Category: Organization+Strategy

30 Ways to Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers: Free List Building Guide

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Here are a few ways to attract and grow your first 1,000 subscribers.

The hardest part of growing your product or business can often be the first part. How do you get your first few subscribers? How do you go from zero to one… to 10, 100, or one thousand?

Before I go any further, I have to reiterate what I say in my classes and other places the most important part of content marketing is creating content that is exceptional — valuable, useful, helpful, and share-worthy. If you don’t have great content, then the strategies below aren’t going to work.

Ask yourself: “Would I share this?” This is part of our metric for whether or not a post is great. We don’t always get it right, but we’re learning as we go. We want to deliver extremely valuable, useful, intriguing, thoughtful content that helps you get more of what you want. If we wouldn’t share it with our friends, then you probably won’t share it with yours.

Once you have great content, however, how do you share it?

How do you get your first 1,000 subscribers? Here are some of the tactics and tools that have worked for us across many of our projects:

1. Tell your friends and colleagues about it.

You would be surprised how many people build something and then… expect people to show up. You have to invite them to come see what you’re doing. Send people personal emails or messages telling them exactly what you’ve built, why you think it’s useful for them, and what you’d like them to do with it.

You probably are connected to at least 100, if not 300 people that you can reach out to and let them know what you’re working on. Don’t spam everyone over and over again, but definitely tell them once about what you’re working on.

The trick? Ask people directly to sign up. Don’t expect them to sign up. Write a note to them that says, “I’m starting a newsletter about [TOPIC] and I think you might enjoy it. I’d love it if you signed up!”

2. Ask your friends and network to share it.

Email them and say, “I’m building this new thing, and I’d love to reach more people who would find this useful. Would you help me spread the word by reaching out to 5-10 people who might find this really helpful?”

Email and referrals are two of the best ways to grow signups. One email from a trusted resource to 5-10 people will generate far more signups than a random Facebook post that most of your network misses.

3. Comment helpfully on related blogs and other posts with similar questions.

Content marketing is about creating relevant conversations, not about shouting from the rooftops. Join the conversation by finding active voices and contributing wisdom and ideas to the community.

4. Become an active member in existing communities doing similar work.

Want people to comment on your blog post? Go comment on other people’s work!

Don’t comment with spam or links back to your site. Be genuinely interested in what other people are doing and ask them about their work and projects. Give them feedback on their work and share tools and tips to help them, not you.

5. Use paid advertising (Google, Facebook).

It’s fairly easy to set up a Facebook or a Google Ad, and for a few hundred bucks, you can drive signups. Make sure that you’re driving traffic to a page that has a big sign-up button. Don’t drive traffic to get more “likes” on your Facebook fan page or to your website generally, however. Drive them exclusively to an offer (that they sign up with by email) or a place to sign up directly.

6. Make subscribing really easy to do.

It always surprises me when I go to a site and I have a ton of trouble finding out how to subscribe. Add a link in your website’s header, footer, sidebar, at the end of blog posts, in a feature bar, in the middle of blog posts, in the author bio, as a pop-up, as a hello-bar, etc. (You don’t have to do all of them, but do at least 4 different places and test which one is getting the most signups.) Add a page exclusively for signing up.

Psst: you can subscribe to this website right here:

[mc4wp_form id=”10463″]

7. Add a link to your social profiles.

Add a link to your newsletter or mailing list across all of your social profiles:

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora, Google+, Reddit, etc.

8. Add the site to the footer of your email, and invite people to sign up.

Use every single email you send as an opportunity to tell people about your projects.

9. Build a landing page exclusively for getting subscribers.

Dedicate a landing page exclusively for signups, like The Merchant Home does here:

26-Ways-To-Get-First-1000-Subscribers-The-Merchant-Home-Sign-Up-Newsletter

10. Before you launch have only a landing page, dedicated to getting subscribers.

Put up a landing page before you launch. Create mystery and intrigue. Invite people to sign up before you’re ready. Use LaunchRock or another service to help you build this.

11. Force people to enter their email address before they get any content.

I don’t personally recommend this (in fact, I typically hate it), but it works for many people. I’d be remiss to not include it in this list. Use sparingly. People might hate you because of it.

