My Current Thoughts on Being Employed

I feel like I'm about to be a huge hypocrite, and I hope you'll forgive me.  I think I like being employed.  And by employed I mean employed by someone else.  As you know I've been wanting to live a handmade dream for a while.  But the other day I was reading through some of the struggles of others I know who've taken the self employed leap & was breathing a sigh of relief realizing that I don't really have to worry about income now that I am, well, employed.  Now, that doesn't mean that I'm not excited to try to do more independent things - there's going to be a lot of refocusing for Five Sixteenths in 2014 (maybe I can keep up momentum? Who knows.)

But I just wanted to share some of my thoughts on being employed after trying so hard to be self-employed.  The struggles were real, the experience was amazing, and I totally miss feeling like I'm being successful for myself - but do you ever feel like you're just not cut out for things?  At the start I was psyched about working for myself.  In the middle I still felt like I was making it.  And right before I found my job I just felt desperate.  

I do wish my job was more creative & demanding of me in a way I felt successful.  I feel like I can complete what I'm tasked to do but it's not from the heart.  I do feel like sometimes I'm just working for the weekend & hardly fit in anything I'd like to accomplish any more.  A lot of the Five Sixteenths ventures sort of sank & faded away as 2013 went on.  Things I loved I no longer do because I don't want to have to please others.  I took away custom work for blogs because it stressed me out & it wasn't enjoyable anymore when you have to fit it into 4 hours after work - a long with all the other shiz you have to do - instead of 8 hours a day.  We're also going to try to sell out our stock & shut down the 516VINTAGE site because I just can't manage it.  It took a turn I wasn't proud of & I'm sad.  That was a fun venture that I think would have been profitable, had I not found a job.  Additionally this blog just because something I didn't recognize.  It was just there, getting filled with words and not so much filled with my heart.  That hit me hard.

I even thought at one point of shutting the whole thing down.  But I really do love blogging.  I couldn't imagine not having this outlet.  I mean it's a way for me to share my life with others & more importantly, document it for myself.  I love sharing DIY's because I think they are a neat read & inovative, but I also want to look back & see what I was into as I go through life. Seeing where I lived, who I was, what I wanted is really inspiring for me.  And I think if you've grown with me or if you've just started reading (and you've popped through old posts) you can see how much this blog has grown - which should be encouraging for anyone wanting to start a blog.  I just love blogging, ok!

But back to the Five Sixteenths ventures - I've actually found selling on Zazzle to be the most rewarding.  Why? Because I design & you fill in.  It's passive.  I can pour my heart into something that I like and if you want to you can customize it & buy it.  Don't get me wrong, I loved designing blogs & working with others to get exactly what they wanted (in fact the blog The Weekend File is my proudest accomplishment!) but I just couldn't do it after being asked to perform all day long.  You know what I mean?  I still love designing & trying my hand at things so designing & selling stationery (and other goodies) on Zazzle is amazing for me.  Zazzle just added a whole new slew of things to customize & sell so that will be a big focus in 2014.  It's pretty much passive - and when other sites haven't been selling (the designs, vintage, & stuff in the Five One Six shop) Zazzle has been giving me at least 3 sales a month.  Now, that's not a lot of money but when I'm not doing anything & am still making sales - that says a lot to me.  I don't know if that's good or bad, but at the point I am at right now, I like it.  I haven't made a new design in at least, I wanna say 6 months but I've been making sales.  Sometimes a lot sometimes a little.  But I can design & not have to worry about it not working or not being what someone likes.  I can have fun & I like that.

As for the Five One Six shop.  I'm so going to keep that open.  As with blogging I can't imagine not selling my handmade items somewhere.  I just think that if someone likes something they'll pick it up and I just want to share it with you all.  Additionally, I spent a lot of time customizing the Five One Six storenvy storefront.  I mean like 2 weeks of all day coding at Starbucks last year - I was impressed with myself.

So what does all this really have to do with being employed?  Well, I can refocus my passions into something that will work for the time of my life right now.  Being employed meant change - and while I feel like I'm good at accepting change, I'm not very good at recovering from it.  It takes me a long while to get back up.  But being employed for me right now means little financial worry.  I feel better at being able to pay my bills, save, go shopping, and mainly be a productive part of the this team I'm a part of - the Zach & I team.  And let me say he's so supportive.  I'm pretty sure I could say I want to go to the moon and he'd support me.  But I just felt like I wasn't giving my half of the work or really 100% of what I knew I could devote to our team.  So if nothing more, being employed means I can now give 100% to the team I am a part of & that makes me happy.  Saving & enjoying life - on the weekends - means a lot to me now.  I may not be rolling it dough or doing anything that pulls me in a creative direction but I'm saving & living.  I feel like I'm somewhere between calm & satisfied.  Maybe I'm just appreciative because I'm not really satisfied.

