ground rules

so i decided i needed to set some ground rules for myself (a post that i'm sure will be ever evolving and changing and having a lot of excuses made for its posting!) in terms of my business. last year i was "forced" to dive head first into the murky waters of self-employment and this year i'm seeing a little bit more clarity in terms of what i need to do differently.

1. don't spend what you don't have.
therefore, i have made a wish list (which i'll try and post in a side column) in order of priority that i would like to purchase it. these are items i can only buy when my business account has the money to account for the full purchase price. this will be hard because i ALWAYS find things i want to buy or try out and then i end up with a pile of inventory (which i finished counting this weekend- yay!) and nothing to show for the purchases. i can tell i'm wising up to my spending because i turned down the opportunity to buy a letterpress when i first found out i was pregnant. hardest thing to do, but economically responsible. ugh- being responsible is painful sometimes.

2. when in doubt, sketch it out.
i have all this GREAT paper that is just lying around and i can't decide what i want to do with it. i need to get in the habit of sketching and layout designs before i commit to paper. i found it so helpful when i was asked by an etsy member to create an avatar and banner for her son's shop. she then asked me to do her banner and i found myself going right back to the pen and paper to work it all out. i need to do that with my cards. i need to either sketch digitally or manually, but i need to sketch so i don't find myself wasting my time and paper on crap designs i don't even like.

3. work whatcha got.
i bought this software last year to try and keep track of my income/expenses/inventory and didn't use it once. i need to use it and use it religiously. i've always been one that loves to write things out- i love paper filled with writing, but i've spent this past month (actually more than that) sorting receipts, recording income and expenses- it was fun because i oddly like to do that sort of thing, but time that i could have been doing other things.

so far that's all i got. i'm sure there will be more to come... and i'll probably put this little list our to the side with my wish list just so i can see it day in and day out and hope to adhere to it.
i have a gathering after work, so i won't get to show off my manual labor of this weekend until later, but it will be up this week.