“Because our modern world has made designers of us all (ready or not), Before & After is dedicated to making graphic design understandable, useful and even fun for everyone.”
~ Before & After Magazine

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Everyone is a designer

That proclamation may shock and horrify you if you don’t believe you’re creative (or if you’re a design professional). It may (or may not) be some consolation to hear that there’s no such thing as a bad designer, or even a good one. Or even good or bad design.

A design or designer can be unfocused, unpracticed, uneducated, uninitiated, or uninformed…ill-considered or ill-advised…half-finished, half-baked or half-assed. But something as blanketly judgmental and non-definitive as bad? Or good?

Nahhh…I don’t believe in that.

And I don’t believe we need formal education to do great design work or effectively criticize it. Some designers will surely argue that (and they can debate it without me, thanks), but we’ve all seen sissy shit spewed forth from lettered scholars and stunning yummage crafted by folks who’ve never taken a class.

Which is a really good wonderful thing, right? Because most of us aren’t design pros and at some point we’ll need business cards, brochures, websites, stylish ebooks with nice covers, PowerPoint decks, handouts and takeaways, promotional stuff, yadda yadda.

And we’ll likely need them before we can afford a “real” designer to create them for us.

That said, just because we’re not design professionals doesn’t mean we can get away with making hasty, craptacular stuff. There’s no excuse for that when there are resources and tools to help us make designs that are good eye-catching, interesting, and effective. Help is out there, and plenty of it is either free or a great value. Anyone can do this, which means everyone can.

Yes, that means you too

I’m way sure you can create those eye-catching, interesting, and effective things for yourself with enough exposure to (and experience with) great examples.

And helpful, detailed instructions.

And some thoughtful observation.

And plenty of practical practice.

Talent would help, but it’s not required. Really.

“There’s no religion but line and color…”

~Sting, Send Your Love

…and also typography and usability and constructive critique. And maybe a few more.

Design is a really small handful of really big things, and it’s easy to find those things used well, used shittily, and everywhere in between. Look at and all over your desk. Look in your closet, your pantry, your refrigerator. Look at magazines and billboards and commercials and…well, look at everything.

Every shirt, bottle, box, pen, pad, electronic device, and piece of furniture you see was intentionally designed by someone. So why not you?

Examples are everywhere, but it’s a little harder to find good practical, real-world-ish, business-oriented examples that include those detailed instructions and/or thoughtful observations I mentioned. I do find them, though, and here are my tried-and-true favorites:

—Heartily Recommended—

Before & After Magazine

B & A articles feature practical projects (like business cards and newsletters) that are being improved or built from scratch. Lots of detailed observation throughout that will teach you to assess, understand, and appreciate why a design is or isn’t tickling your fancy.

I’ve had a subscription to the digital version since it started, so I have all of their delicious PDFs…and I treasure every one. Here’s a freebie (email required).

IdeaBook.com

Chuck Green is full of imaginative and elegant, yet still practical and professional, real-world design ideas. His Twitter feed (@ideabook) is packed with good links. For a stationary target, sign up for his newsletter for designer eye candy twice a month.

I have and love these books of Chuck’s: Design-It-Yourself: Graphic Workshop & The Desktop Publisher’s Idea Book, 2nd Edition

Robin Williams

Some in their third editions, Robin’s books promise (and deliver) a lively and nonthreatening overview of design basics for non-designers. Her books highlight typical amateur designs and illustrate simple (but thoughtful) improvements that bring them to professional-grade.

I have and love these books of Robin’s: The Non-Designer’s Design Book & The Non-Designer’s Web Book

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That’s plenty enough to explore until next week, eh?

p.s. Next post we’ll see about color.

p.p.s. Remember: “Recommended” links may return love to me.

p.p.s And hugs to @Reese for suggesting typography and usability for this series. Much needed direction, thanks!

photo courtesy of Flickr and anafukase

I know what I want to do.

Even better, I know what I’m going to do. Even better than that is knowing I’m going to do it. And to top it off, now that I’ve declared my intention, I’m excited about doing it.

My heart is ready and I’m prepared (so says my Whattayas)…but dang, am I scared. I’ve got 2,546 things in my favor, yet a single fear has me a deer in the headlights, heart and preparation be damned.

Actually, I’m scared of two things…

Fear 1

I will build it and they won’t come. My business will be a vast bucket of suckage unlike anything the Web has ever seen. I will be ridiculed by all and laughed off the Internet. I will have no friends, my family will disown me, my husband will leave me, and I’ll wind up living in a box under a bridge. I will die there, broke and alone, killed for the scrawny-pigeon-on-a-stick I was cooking over my meager, sputtering flame.

Summary: FAIL (epic)

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Fear 2

I will build it and everyone will come. My business will be a raving success unlike anything the Web has ever seen. I will be loved and admired by many…but hated and despised by just as many. I will be incinerated by the merciless public eye and eviscerated by the fangs of public criticism. Only my husband and the IRS can know how much I’ve earned lest hoards of not-really-friends and not-really-family, greedy for my wealth, nibble me to death like a pack of rabid ducks.

