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Here are some of the shop items, coming soon…

“Just keep going” yellow tin enamel mug

Isles with heather sketch card with envelope

Puffin sketch card with envelope

If there is something specific you’d like to buy, let me know.

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ON THE GRAM

May 31

Open
Setting goals is a great thing. Building the systems and rhythms into your life to help you achieve those goals is an even better thing. But do you have a system, a plan, for when the day is just NOT going the way you wanted? When you’re not inspired. When you got some hard news or got sick or something is going on in the family or the energy isn’t there. Yes, you can power through, and that works for a little while. But eventually you’ll hit a day where it’s just. not. happening and you give yourself a break. Then the next day you forget because you broke the habit chain and before you know it ten days (or six months) have gone by and your goals are nowhere in sight. That’s why you need a “Bad Day Plan”. This is the adjustment to your optimistic systems which is realistic for when everything has gone to shit. I’ve started using a bad day plan for the two goals I’m working towards: being more active and healthy, and completing the content for the books I’m writing. For the first goal my system is to walk every day. For the second, I write 1000 words a day. But my Bad Day Plan is to walk for five minutes; and to write 200 words. That’s it. If I am not even capable of doing those very tiny things, then it’s an extremely challenging day indeed. And even if I skip entirely that day, I can get back on the systems bandwagon with the smallest versions of success that day. What might a Bad Day Plan look like for you? #atomichabits #justkeepgoing #creativity #authorsofinstagram #writer #bookwriting #wordcount #baddayplan #yougotthis

May 29

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PF had a “Creativity Day” last Friday: a day for all of us, across the globe, to practice and experience creativity in whatever ways fuel each of us. Some went to museums, some to the sea, some to make their own perfume, some to libraries… each of us doing a variety of creative things. I had a list of things I could do, but I didn’t want to see it as another to do list. What’s the creative fun in that? So I looked at it like a “bucket” of creative ideas, from which I could reach in and grab something, or not, and see where it went. My creativity bucket included reading, writing, a new cafe, a museum, a park. I ended up doing most of these things: and I also added a visit to the Lego store (and a new Lego set), a wander in the woods where I came across a fold of highland cattle (including the adorable little baby cows which look like teddy bears), and an adventure of getting lost (and some spirit guides who led me to the bridge). The museum I visited was the Burrell collection just outside of Glasgow, sitting in a country park. I gave myself the exercise of noticing everything with @weare_pf colours, and this Chinese warrior with his strong hand gestures made me laugh. Looks like some signs go back to the 14th century. What struck me was how incredibly achievable a creativity day is: and how simple it would be to do any time I chose. But I did all of these things because everyone was doing them. They were sharing intentions and ideas, pictures and videos. I sent messages to the team wishing them a happy creativity day, like it was a holiday. And the next day, I found myself doing more creative things - like building lego and painting bedroom walls. What would you do with a creativity day? #creativitypillar #youarecreative #museumsofscotland #glasgow #burrellcollection #onbrand

May 9

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It’s okay to readjust a goal as you get closer to the finish line. At Easter weekend, while re reading #atomichabits, I was reminded of the content for my second book, on how accountants are creative, too. I had a rough structure of the chapters, and a few thousand words in a Google doc. One of my big learnings from the first book is to keep the word count low to start, because it's a lot easier to add in more words than to cut them out. So I set a target of 60k words. And I looked at my calendar and my patterns of writing, and realised if I wrote 1000 words a day I could reach my goal in two months. I started then, and other than one day off when recovering from a really bad stomach flu, I've kept to it every day since. By the time I got to just over 40k words, I started to flag a little. I had twelve chapters of content, and was covering most of the areas I wanted to cover, and some days I was rather obsessively checking the word count, groaning, and going back to it. So I adjusted. The goal of 60k was a good goal: but it’s not a law of book writing. Some books only have 30k or 40k words. So I reset my target to 50k, and whilst it was still a challenge and I had to push myself to get there, it felt more realistic considering the manuscript I had thus far. Today I reached 48,900 words…and I stopped. I could have pushed myself to get to exactly 50,000 words, but I’ve hit the point where more would just be…more. And I’m pleased with the content. I’ve included everything I wanted to include on creativity, with a little extra on rest, and on keeping going. Most of all I’m pleased with an achievable-yet-challenging task every day. A month ago, I was pretty proud of myself for having put together a content structure and having written a few thousand words for this book. And I felt like I was a lot further on than I was. But it turns out I was only a month away from completion, when I broke it down into pieces. What big goal do you have which feels like it will take ages, which might only be a month away? #writing #writersofinstagram #justkeepgoing #creativetoo

May 6

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Good frosty morning #walkswithkaren