I hope this little bit makes sense and you don't think I'm a hypocrite for working so hard then seemingly giving up.  Maybe its out there for me in the future but right now I can't handle it, and I think that's ok.

Have you ever encountered something like this? Wanting something so bad & working so hard then feeling as if you're not able to do it?

xoxo, Moe

Connect on Twitter // Follow on Pinterest

What is my Day Really Like?

I've been yearning for full time employment since Christmas.  Not that I haven't appreciated & been thankful this little self-employment/unemployment thing has worked out - believe me it's been sooooo helpful for the business!  I feel like I've gotten so much done, have been able to refocus, & now know what I'm saving for.  But with the opportunity to have full-time employment getting a bit closer, I wanted to share with you what a typical self-employed day looks like.  I'm afraid my schedule is going to get shaken up (hopefully!) so I'll have to set up a new one.  But it's good when things change....hopefully I'll be able to squeeze everything that I want to into left over hours & weekends.  It was hard juggling a relationship, full time job, & part time obsession with self-employment.  This adventure has been fun but I'm excited to start thinking about the present & not the future.  I need to save, I need to have a consistant cash flow, I need stability.  I hope that in the next few years I'm able to grow Five Sixteenths enough to enjoy self-employment rather than self-employment/unemployment!

Here is my typical self-employed/unemployed day:

8am - If I haven't been up crazy late the night before, I usually wake up right about now.  I turn on the coffee maker, wash my face, brush my teeth, maybe get in the shower, etc.  Then I sit down to watch my shows on Hulu.  Usually, it's Colbert & the Daily Show and then whatever show was on the night before.  Sometimes these shows carry over into my work time.  I drink my coffee & enjoy reading some blogs.  This is my wake up time.

9:30 am (ish) - I start to work.  I publish blog posts for the day, write new ones, brainstorm.  I'm still in bed at this point.  I'm so glad I'm able to move to a desk now!  I respond to emails, take care of a few housekeeping things on the computer.  I work on client designs, blog designs, stationery designs, photo edits, listing products, etc.  Sometimes it's just my time to mess around with ideas in my head.

11:00 am (ish) - This is when serious work is started.  I'll finish up design files or drafts & email them to clients.  I'll also take pictures for the various shops because this is when the best light is.  I may even end up editing the photos.  I also take measurements as I photograph.  I say this is when the serious work starts because I'm nearing the middle of the day.  If I'm working with a client I try to email them when they will be able to check it - to me that seems about noon (lunch breaks) or after work.  I try to have emails waiting as best I can!  If I have to do any running around, I tend to do it in the middle of the day too, just because I realize I really should get up & start doing things! It's also a good little break.

1 pm (ish) - That's usually lunch time for me.  I'll have a little lunch, pay more attention to the reruns of Doctor Who or Law & Order that I have on in the background.  I'll mess around on the computer, put the dishes away or in the dishwasher, what have you.  Catch up on blogs that post in the afternoon.

2 pm (ish) - Get back to work.  I'll respond to more emails, work on more blog posts, search for places to advertise.  Create new things for the shop, list stuff, etc.  I'll also begin preparing any orders for shipment from 516VINTAGE or from the Five One Six handmade shop.

3:30 pm (ish) - To the post office if need be.  I hate going to the post office....so I put it off! But now that we've got the office done & my printer is set up, I'm gonna schedule pick ups! Hooray for the internet!

5 pm (ish) - I've probably just gotten back from the post office & any other leftover running around that needed to be done.  Sometimes it's dinner time, sometimes it's mess around & craft time.  I try to keep my business hours Monday - Friday between 9am and 5pm.  So after five, I'll rarely reply to emails.  Sometimes I put the work down to hang out with my man.  Sometimes he plays games or is gone so I can sneak in some more work.  I don't really like working all the time but it's also fun for me to make things.  So I don't really see it as work.  Work is the stuff I hate to do like count things, inventory, take measurements, & list things.  Work is work.  Creating things is fun! So I'll create stationery until the world ends!!

I don't do any work (the things I hate) or respond to emails on the weekends.  Unless it's something I need Zach in on like the Sunday we made the inventory sheets, I try to keep my weekends pretty open. I continue to make things but we also like to travel.  So weekends are for museum visits and the like.  Once we get the house done hopefully we can do more of that!  As I go into self employment, I'm going to still keep my business hours M-F.  Of course I'll need to do work on these things on the weekends, but emails & responses will wait until Monday.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that outside of my ventures, I still have a life.  Though you can shop 24 hours I may be asleep, or it may be the weekend, I may be out of town, or I may have a day job!  I foresee a lot of cramming things in happening if I get full time work.  But I also see a lot of focusing & realizing when to say no.  I see a lot of scheduling time & a lot of put everything down, you need a break time.  I also know that Zach & I need to be better at us time.  It happens a lot that as I'm putting something down, he's picking something up & vice versa.  Once we have our weekends free from fixing the house, I see us getting back into the groove.