Summary: SUCCESS (kinda)

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HA!

Absurd, right? And it feels so very, very good to write them out and see them for the ridiculousnesses that they are.

Wow. How great to laugh at them. Michael Hill (@GeePawHill) is right—

Laughing Helps

It’s a cliché because it’s true.

I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but whatever happens, it won’t be Fear 1 or Fear 2…it’ll be Fear 1.3 or Fear 1.67 or something else assuredly non-epic in between them. And when what happens next actually happens, I’ll…

Well, I’ll just figure it out when I get there.

Which is all to say: Whatever you’re scared of, write them down, k? And if they’re not funny, make them funny. If you can’t make them funny, tear them up and throw them out.

They’re only paper.

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p.s. Enough reflection and introspection. Next week, we get down (up?) to business.

Photo credit: Laughing monks by araswami

For months now I’ve been struggling with what to do for a business. I mean a real business…not the monkey business I’ve been doing without strategy or marketing or cultivating clients or accounting or anything like that.

Then today I realized I haven’t been struggling with what to do for a business. I’ve been struggling against what to do for a business. I know what to do, I’m just scared to do it. And my Inner Me is fighting against the change and risks inherent to doing it. A little woowoo, but there ya go.

Not Good Enough

But this is better than a few years ago when I wanted to do it and believed I:

• Didn’t know enough to do it,
• Didn’t have the right tools to do it,
• Didn’t have the right skills to do it, and
• Couldn’t afford the time or money it would take to do it.

Simply, I didn’t believe I was good enough for what I wanted to do.

Sidenote: I was wrong about that, by the way. When it’s time to start, whoever we are and whatever we have on hand is enough. Think: MacGyver. (And thank you for the reminder, Cath!)

So believing (wrongly) I needed a ton of stuff I didn’t have, I started collecting articles, subscriptions, books, domain names, degrees, and whatnot…lots and lots of whatnot. And I had NO idea how much I’d accumulated until I took inventory today.

Yup, inventory

I so love my Magna Cartas that I made more lists. This time I took stock of what I have on hand to build a business with, willing to be surprised with the answer. What was on the lists was not surprising…what knocked my socks off was how much stuff I’ve got to work with:

I only listed things I like and I marked the stuff I really like. And I forgot to add my certs: Microsoft Office Instructor and Master’s in Instructional Design for Online Learning, and the Master’s degree that’s on hold for the mo’. I also left off my favorite vendors, some apps, and some equipment (printers, etc.). And also resumé-type hard- and soft-skill stuff. So as long as those lists are, there’s more.

Wow.

Looking over my Whattayas, my experiences have prepared me for it (Yes!). I have super-specific formal education tailored to it, some terrific books, the best tools, and the necessary skills…and a few skills that are irrelevant but handy (Yes!). I also have cash to cover the bills for a month or two, a clear calendar, and a husband who thinks it’s a great idea (Hell, Yes!).

Roll up all those Yeses and you get a big ball of GO!

Right?

Err…did I mention that I’m scared to do it?

And have you noticed there can be 2,546 Yeses push-pulling you forward, but it only takes one or two fears to hold you back?

But fears are so Thursday. Today is about taking inventory—

Whattaya know? Whattaya have? Whattaya want?

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Whatever it is you want to do, you probably have plenty work with. And however much you have on hand, it’s enough to get started. If you’re not sure what you have (and even if you think you’re sure): take inventory…and be willing to be surprised.

When we know what we have, we draw more lines in the sand.

And we can’t unknow it. We can’t undraw them, either.

So make your lists, k?

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See you Thursday,

Photo credit: calculator by ansik

When Seth Godin tipped his hat to Chris Guillebeau’s wunnerful 279 Days to Overnight Success, he did it with just two sentences and the perfect word:

Chris just published this free manifesto. This PDF is what generous looks like.

And it is, indeed.

Since then, I’ve been distilling experiences, products, and people into the one word that gets it right. An amusing exercise with mixed results. For example, I spent last week decluttering our space and reflecting on my life from age 15 to 40. This morning I declared (with a flourish) that the One Right Word for my life so far is—

Stupid

How awkward to go soul-searching and find I’m a very intelligent person who does the stupidest fucking things? And how useful to realize the smartest things I’ve done were done on purpose. I feel way sure my intention was key to how well they worked out. This is the point.

That said, for all the serenity that decluttering brought, the one-word conclusion left me feeling a bit like shit. Still, we may as well all learn something from it…

Me, The Sniper

When working on a project, I’m like a sniper in The Bubble. I’ve read snipers are good at what they do because, among other things, they can cocoon themselves in a silent space–their bubble–and focus entirely on the (unfortunately fatal) task at hand. When I’m really working on something, I can do exactly that.

The good news is: I get a lot of good work done when I’m bubbled up.

The bad news is: The dishes and laundry don’t get washed, phone calls don’t get returned, email goes ignored, unopened mail piles up, legs go unshaven, bills get paid at the last minute, the oven is stone cold, and my hungry husband is wondering when the self-centered wench with the prickly attitude (and legs!) will go back into her box so his attentive, loving wife can come back. And if there are any clean socks.

