tips I learnt will be useful for you if you’re on your way to starting your own project or you want to give your status quo a 180° turn.
I first studied Business Management and I worked for several years in a corporation. In that sense, throughout my professional career I was always accountable to people higher up in the hierarchy. This is “easier” in the way that you know that if you exceed their expectations then you’ll do good and grow in the company and if you don’t you’ll have to leave. However, when you start your own project it’s tougher because if you don’t do what you had planned then you’re accountable to no one but yourself so if you don’t materialize your project no one but you will know. That’s when it becomes a topic of conversation rather than a reality: “yeah, I had this really cool project I really wanted to do but in the end I never could.”
PLANNING + CLEAR GOALS
When we’re looking to make our projects a reality we’re sometimes overwhelmed by the excitement and we go for it straight on without stopping to think what it is that we want exactly. The first step is to think down and put your neurons together to think what it is that you want to achieve exactly and how. In this way you have a clear objective to work towards (of course that doesn’t mean that you can’t change it afterwards, it’s just a starting point). It’s really useful to see other brands or people who do similar things and note what it is that you like and don’t like about what they do. In my particular case I visited tons of blogs and wrote down the things that were more important to me: to include videos on more complicated recipes, high quality photos and a clean look.
You can also apply this if today you’re working for someone else if you want to change the way your job is perceived by others to land a promotion, for example. Lookout for what are the key thing that you need to change to make it (attitude, responsibilities, drive, etc) and be conscious about them constantly.
FIND YOUR SPACE
And I don’t mean to rent an office or move permanently to a meeting room but rather that you feel comfortable in a space. For example I work from home and that’s a problem because I’m full of distractions such as “I almost forgot I need to wash my sheets!” However I do make an effort to stay in the living room (except maybe in the middle of summer where I’m in my room with the air conditioner on max) and keep it neat so that I can spread out my notebook, pencil case, laptop, etc. If you’re going to start a project on your own like me then you can look for a cowork space where you can rent a piece of desk to work on (there are lots available these days). What I do is much less expensive: I contacted a friend of mine who also works from home and we switch places to work in. With her at home it’s really unlikely that I will put sheets in the washing machine and we push each other to work harder.
If you’re in an office and have a cubicle / assigned office then maybe it’s time to reorganice your space, clean up and redecorate for this new phase. This will motivate you more than you think and give you a fresh breath of air.
ORGANIZATION, ORGANIZATION, ORGANIZATION
There are many people that claim that they can keep their to-do list in their heads. I am most definitely not one of them. For me, if it’s not written then it doesn’t get done because I literally don’t have a minute to stop and think about the list. I use a bullet journal to keep track of my life (literally my whole life’s in there) and I love it. It’s a system where you use any notebook as your personalized planner. There are plenty of tutorials on YouTube on how to make one if you’re interested. Of course if you’re more of a digital planner then that’s fine as well, The idea is that you find what works for you so that you can keep track of your goals and things you need to do to get there. Of course don’t stop there if neither work for you and keep searching for a system that does work. It also helps with consistency because when you have to postpone something and it’s written down somewhere there’s a certain weight / guilt to postponing it instead of simply erasing it from your head.
OPEN YOUR MIND TO LEARNING NEW THINGS
No one can know about every single subject in the world but within that lack of knowledge there are certainly bits that would be helpful for you to know. Nowadays we have a ton of information at hand that can help us improve on different sets of skills. In my case, for example, I constantly watch videos on food photography and styling and they help me get new ideas or get in touch with new techniques. Depending on the line of work you’re there are a lot of courses that you can take, videos on YouTube you can watch and even ideas on Pinterest that you can get inspired by. Maybe you won’t find new ideas on everything they tell you but if you get a couple new tips then it was worth it.
Those are my tips! I hope that at least one of them is useful to you and inspire you to start working on that project that you’ve had in the back of your head for a while now. These are the key points that allowed me to take my blog into what it is today :). Let me know in the comments down here or on social media if there’s anything else that you would like to know about me, my blog or how I handle it.