Some updates are boring! (Patreon)

Hello! I don't usually post updates without photos or videos, but sometimes I have to do work that isn't exciting or visual, and during those times I often feel guilty for being silent, and worried that people think I'm not doing anything. (That's more about me than about you! You guys are always so supportive.)

Anyway, I thought I'd tell you a little about my week so far, just to give you a window! This is a LONG written post, and you won't miss anything if you skip it!! If you're not interested in hearing the nitty gritty of business management (and my personal anxieties...) then don't feel obligated to read this!

• Anxiety over late print delivery

Those of you who ordered pin-ups may be wondering where those are at, since my initial orders are now almost two weeks old... oof. The short version is that inventory management is hard. The long version is that I ordered pin-up prints early, like a Smart Business Person, but didn't check my quantities of envelopes and chipboard stabilizers (the cardboard sheets I include to keep prints from bending). By the time I sat down to package and mail orders, I ran out of packing materials very quickly and had to place a new order. The chipboard arrived yesterday, and the envelopes should arrive today, but I literally fell asleep last night to a nonstop anxiety buzz in my brain saying you're going to start getting 'where are my prints' emails soon!! what's wrong with you!! 

• Learning to use Quickbooks

Finance is both very important to running a business, and very intimidating. Until this year, I've been managing my finances with spreadsheets that I've created myself to suit my needs. This has led to easily predictable issues like human error in data entry, long gaps where I can't find time to manually update my sheets, and just generally inefficient processes that are more of a pain than they need to be.

Last month, I signed up for Quickbooks Online, but getting to know the software has still been a challenge. I knew that if I waited too long to get used to using it, I'd never use it, so yesterday I spent four or five hours sitting down with my mom (who uses Quickbooks in her own job) and straightening stuff out. I learned how to log expenses, I learned how to log income, I set up some rules to make that logging easier, I customized my expense categories, I corrected some processes that were attached to the wrong accounts... etc.

This kind of work is so necessary for running a business, but it's also boring af, so it's not something I talk about much! But I feel like you should know that it's happening.

• Patreon reward catch-up... of course

I got so close to being up-to-date on Patreon rewards around the holidays, but I'm just stuck on December's tutorial. The tutorials are something I often get stuck on — I have plenty of ideas, I even have scripts written, but filming a tutorial takes ten times longer than filming another video because I have to both do the craft I'm instructing on, and document it, as well as film voiceover/narration and then edit it all together. It's daunting, and even a simple tutorial takes at minimum a half-day to film, and another half-day to edit. This is also the sort of thing where the longer I put it off, the harder it feels to do.

I'm reading a book right now called "Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less" (it's excellent — I highly recommend it!) and one of the chapters I just read talked about removing obstacles to processes. The analogy they use is that if you have a hiking group of 10 people and 1 person is slow, speeding up the other 9 won't speed up the group as a whole. Instead, you have to identify that weak point and figure out how to correct that hiker's problems. So this week, I'm going to try and do the work of identifying the main obstacle to tutorial filming and see if I can correct for it.

• Preparing for Little Sapphire's Lullaby

Ever since deciding that my next music video, "Little Sapphire's Lullaby," is going to be a bigger project than anticipated, I've been slowly working my way through prep. A project this size requires a lot of work into costuming, scheduling/coordinating, communicating with cast/crew, set building, etc. I've scheduled our filming date for Mar 9 (which gives me pretty limited time to edit if I want it out before ECCC!) and I've been taking baby steps for the last week: Working on costuming and props, putting together a shotlist, placing orders for makeup and accessories, etc.

I want to start giving you guys more substantial updates on this project soon, but the early stages are mostly just me writing lists and getting my head on straight, so there isn't much to show off yet.

I hope this was interesting and/or informative in some way!! Today is going to be consumed by personal life stuff, but these are the kind of updates you can expect to start coming at you soon (but with photos and stuff!)