This would be okay for a day or a week, but I have a handy habit of attracting gigs that last for months when I need the money most. I sign the contracts with reckless gratitude, do the work with vigor, earn the cash, burn myself out, and let my Life go straight to hell.

Good thing I crossed paths with Mark Silver, Laurie Foley, Cath Duncan, and other folks who encourage us to decide with our hearts and guts ahead of (or instead of) our brains. My heart and gut say that how I work best is at its worst with how I’ve been working. I’m resisting the concept, but it smells like Truth.

True or not, I’m 40 years old and only just now thinking this through. Pretty stupid, right?

Maybe. Maybe not.

It’s surely a little stupid. But really? I think it’s a symptom of a bigger stupid.

Introducing: A Bigger Stupid

I love buffets. I can taste a variety of foods for one price.

I have lived a buffet. I am paying the price.

Life is meant to be sampled at 20. During college I dated with abandon, drifted in and out of cliques, and moved to a new apartment every year. Oddly enough, I stuck with an unsuitable architecture program until the gasping, bitter end.

And I worked the whole time: summers, holidays, and during school. I was a dishwasher, an artist’s model, and cashier at the doughnut shop. I worked at a jewelry store, the library, and the dining hall offices. Off the books, I cut hair (badly) and typed papers (very well).

After graduation, I temped a lot, learned the typical admin stuff, and tripped over Access databases along the way. I shifted into the IT world by chance and they became the center of my working life. For 10+ years, each job and contract was one happy accident after another.

Somewhere along there I attended an Edward Tufte seminar and found that data can be beautiful. I discovered the Internet and saw how information can spread. I started building websites because it was easy, interesting, and fun.  I learned how much I loved learning and how I could use Tufte-ness, the Internet, and websites to help others learn, too. I blogged because I could. And then I turned 40.

Do you see the bigger stupid yet?

The Bigger Stupid, Defined

It’s the lack of intention.

I’d strike out in a direction and then coast as far as I could. If something got unmanageable or undesirable, I’d just…drift away into something else. Sometimes. Other times I would stubbornly stick with something that did me no good and maybe a lotta bad.

Rarely did I set my mind on something I wanted with an idea of what I would get from it and what it would take for me to get it, and then go all the way.

Looking back over it from this distance, much of my life I’ve worked very, very hard not to leave a ripple despite inner tugs to do/try/contribute/affect more. How regretful. How stupid.

And today I’m thoroughly pissed that I didn’t pause sooner to consider what the hell I was doing.

Other Stupids

Learning new skills is great, because nothing learned is ever wasted. But putting learning before earning was stupid.

Asking other folks for the Best Thing To Do Next was stupid, because I knew what to do…but I lacked the confidence to do it, dreaded failure, and was wary of success.

Believing I could excel (or even get by) without much effort, like in school, was stupid. Even a half-successful business takes work. A super-successful one takes far more than that (though it gives more, too).

I didn’t stop when things felt bad. I didn’t stop when things felt unbearable. I believed I could and should “hang in there”. I didn’t listen to my heart. I didn’t listen to my gut. Really stupid.

I have been consistently and regretfully stupid.

But not eternally

We already talked about drawing lines in the sand on what we will and won’t do with our work and our lives and our selves. So here’s a big line drawn from last week—

No more making stupid

Wishing you a life with less stupid,

p.s. This isn’t about not making mistakes. I fully intend to make a lot of them, and as smartly and as quickly as possible, as Pam Slim often suggests. We’ll see what happens, eh?

Photo credit: andryone

Okay!

Since finishing the Contract Of The Damned I’ve been chewing on how to transform what I know into a useful/helpful business that’s both profitable and sustainable. This is not a new chew.

It’s been on my mind for years and years, so I figured a few days of undivided attention would unfurl a predestined path paved with gold, where I’d traipse among treasurable moments of delight and meet stellar people who would accept my humble gifts (and me) with open arms and gracious ease.

Or something.

Whatever. There was no unfurling.

Instead, my brain was an unbearable knot of clamor. An assembly of stagnant ideas, stale fears, and old expectations were squawking squawking squawking all day, every day. Man! Weren’t they pissed at having been set aside? You wouldn’t believe the bitching.

My head was such a mess that I was driven to do what I absolutely hate to do: start with (shudder!) a blank sheet of paper.

I’m at my best with a box to think outside of—or even inside of—so this was drama. Letting go of anything is hard for me. Letting go of everything? Terrifying.

It took two weeks of reading and cleaning and napping and working and eating comfort food to do it, but I did it. My head got clear and the silence was a massive relief…

…and along the way I found directions for building a shweet new box. Huzzah!

Our Magna Cartas

If you’ve read @ChrisBaty’s No Plot? No Problem!, then you already know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, here’s the scoop—

In the context of NaNoWriMo, Magna Cartas are your documented preferences for what does and doesn’t make a good novel. Magna Carta 1 lists your loves, while Magna Carta 2 is a list of not-so-much. The aim is to compile your likes and dislikes into guidelines for a novel that you  a) would want to read, and b) are going to write. The Magna Cartas are your literary lines in the sand.