If you’re more generous, use a smart opt-in that only shows people the banner occasionally, or remembers if they’ve already subscribed. (That *should* be the setting on this website, for example, so if you’re a subscriber, you won’t get spammed with requests to subscribe again.)

12. Add urgency or a deadline.

Tell people what they’ll miss out on if they don’t sign up right now.

13. Host a webinar or a free event.

People love getting free stuff, and we love seeing what’s happening behind the scenes. Set up a free webinar to share what you’re working on (or your “10 best strategies for X”) and have people sign up with an email address to be notified when the webinar launches and when you do similar things in the future.

14. Make the offer really clear. What do they get for subscribing?

Make a compelling offer for what people get by signing up. “Great content” isn’t a compelling offer. What, exactly, are you going to give to them? Why should they spend their precious time with you, and let you into their inbox?

Today’s inboxes are analogous to our living rooms. We don’t let just anyone come in. We invite people in that we want to have a conversation with. Why will they let you in?

15. Give away a free incentive for subscribing.

Make an offer that people can’t refuse. Some of our best signups come from our free offers — I’ve created a free yoga workshop (21 days of stick-figure yoga drawings), a free writing series, and am building an e-book all about the art of asking!

16. Get really clear on who you want to connect with and why.

Why do you want to connect with them? What is their pain point? And why what you have to offer is different, better, and crazy-useful to the people who need it?

17. Add exit intent popups/offers.

SumoMe is a great way to add a smart pop-up to your page, and PopUp Ally is also a great tool. An “exit intent” popup only shows up when the reader demonstrates an intent to leave your page (like moving their cursor to close the window or type in a new URL in the browser). You can “capture” people who are leaving with a bright, colorful exit-intent popup like this:

ScreenFlow

18. Get people to write for you.

Ask people to guest-post and publish with you. A great way to have people share your website is by asking them to contribute to it. Build your audience by utilizing other people’s existing audiences. They’ll share your site when they share links to their work that’s published on your site.

19. Syndicate your content.

Most of the content in the world, wide, web (that big old place) is only seen by a few thousand people, at most. Get your content shared by distributing it broadly. The same piece of content can be used in 10 different places — syndicated as a column, a blog, excerpts on LinkedIn, re-posts on Medium, etc. Content isn’t precious; you can share it in many, many locations.

But make sure you put a sign-up link in each of those locations!

20. Guest post, publish, and write for other people’s websites.

The best way to grow your audience is to play off of other people’s audiences that they’ve already built. Submit awesome content to sites that already have medium-to-big-audiences and watch your traffic grow.

21. Write a monthly column not on your own website, but a well-known website.

HuffPo, Forbes, and many other websites are often looking for monthly columnists and contributors. Build your web presence by writing for someone else — and capturing emails with a freebie on your own website.

22. Join social conversations.

Chime in helpfully in conversations and share your knowledge freely. Respond to and upvote other people’s work. This builds trust and reciprocity and people notice it when other people pay attention to them.

23. Use LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has often one of the best referral sources for our content and for business-related sharing. Use it to syndicate your content. Write blog posts on LinkedIn on a different publishing schedule from your regular content release schedule.

24. Go to conferences

A great way to connect with more people online is to connect with more people offline. A great way to meet a lot of people all at once is to go to a conference that’s about your subject area or business topic.

25. Go to meetup groups

Meet people, meet people, meet people!

26. Do a guerilla marketing campaign.

Sideway chalk up 100 different blocks in your city. Paste hundreds of stickers on the subway. Put fliers up at your local coffeeshop or doctor’s office. Get out, be heard, be seen.

27. Join online events, and join chats (like Twitter Hashtag chats) to meet more people in your target market.

Twitter chats are an awesome way to join a conversation and meet people without leaving your living room.

28. Write an email newsletter.

Give people something new to read every month, or a round-up of your favorite stuff on the web. You don’t have to write original content to have a compelling newsletter; if you link up the top 10 reads each month related to your subject area, that can be a great read. Email marketing is about connecting with people over email; it’s up to you to figure out what way you’ll use email to fit your businesses needs.