I really hope a move into full time employment will help the Five Sixteenths brand grow.  I've loved this little adventure but I need to take this serious step in order to plan for a self-employed future!

xox, Moe.

Connect on Twitter // Follow on Pinterest // Peep me at Hello Cotton

Things I don't like about working a 9-5 & running a business

Lately I've been getting a lot of orders for designs both custom & premade.  While I looooove being able to practice design & html/css, etc I find it is sooooo hard to do with a regular 9-5 job.

For example, a little bit ago it was my room mate & best friend's birthday.  It just so happened that I was working on 2 custom designs AND just got orders for 2 premade designs.  While I am pretty speedy at updating & installing the designs, sometimes I get thrown for a loop and other times spontaneous life things get in the way.  In this particular instance a birthday party was planned & (of course) I attended even though I needed to get things done in a timely manner for clients.

Additionally, there are times when I am ignoring Zach because I have to work on something for a client during our skype sessions in order to get it done in a timely manner.  I know this frustrates him.  I think I have the opposite thing to procrastination.  I don't waste time, I just feel I don't have the time to begin with.  Life seems to do this thing where it happens spontaneously.  I can't ask everyone in my life to give me 2 days notice of going out to eat.  Playing with 5 or so after work hours makes me feel like I am not doing my best.

I know I can't say to my friends/boyfriend that me working on this is more important that going out & doing things & I know I can't say to my clients "I've got a birthday party to go to after work so you're gonna have to wait."  I know it is about balance, but even trying to establish better office hours (so to speak) doesn't really work out that well for me.  I try to say to myself my office hours are 6pm-10pm but what if I've got pottery, or kitchen band, or a birthday party?  My 9-5 gets in the way sometimes & I often find myself distracted at work thinking about what I need to do after work in order to feel alright about going out & doing things.

There have been plenty of times where I am sitting on the couch head in laptop while my room mates are watching TV because I want to hang out with them.  There have also been times where I've gotten up & left because I was too distracted by the TV or even told Zach that I have to call him back while I work on something.  I feel like it's unfair to the people in my lives, unfair to me, & unfair to clients with all of these things.

I am excited & nervous as hell about taking any leaps into self employment (even though when I move, I'll be unemployed...sorta) but if I do, there will be more time for me & for others.  I can work 9-5 on my business & then take a break in the evenings.  With Zach traveling so much for work though, I may have more time to put into my business than I thought.

An artist came to do a workshop at school once & he mentioned that in order to be a better artist he needed to turn down his friends.  Which is true, because without practice we don't get better.  But I don't want to outright decline every offer.

Sometimes too I don't think that my friends or my boyfriend understand that I have to do this in order to make money.  Just because I am not making a living off of it doesn't mean it's not important.  I have to work toward my goal of making the blog, the shop, my brand, etc successful.  That means I have to ignore someone at some point, right?  I just wish it could be ignoring them while they are gone!  Zach has mentioned to me that he knows sometimes I am waiting for something to be done so I can work on the blog.  He knows that while I am trying to pay attention to him I am actually hoping he gets distracted so I can do something else.  And I don't like that I do that!

Sometimes on Mondays I get into a really good productive mood of waking up & starting work around 9 from my pjs.  I'll be super productive, getting things done, take a break for lunch, then pick it back up.  I wish everyday could be like this!  One Monday I even surprised myself, I was so impressed.  

Zach is so supportive of me launching into self employment & I couldn't ask for more.  But how do I balance my 'real job' with my 'pretend one'?  I try to be upfront & come up with a time frame for clients...I just wish it could all be done faster!  I don't like to leave people waiting a whole day for an email.  Usually a premade design with installation takes about 3ish days depending on edits & a full blog redesign takes about 2 weeks, depending on the edits, too.  I just don't want to be unavailable, if you can't my drift, to my friends OR clients.

I guess this is just a little post on the fact that I feel like I don't know what I'm doing.  But then again, aren't we all sorta like that? Tell me I'm not crazy!

How do you balance your life? Are there things you feel you must take care of being self employed that you have to turn down your friends & family?

ps.  Don't let this scare you! I am up for custom designs & the turnaround is about 2 weeks.  I love having custom designs because they are challenging.  So shoot me an email if you're interested!

Connect on Twitter // Follow on Pinterest // Peep me at Hello Cotton