Note the “documented” part. The exercise requires you commit these to paper.

Note the “your preferences” part. They’re your lists. They’re not for what other people think you should/shouldn’t write or even for what you think you should/shouldn’t write. They’re for what you like and what you don’t like. Period.

And because every one of us is a skin bag packed with preferences, this is a simple exercise.

Simple Enough

It’s a simple enough exercise to apply to any ol’ thing you want to create…like a career, a piece of art, or a lifestyle. Or your Life, even. Or your work. Or your life’s work. Or work that allows you to have a life.

You saw that one coming, yeh?

My Magna Carta for Delightful Work is adorable. It’s a sunny list for my business-to-be. It has what I love, what I enjoy, and what I miss most about work that I loved and enjoyed.  It’s brimming with happy hopes. It’s longer than I expected and it has a few surprises.

And I’m not going to share it with you. It’ll bore you to tears. Seriously.

Much more interesting is the list of things I don’t want my business (or me) to be. These are things I dread doing (or becoming) that have subconsciously held me back for longer than I’m gonna admit.

The irksome part is: every single item on the list has a true story. With a name. And a face. And—I will totally admit this—sometimes the name is Crystal and the face is mine. Bleugh!

The list boils down to one thing: I don’t want to be (or continue to be) “That Guy”.

I Don’t Wanna Be “That Guy” Who…

… runs out of things to say on his hugely profitable blog after 163 posts, but rather than branch out or cap it off he regurgitates hopelessly week after week and prays no one notices. They do.

… doesn’t strategize his writing, so his blog is aimless even though the individual posts are cool.

… doesn’t post for 2 months (or more) and leaves his readers hanging.

… has a completely different personality offline. And not in a good way.

… takes time to craft a picture-perfect sales letter, but everything after the Buy Now button is a half-ass affair that’s barely held together with baling wire and spit.

… chooses a business model for the money it can bring instead of how it suits his background, skillset, personality, lifestyle, and character.

… doesn’t accept his true—not apparent or assumed, but his real—boundaries.

… automates customer-engaged tasks that should be hands-on.

… keeps his hands on repetitive, mindless tasks that should be automated.

… starts a membership program without considering he’ll need to create fresh content forever, and the topics get painfully weak as he loses enthusiasm.

… waits until his business is falling down around him (and his customers’ businesses with it) before hiring support.

… pushes affiliate products he hasn’t read, tried, or examined. Or paid for.

… doesn’t tell his readers he uses affiliate links (which he does). Or cloaks his affiliate links like they’re something naughty (which they’re not). As if his readers won’t resent it when they figure it out (which they will).

… adopts trickery.

… overprotects his information products such that honest customers are punished while rogues steal the stuff anyway.

… relies on a zillion subscribers, famous friends, heaps of money, and other ethereals for his identity and self-worth.

… downloads and buys every success-promising product available, but doesn’t bother to read them.

… doesn’t do thorough research, so his shit is just wrong.

… interacts with a Get goal instead of a Give goal.

… believes his own hype.

… overestimates his value.

… underestimates his potential.

… isn’t prepared for success when it comes.

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Whew.

Have you met That Guy you don’t want to be? Have you become Him?

Maybe you can take some time today to write down what you absolutely don’t want for your business, your work, your marriage, your family, and your life.

Draw the line.

P.S. And don’t cross it. Ever.

Has anyone ever said that to you? Or looked it at you? Like: they didn’t actually say it, but they communicated it with a malevolent (or even benign) glare?

You don’t belong here.

Or have you said it to yourself? Maybe you looked around the town you live in, the people you work with, or the people you live with, and whispered to yourself—

I don’t belong here.

Maybe you never belonged there. Or maybe you used to belong there but just that moment realized you didn’t belong there anymore.

Or maybe you’ve been blessed with being in the right place at the right time all this time and this sounds totally foreign to you? Read on anyway. Life does indeed come at us fast and it helps to be armed with a story. Even if it’s someone else’s story. Maybe especially if.

I didn’t belong There

A friend pointed me at a contractor position with the right work for the right people at the right rate. It was the perfect storm of gigs. I could work from home on the side of Good, use a variety of my best skills, and earn more money than I’ve ever made in my life.

It took me precisely 10 days to realize I didn’t belong there.

Right work, right people, right rate, wrong workstyle. I can do a lot of things, but I can’t do mirage deadlines that appear and reappear on an ever-distant horizon. I can’t do sending documents for feedback that never actually comes back, and I definitely can’t do finish lines that whisk away on rails. Every. Fucking. Time.

I’m not built for that. Not.

And working 400 miles away from corporate office drama did not save me from it. Oh no, it di’n't. I wasn’t in the thick of it, but the ripples reached me eventually. Oh yes. Oh yes, they did.

So when they talked of extending the contract another 3 months (remember: their finish lines move fast and far), I envisioned three things: more work that I like, more money that I need, and being tethered to a situation I neither liked nor needed.

