Starting a Blog

I found this wonderful article, about why you should blog. The writers at Design Shack were specifically speaking to developers, but this applies to all of us. Whatever profession you are in there are good reasons to begin a blog: it requires you to educate yourself, give back to your community, and it helps you improve your writing skills. Yes, blogs take time and you will probably not be one of the few that become famous and become professional bloggers; but it will be beneficial for your well-being. If you have a blog, and you been away awhile there is no better time than the present to pick up your blog and get back to writing. My favorite quote for the article pretty much sums up why you need to just do it!

"First, begin right away. Believe me, you’ll never have time and you’ll never know enough, so toss out those as reasons to wait. If you can’t manage this now, you’ll never be able to pull it off.  "

Coincidentally, I recently viewed this live chat from Joy Cho from Oh Joy! Joy talks about her new book, but most importantly answers questions from other bloggers about how to have a "successful" blog. If you have the time to view it or just listen to it Joy and Naomi have some great pointers for bloggers.

Educational Links

Design, Social Media, and Food. Do you really need anything else? Here are a few links with marvelous tips:

• AIGA // Beyond Craft and Tools: The Skills Design Students Must Master
• CookingLight // The Most Common Cooking Mistakes (with solutions)
• Ethics for the Starving Designer
• 7 New Facebook Changes Impacting Business
• Smashing Magazine // Symptoms of an Epidemic Web Design Trend

New Beginnings

New Years always renews the hope that we can better ourselves to be the person we have always wanted to be. Most resolutions fail because it is hard to break habits. Changing habits take time and resolution. Creating a goal helps you to strive for completion, but it is important to make that goal attainable. 

Photo for today.

Make a Routine: Some recommend daily habits, and if you are focusing on a daily schedule I would recommend only change one habit at once. Typically we make resolution lists, not a single item. If you can focus it down to one that is great, but I have too many goals. Instead, I make a weekly schedule that works in each goal in a routine. Maybe, one item occurs on every Monday and Thursday and another on Tuesday and Friday. The importance is consistency, because humans are creatures of habits. Creating a routine helps to develop new habits.

Self-control: Many people struggle with the ability to let their no mean no, and yes mean yes. Whether it is working out or avoiding distractions to complete a client project, exerting self-control is essential to success. This is one of the hardest skills to perfect. Building up your willpower takes baby steps, because it hard to come to a dead stop. It takes grit.

30-day Trial: Similar to making a routine, taking a trial is about rewiring our brains for new habits to form. Popularized by Steve Pavlina you take one habit and focus on it dailyfor 30 days to become a conditioned habit. Once you commit to this strict monthly act, it becomes easier to keep making that choice after the 30 days are over.

Do you have any helpful suggestions for developing new habits?

DIY Links

I have been getting inspired to create my house more into a home, so I have been taking a look at links to help me to make my home beautiful for cheap! Plus it gets me away from the computer:

• Custom Cutting Boards: as long as you own these tools or has a friend who does these make an affordable addition to your home or as a gift.

•  Lighting Up Your Kitchen: I like this idea for giving my kitchen a little more light. My kitchen has no windows and no direct lighting.

• A Bookshelf with Style: an easy way to give a bookshelf a style and personality.

•  Design Sponge at Home: I have almost enough money saved up to buy this book, and I can't wait to devour all the DIY projects inside.

• Granny Chic turned Sinister: This would be great for Halloween.

Thoughtful Links

Since I am busy with hammer and nails I want to provide you with some links to other blogs that have done some interesting work lately:

• An Interview with Walker Evans. I found that he some interesting views on photography. "Photography is Intuitive"

•  With Halloween coming up I looking for new creative ways to create sweets ( I don't know if I will have time to make these creepy cake pops, but I hope I do).

• Paint it Black: and interesting view on creating packaging and design for a male audience.

•  Make Your Own T-shirt or Onesie

•  Upholstery Basics: With the possibility of a lot of DIY coming I hope I can test out this upholstery tip.

Halloween is getting so close. Anyone doing anything for this fantastic holiday?