29. Do round-up posts with best-of-the-web shouts:

Write up a post with the “Top 10 Best Ways to Grow Your Email List,” and include, say, this post. Then write to each of the people you’re linking up and tell them that you’re including them in your feature article.

30. Make use of websites that share news and products, like Product Hunt or ThunderClap:

Get all of your friends and family onboard to help with a guerilla campaign to share your work in one big wave of energy. Time out when you’re sharing something on ProductHunt and then ask them all to like, upvote, or share the article at the same time. The dedicated attention will help push the new post up in the rankings and likely help get your project more visibility.

(But big warning: don’t link directly to your product, otherwise some websites will track those votes as spam. Hacker News and Product Hunt both dock you credibility if everyone’s voting from the same link. It’s way better to share with your friends that your product is up on the website, but have them search and find it themselves.)

And this brings us back to where we started, which is worth repeating:

31. Write amazing content.

This goes without saying, but can be very hard to do.

Give people a reason to read, use, and share your stuff. It’s worth the time — and it’s what builds your audience for the long-term.

Get Better at Scheduling Your Time, Get Better at Email (New Classes)

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Do you ever get overwhelmed by scheduling your day, week, or month? Does email bog you down or frustrate you?

I’m teaching two new virtual seminars this November all about rethinking the way you schedule your week (November 9th) and becoming a jedi master with your email inbox (November 17th).

The seminars are 1-hour long, live, and will be recorded.

Registration is $49 per class.

Live Session 1:
Rethinking & Reinventing Your Schedule

Wed, November 9, 2016 1:00 PM Eastern
A 1-hour class plus live Q/A

About the session:

How do you think about the time in your week? How do you plan ahead, carve out time and space, and make certain activities a priority? In this one-hour webinar, I’ll walk you through a session of scheduling, planning, and re-thinking about how you organize your time. I’ll also share with you 8 key tips I use in planning my own time. If you want to rethink your week, your organization of time, and how you schedule and plan, join me. Register Now: Rethinking Your Schedule.

Live Session 2:
13 Ways to Become A Gmail Jedi Master

Thu, Nov 17, 2016 1:00 PM Eastern
A 1-hour class plus live Q/A

About the session:

Does email overwhelm your life, and you don’t know what to do about it? No one wants to be the best at emailing. We’ve got better things to do. Stop being overwhelmed by email. Start winning over your email inbox by learning these key insights and tricks that I’ve collected over the years to make email mastery work for you. And then, get back to building better things with your day and time. Register Now: Become an Email Master

Stop Gmail Overwhelm With These Two Scripts

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

How to find and send emails (without going into your email inbox):

“I’m having trouble keeping up with my inbox,” a friend wrote on Facebook, asking for email tricks and tools people loved.

I use a ton of email productivity measures, and I always forget that we all have vastly different habits and routines. Here are a few philosophies, notes, and scripts that are worth bookmarking to make your life easier.

Slow down and send less

I find the less email I send, the less I get. I also don’t mind if it takes 2–3 weeks (or longer) to respond to things. As I train people to know that email is a slow way to get ahold of me, it works out well.

Email is other people putting urgent things on your to-do list.

Time batch

I use Pomodoros to cycle through emails and either do 25 minutes or 50 minutes in the morning a few days a week. The goal of a session is to cycle through all the messages and identify the urgent and important ones and delete the rest.

It took a while, but I have no problem actively deleting anything that isn’t on my list or agenda right now (especially if it doesn’t come with an introduction, or the request isn’t a thoughtful consideration of time).

Then I star things according to urgency: red is now, yellow is soon, blue needs information. I make tasks for things in my Asana that need more lengthy follow-up, and I use a chrome tablet or links to search specifically for that message so I don’t drown inside of an inbox unnecessarily.