And I said No.

I didn’t say No right away. I debated with the Husband about security and student loans versus sanity and passion. I rationalized. I hemmed-and-hawed. I ground my teeth in my sleep when I could finally finally finally get to sleep.

And then I stopped thinking altogether and went to the heart of it, a la Mark Silver. He calls it Remembrance, some would call it meditation or prayer, I call it Tapping In.

Which is how I found my answer. In the middle of the night, in the quiet, by myself (but not alone), there it was—

You don’t belong there.
Let it go.

And so I said No.

I said No to work that I really, really, really like. I said No to supporting people who ensure big businesses around the world are doing right and keeping it real. I said No to (almost) enough money to bring me out of the red. I told them I should make room for someone who would thrive in the environment that was driving me raving fucking batshit crazy.

Well, I didn’t say the “raving fucking batshit crazy” part. It was way hard to not say it, though. Way.

It was hard to say any of it. Harder than disconnecting from my troubled-and-troubling father. Harder than leaving my sweet-but-ill-suited first husband. Harder, even, then leaving my familiar East coast for unknowns in the West.

I haven’t done that last one yet, actually. We will do it though, and soon…though in many ways not soon enough. I’ve been itching to go West for 20 years…I even imported my husband from Seattle to have a  part of it. But it took @chrisguillebeau (and a memorably good beer) in a basement bar in the center of Washington DC to get me gone. He said lots of things, but I mostly remember this one thing—

…come to Portland.
You don’t belong here.

He also asked when I would come out of my self-inflicted exile from blogging. Which leads me to the next bit…

I do belong Here

I never imagined I would land in a place like this, which is both nowhere and everywhere. Among folks like—

@pamslim, who sees and sparks entrepreneurial potential in everyone who comes to her,

@charliegilkey, who signs permission slips to say No,

@etherjammer, @intuitioneer, @michelewoodward, et. al., who have just about filled my Love Bucket,

Mark @markheartofbiz, who told me where to go and what to do there,

Naomi @ittybiz, who tumbles headlong into greatness with bodaciously cunning strategy

@risingstarideas, who finds stuff that makes anything—maybe everything—possible online

@havi, who, in sharing her Self, makes it not entirely impossible for me to share mine

@chrisguillebeau, who has set the pace and lights the ways,

and @reese, my sister from another mother, who believes.

I feel like I belong here among them. And I feel like I belong here with you.

I said No to a heap of pretty-sure income, which felt crazy, but I also said Yes to independence and insecurity and joy and confusion and delight and frustration. Which also feels crazy.

Whatever. Here I am.

And I’m happy to sit here telling you stories and making observations and dropping F-bombs. And asking you to ask yourself questions like this one—

Where do you belong?

Last week I asked, “So. How’s that working out for ya?” This time I’m asking:

Do you belong there?

Wherever you are: Does it make you feel right and good and whole? Does it give energy back to you, drain you dry, or simply leave you in peace?

Do the people around you make you laugh, make you think, make you feel safe, make you feel cozy? Or do they make you cry, make you mad, make you want to fly far, far, far away? Do they make fun of you? Do they make you want to be someone else…just to fit in?

And: Do you love your work?

This is the most important question of all, I feel sure. If you work 8-10 hours each day, you spend more time working than you spend on any other single thing. How your work affects you affects everything else. Everything.

I’m not asking if you love it every day…no work is lovable every day. But do you love it mostly? Or is your gut saying you’re doing the wrong thing in the wrong place? Or—oddly enough but possible—the wrong thing in the right place? Or—like me—the right thing in the wrong place?

Do you belong there?

Are you sure?

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Walking the talk…with absolutely no idea of where it will take me,

I love my GF Lisa. I do.

But.

She does tend to dodge what’ll bring much-wanted change to her life and then complain about the rotten state of things. I sympathize and encourage, but she’s steadfast in her mission to live a dissatisfying life and beef about it.

And BOY did she meet her match last week…

So.

(Like most of us) Lisa spends a lot of time at her computer and (like many of us) she has an opposite-of-ergonomic workstation arrangement. Which means (like some of us) she’s now met Tommy Tendonitis. Ew.

Her specialist, Freida, is awesome. She prescribed arm braces and pain-relievers and also daily exercises, herbal remedies, dire warnings about overwork, and suggestions for a friendlier workspace. She’s big on permanent, pill-free, pain-free solutions.

So when Freida The Magnificent bumped into Lisa at the mall, of course she asked how her arms were feeling. And since they still hurt like hell, Lisa said, “They still hurt like hell.”

Concerned, Freida asked, “Are you wearing the arm braces at night?”

Lisa—who stalls out on the road to change, remember—hadn’t worn the arm braces at all, and said so.

Freida shot back, “So. How’s that working out for ya?”

Now. Maybe I should’ve felt bad that my girl got a verbal head-smack from Freida Ray Leonard, but I was too busy laughing to commiserate. And heaven help me, the story continued—

Lisa (tentative): “How’s that working out for me? Um….it’s not?”

Freida (matter-of-fact): “Ah. Okay. How about the exercises. Are you doing those daily?”

Lisa (uncomfortable): “Um….no?”

Freida: “Are you doing them at all?”

Lisa (really uncomfortable): “Um…no?”

Freida: “So. How’s that working out for ya?”

Lisa (speechless): “…”

Because of course, doing nothing wasn’t working out for her. At all. Which was why her situation hadn’t changed. At all.

Freida The Inquisitor went on like that for wayyyy longer than Lisa was happy with. She asked about herbal soaks and working less and taking rests and taking meds. Lisa was doing little to solve her problem and each time they reached a healing step she’d ignored, Frieda asked…

How’s That Working Out For Ya?

Which is, like, the complete opposite of what a shrink asks. A shrinks asks, “So. How do you feel about that?”, leading to a 50-minute convo about emotion and motivation and family history and whatnot. Good stuff.

But.

There’s a time when it’s just the wrong fucking question.

Sometimes we need a question that doesn’t give a damn about our feelings and their backstory. We need something that gives zero quarter to our perennial whining and our perpetual bullshit and throws us directly under the Bus Of Binary Answers.

This is that question.

So. How’s that working out for ya?

There are lots of responses, right?

Things are GREAT. Oh, it totally SUCKS. It’s not working AT ALL. Better than I ever expected. Fuck if I know. Stop asking me that!

Lots of responses that boil down to just two answers:

Either what you’re doing is working for ya or it’s not.

And once you admit what you’re doing isn’t working, there’s not alotta room for continuing to do it.

So.

I am wearing the question out. And day by day, change is happening. Here’s a typical talk—

Me (whining): “OMG. I am so tired of working in the evenings when I could be playing XBox with Dan. I totally resent his flagrant carefree idleness. Asshole. Harrumph.”

Moi (matter-of-fact): “Do you get up when he leaves in the morning and work while he’s at work?”

Me (uncomfortable): “Ummm…No?”

Moi: “So. How’s that working out for ya?”

Me: “It’s not. B-b-b-but I’m so tired in the mornings.”

Moi: “I thought the low-sugar low-carb caveman diet thing was helping with that?”

Me: “Welllll, I ate chocolate every day last week. And had french fries a couple of nights. With Cokes.”

Moi: “So. How’s that working out for ya?”

Me (sighing): “It’s not.”

See what I mean? No room for poo-poo. Plenty of room for improvement

So.

If you’re not getting what you want from what you’re doing (or not doing), maybe it’s time to start asking questions.

Or, really, you can ask just one question—

How’s That Working Out For YOU?

(Psst. For best results: Ask it early. Ask it often.)

Peace and progress,

Hey there!

I’ve been trying all week to send you a post. I got a HUGE emotional and creative boost from @PamSlim’s workshop, so I have lots and lots of ideas…but none that will fit within 700 words. Yet.

That big boost was followed by a consuming need to read, so I’ve also got a thrillion unexpressed sidenotes on stuff I found in posts, tweets, etc. …but most of it’s too small for a post and too big for a tweet. Humph!

So in the spirit of @Havi’s nifty Item! posts, I’ve gathered up some sidenotes to throw in the pot. We’ll stir ‘em up at the end and see how it comes out. Here we go…

·

Looking Forward to Reading…

10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Giving Up On Your Dream
(via @TimBrownson via @BeMeaningful)
I feel an urgency to deadhead—as in: flowers, not as in: Garcia!—my work and life and focus on growing a few important things rather than work 40 acres without a mule. I wonder what my answers will be…

102 Proven Social Media Headline Formulas
(via @JonathanFields)
I hate writing headlines. Hate it. It’s probably another manifestation of my packrattedness…I don’t even wanna cull words. So this could be great…102 headlines is 2 a week for almost a year. How’s that for a writing prompt?

What it Takes to Go Big
Not sure how I came across this one, but I love the site’s layout and it looks like fun. I tend to be cautious and hesitant with my plans, so maybe this will inspire some bigger thinking and swifter action for my tiny business.

·

Planning to Buy…

The Strategy of Not Being Strategic
(from @havi and @pistachio)
I just like Havi’s take on things. She has a way of taking Triscuit topics and transforming them into Extreme Nachos. But vegetarian. With lots of zany salsa. I have no idea who Pistachio is, so I’ll get to hear a new voice, too.

The CSS Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks, 2nd Edition
(coming later this month from @sitepointdotcom)
Thrilled to see an update for this CSS treasure. Way happy I can buy it in both PDF and paperback. I poked around the SitePoint bookstore and discovered three things: 1) They will email a sample of any book, 2) The book samples are exactly what and how book samples should be, 3) The sales pages are, too. Perfect execution, IMO. Expect a post (or two) that lays it all out.

·

My Take-aways From…

Washington D.C. Escape from Cubicle Nation Workshop
I need to get out more. Creative energy is contagious. I love hearing people’s business ideas. I love my ideas for coaxing stuff into The Real. And I really love it when our ideas add up to something bigger and better than the sum of their shiny parts. And I need a conference budget. And a coach.