If you’re a Gmail user, try these scripts:

Also, I have two scripts I LOVE to use when I need to use my inbox during in the day, but don’t want to get lost in it. They’re fairly easy to implement (all you have to do is copy the code and save it as a bookmark), so you don’t need any fancy tools to make these awesome changes to your browser:

#1: Search for a message without opening your inbox

For the dorks among us, here is the script for a gmail ‘search’ button. To make it work, add it as a bookmark in your browser — just copy this code below (no spaces before/after) and add it as a bookmark for running a distraction-free search:

javascript:var search=prompt(“Search Gmail for…”);window.open(“https://mail.google.com/mail/#search/”+search);

For best results, add a label called “Search” and add it to your bookmark bar. Then, when you click, it’ll pop up a distraction-free window that lets you search for the message you need without seeing any new messages in your inbox.

#2: Compose a gmail message without opening your inbox

You can do the same thing with composing an email without going directly to your inbox. I use this script:

https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1

Which pulls up a full-screen compose window without any information about my inbox. Freedom! No distraction! Add it as a bookmark and use these instead of navigating to an inbox for every message you need to find or send a message.

Lastly, my go-to response:

Also, my go-to response that’s unbeatable is

“Thanks so much, now’s not a good time for me. If you want to circle back in a few months, we can try again then.”

This keeps my next 2–3 months very clear of unnecessary clutter, and 90% of the time people (sadly) don’t follow up. If I’m not that important anymore, great.

Sigh.

Email peace.

##

Huge kudos to Mattan Griffel for teaching me these email tricks (and more!) about productivity and pomodoros. Our work together at One Month this past year has been like an MBA in the making. Also, thanks to Victor Mathieux for prompting the conversation in the first place.

The Secret (Business) Beauty in Complaining

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

My head buzzes when I am around people who start to complain too much. It’s like an electric current goes through my head, starts building, and then my frazzled mind-space begins to implode under all of the pressure.

I like solving problems, and can be known to interrupt or interject with “Yeah, sure, okay, but — how do we fix this?” instead of patiently listening.

{I’m working on it. I’m a much better listener than I was five years ago.}

The worst is when complaints run in a continuous loop, as though their very existence begets more opportunities to begrudge the same thing over and over again. I’m sure you know exactly what I’m talking about. Someone who complains about the same thing over and over again, and yet does nothing to fix or change the situation.

But complaints aren’t always bad.

Complaints are valuable — the first time.

If we can ignore the tinny-tin-tin buzz chattering complainers (I sometimes picture those world cup Vuvuzuelas as the pinnacle of a swarm of complainers, buzzy bees dancing around my ears doing nothing for nobody) then we can try to hear the music in the buzz. I like to think it has something to tell me — or you:

Every complaint is an opportunity.

Even the gripers have their merits: a gripe is feedback, a reflection on the world, information for a product or a process — and it can be something that reveals a way in which our environments can be different, changed, or better.

If the complaint stops at just that — a vocal expression of disapproval or — well, then it doesn’t do much good. That’s just whining.

And if a complaint happens more than once, it’s time to act.

Sometimes I find myself repeating the same complaint in my head. If I hear myself say it more than once, though, I try to immediately think: What can I do about this?

A complaint is the first key towards solving a problem. The easiest problems to solve are ones we can readily identify.

A great way to solve problems is to look around and see that they exist. So the next time you hear someone complain, look again at what’s being said.

Complaining about late buses? Then figure out a system for notifying riders of the bus schedule and arrival times. Complaining that banks aren’t open on Sundays? Figure out a way to do banking on Sundays without going into a teller. Want to stop getting parking tickets? Make a map of the cities’ street signs and rig it to your iPhone alarm clock. Complaining that you can’t find things? Figure out a better way to stay organized.

Annoyed that telephones are stuck into wires in walls and you have to stand in one place to talk to someone? Oh snap, invent a cell phone.

Businesses solve problems.

People make stuff to fix problems you have — sometimes before you knew you had a problem in the first place — and it’s in order to make your life a little bit better.

Often, the opportunities require work, effort, or time (hence the complaint) but they are certainly opportunities. They should challenge us to figure out how to do something better and figure out new solutions.

Often, it’s just a small thing that can be fixed or tweaked to make something much better. Hipmunk gives Kayak a run for it’s money on finding cheap airline flights. HootSuite, TweetDeck, BufferApp, and Meet Edgar are all variations on the same problem: coordinating social posts and sharing your work in the social world.

Making something slightly better or easier to use can be a huge opportunity.