Jen & Charlie’s Work Party
My desk is sacred space. I can’t divide my Self between my day job and my dream job—I can only share. And not for too much longer. If something’s within reach or within view of my chair, it needs to have an inspiring or neutral impact…painful, distracting, irritating things gotta go. Don’t guiltify or shittify my work and plans with Shoulds. Say “No”. A lot.

·

Coming Up Next…

Headway Themes
After reading every bit of info on this new release, I bought it. I’m looking forward to the easy-peasy drag-and-drop features and the bare-bones-from-the-ground-up design potential. We’ll see what I end up with. Sidenote to the sidenote: The wagon circling and urgent scrambling by their Thesis “competitors” was fun to watch. The nastinesses that surfaced in blog comments was not. Neither was the hashtag hijack by Headway fans.

Mondo Beyondo: An Online Class About Dreaming Big
This sold out a few hours after I signed up, so I’m glad I didn’t hesitate. It’ll have recordings and colorful art, Yay! The only supplies are my “best journal and favorite pen”. And the Internet. It will be mighty fine to hear Chris Guillebeau’s interview. Though—as Marvin Gaye and Tammi crooned—ain’t nothing like the real thing (Baby).

.

Stir it up,

p.s. Was this helpful or interesting or useful or fun to read? Lemme know down below…

The old saw says “Why rent when you can buy?” and I’ve got three darned good reasons. Renting is better than buying when—

• You’ll use It only once
• When It loses Its value quickly
• When you want to try It before you buy It

In the brick-and-mortar world, we rent power tools and moving trucks and library books and all kinds of durable reusables. Old news. No surprises there.

But the tried-and-true rentals model is spreading to new and unexpected corners online, and it’s earned its own page in my Online Business Playbook. Netflix started it and—based on the newer players—there’s no guessing where (or if) it will end. Check these out…

Paperback Book Rentals

Okay, maybe we should have seen this one coming? Parallel to the Netflix no-late-fees-ever-just-drop-em-in-the-mail system, BooksFree rents paperbacks on a circulating basis to subscribers who pay a monthly fee. The fees vary depending on how many books are held at one time—from 2 to 15(!) books, from $14 to $50.

Sure, Joe Subscriber could go to his local library and borrow books for free. But the “going to the library” part is a step that many (including me) are happy to avoid. BooksFree rentals ship with a pre-addressed, pre-postaged pouch to mail them back. No stamps required, no due dates, no driving, no overdue fees. Happy Joe!

Some things to note about BooksFree’s setup—

• Books ship USPS Media Mail, which is both cheap and fast.
• Joe can cycle through new-to-him books many times a month, depending on his reading speed and delivery times
• If Joe really really likes a book, he can pay for it and keep it (most of the time…tough-to-find titles can’t be kept)
• Joe can donate his own paperbacks for store credit towards “keepers”
• BooksFree also sells books

Between membership fees and shipping and keepers and donations and sales, I’m having a helluva time tracking the money on this one. In general, when I think back on how many books I read as a subscriber, I feel sure they lost money on me every month.

Once—and only once—I held a pair of books for 3 months. So that time those two books cost me…what? $30 or something? Before that, I was round-tripping paperbacks 2 to 4 times each month. On those months my subscription fee didn’t even cover the shipping.

And then I dropped the subscription because I wasn’t reading much. Which is entirely unlike our Netflix subscription, which goes unused for months as DVDs sit unwatched next to our TV…yet we can’t bring ourselves to cancel.

Something to think about.

And while you’re thinking on that, think on this—

Fashion Accessory Rentals

Now called Avelle, Bag Borrow or Steal (BBS) rents the kind of stylish stuff that loses value over time. I don’t mean like a car, which depreciates over years. I mean handbags, sunglasses, jewelry and watches that lose their value over a few months.

Best that I can tell, we don’t have to be members of BBS to rent these things. Being a member means discounts and advance notice, though, which might be worth $5 to $10 each month for the true fashionista. Either way, 100% guaranteed authentic glam can be rented by the week, month, or quarter…or as BBS puts it: for an event, a month, or a season.

Are you feelin’ it? Yes? No?

Okay, go peek at this:

Hermes Vintage Crocodile Birkin Handbag

Yup, that one costs $4,800 per month. To rent.

TO RENT.

But there’s always the Whiting & Davis Cheveron Envelope Clutch for a teensy $20 per month. Or, between those two prices, there are 2000+ other purses to choose from.

Something else to think about.

With that in mind, here’s another one…closely related, but super-super-focused:

High-End Watch Rentals

Steal the Time does a similar thing, but they only rent expensive watches.*

Just watches.

Like this Hublot Chrono Depose can be rented for $308 per week. Or for $905 per month. Or purchased outright for $9,495. Which isn’t bad, considering the MSRP is $14,200.

‘Nuf said.

Actually, one last bit…

Among the nifty things about these rentals is they keep us from accumulating short-lived stuff. We rent It, use It, enjoy It, and then return It for someone else to do the same. It’s quite smart, really…

…and I suspect there’s decent money in it, too.

There’s a lot of math to making sure it’s profitable, though. Lots to consider: buying new stock and anticipating demand and managing inventory and shipping (both ways) and pricing the membership fees and selling used stock for the right price at the right time.

But it’s doable. Folks are doing it.

And some of them have been doing it for quite a long time—Netflix has been around since 1997. Booksfree since 2000. Bag, Borrow or Steal has been in business since 2006. It appears Steal the Time is the baby of the bunch, as their domain registration is only a year old.

Durable reusables. For rent. Online.

Something to think about.

.

* Curtsy to @sheamus for releasing this into the Twitterverse…

Dan and I dropped into Metro Silver Diner this weekend, as usual. We labored over the menu and considered trying something different. As usual, we fell back on our favorites: Chili with a salad for him and gourmet sliders on greens* for me. I also get the last desperate shlurp of a milkshake we’re supposed to be sharing…but anyway.

A typical date at the Diner. Except my Spidey-sense started tingling as soon as we walked in. That’s a benefit to growing up with an asshole alcoholic, by the way. You’re quick to feel a downturn in the mood of a room. Quick as spit, your nerves skip a beat and your wariness kicks in. Or rather, now that I’m an adult and safe and happy, my awareness is what kicks in.

The greeter was kind, but desperate. The cashier was prompt, but stiff. And the floor staff wasn’t buzzing and smiling and laughing. The restaurant was all sparkly and the customers looked cared for, but the staff was miserable. And within 3 minutes we knew why.

There was a jackass among them

The worst kind. The upper-level management kind.

And he was getting in the way.

First, we heard him berating the adorable assistant manager. From two tables away we heard him bark, “I’m in there helping you guys by washing the dishes and there are six dirty tables out here…while you’re off taking a smoke break.” The young assistant perked out, “Sorry, Sir! It won’t happen again!” before shlumping outside to clean tables.

I was stunned. Not just because Jackass was having this should-be private moment right there on the floor of the restaurant.

I was stunned because this big ol’ jackass managed to cram a Poor Me statement and a sneer into the same sentence. Fucking artwork, that. It was an anti-bonus that he jackassed himself and humiliated this kid…over what? A handful of dirty tables right after the rush in a mostly empty restaurant? Absurd.

And so the kid shlumped out to bus the tables and Jackass followed him. Then Dan looked out the wall-sized window and started grumbling. In full view of everyone, Jackass interrupted the kid’s bussing effort with one of his own—by piling dirty dishes on the table the kid was cleaning so he could wipe the table he picked for himself.

And there lie (lay?) the problem. Jackass was one of those bosses. While we watched—because this is now dinner theater—he injected himself into all kinds of shit he had no business in.

My 2nd favorite was when he stationed himself at the waiters’ pick-up counter and handed them plates. <start snarky-sarcasm>Yeah. They’re totally incapable of taking a plate of food from a shelf on their own. I don’t know how they’ve managed without him.<end snarky-sarcasm>

My absolute favorite was when a chummy waiter sought me out to talk about new menu items that are coming. He started listing yummies, but before we can get a decent chat on, Jackass blurts loudly from across the room, “We’re not serving that yet, don’t talk about that!” and gets the waiter all flustered.

WTF?

What Jackass should have been doing

The REALLY amazing thing is it’s not like Jackass didn’t have anything else to do? Here’s my list of issues that need addressing:

• What’s up with your dishwashing equipment that the silverware is never really clean? The glassware and dishes are squeaky spotless, so what’s up?
• And speaking of silverware, why aren’t there wrapped place settings with the cashier? It’s just silly to make us walk alllll the way to the other end of the diner to fetch it.
  Note: I know the cafeteria/fine dining hybrid is a bit of an ass kicker, but it’s a great idea and you’ve got it almost perfect. Work it out.
• And speaking of ass-kicking, who was the moron who put the self-checkout kiosk right next to the cashier’s station? It’s awesome to scan my debit card and have past orders appear for quick checkout, but I can’t get to it when there’s any kind of line.  So while I could order right away, I have to wait in line with everyone else.

Let’s not be the jackass, k?

I’m still wondering if Jackass thinks fussing at the kids and with the process made him look big and smart and in charge and in control.

My message to Carlos (that’s his name, by the way—CARLOS): Your misplaced overactivity made you look small and petty and useless and mean. Leave the kids to do what they’re quite good at doing and go do your own fucking job. Whatever that is.

My message to you and me: Micromanagement can be amusing (I suppose) but it’s just a distraction. It’s like playing Free Cell or reading blog posts , but worse because your capable staff can’t get their own stuff done. You’re in the way.

So—

• If we don’t trust our staff to do it right, we need to test ‘em and then retrain ‘em or replace ‘em,
• If we’re worried our processes are inefficient then we need to test them…but somewhere far away from work in progress, and
• If we’re just bored with our own work and want something else to do, then we need to admit that. And then hunker down to it or bail for something way out of the way of everyone else.

’s all I’m saying.

.

* Mini Angus and turkey burgers with cheese and grilled onions + a mini-slab of fresh salmon with pickled ginger and a light ginger sauce. Yum!