Complaints should happen once.

Then they should spur you to action. Complain. Then think: How can I fix this?

The brightest people in the world — and the basis for many, many business ideas — comes from a simple look at something that doesn’t *quite* work so well and coming up with a way to make it better. A greater challenge, of course, is to create a solution for a problem people didn’t know they had: Apple’s iPod, for example, solved a problem that many people didn’t realize they had in the first place: the ability to carry an indefinite amount of music around with you in your pocket.

Many of the best businesses, in fact, understand a problem or an opportunity and then fix it before you even knew it existed.

An amazing example of this will come from Google’s Cars, if the cars end up working very well (which I hope they do): the problem? People don’t like driving, or at least they don’t like driving on a regular basis, when the drive is the same day-to-day and they could be using that time (often 1-2 hours in traffic each way) for something else. Clearly, the public transportation systems and the way that they are run leave something to be desired in all of us — otherwise, we wouldn’t have so many cars cramming into our cities and spaces. People prefer being in their own cars, under their own terms. Even when it’s ridiculously expensive to own a car. I look forward to the solutions that stem from the opportunities of car sharing, private rides, and better public transportation.

If you’re complaining about the same thing over and over again and you already know how to fix it, or you have an idea of how it could be better, then it’s time to start working on it.

And if you’ve never thought about it this way before: every time you see something you don’t like, from trash on the subway to long lines to confusing information, realize that it’s probably a business waiting to happen, and it could be yours.

Listen to what other people are complaining about as free advice for what might be a great business opportunity.

What are people complaining about? What are you complaining about? How are you going to fix it?

Bam. There’s your next business idea.

Go make something better.

How to write more handwritten notes.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

I love checking the mailbox. I’ve had pen pals since I was seven years old — and it’s one of the ways Alex and I first met.

Yet in today’s busy-busy world, how do you make time to sit down, get out the pen, and write a note?

Here are a few tricks you might love:

handwritten notes-moleskine

1. Tuck a few cards into the back of your moleskine.

If you’re like me, and you carry a notebook and a pen around, use that back flap to tuck a few postcards and blank notecards into the back. If you have a laptop case, a soft case for your ipad or tablet, or a kindle case, that also works. (I keep notecards in my kindle case and my moleskine).

2. Stock up on notecards and postcards at thrift shops or airports when traveling.

I always add an extra $20 into a trip to buy a little set of cards from a local artist or craft store. It’s a great way to get a souvenir without having to take anything extra that stays in my home for too long.

3. Keep a stack in a box on your desk.

I have a small box with several dozen cards and postcards in it that sits on my desk, next to my pen jar. Anytime I’m waiting for something to load (saving, uploading, syncing, rebooting – you name it, there’s technical lag time) — I’ll grab a card and write.

4. Keep a special slim bag for notecards and stamps.

I have a special zippered bag that has travel essentials in it — whenever I’m consulting, teaching, or getting on an airplane for a work trip — and I keep my converters, chargers, and essential digital items in there. (It’s a handy bag that I adore and it has all the wires and cords for setting up projectors, adaptors, and more). It’s got a little sleeve down the side and I put in a stack of notecards and business cards to be ready whenever I need them.

I love those waterproof all-in-one zippered bags, cosmetic bags, or all-function zippered bags from MUJI.

handwritten notes-zipper bag

5. When you feel the urge or a twinge that says, I miss that person — write.

Capture the intuition. I’ve written to people I’ve barely talked to, people I admire online and respect greatly, and send notes to people who I can sense are having a hard time. Sometimes it’s been years and I see someone’s face again online and I think — ahh, that person is lovely. I know we didn’t keep in touch, but I’ll send a little note.

6. Use takeoff and landing time!

When airlines tell me to “put away and stow all electronic devices,” I smile and grab my notecard bag. Whenever I’m departing is a great time to scribble out a few quick thank-you notes to the people who hosted me, people I just met, or people I spent time workshopping with. There’s usually at least 20 minutes between takeoff and getting to cruising altitude, so I use that time to jot out my notes, thank-you’s for the holidays, and anyone else I feel like writing to.

But what do you say?

Writing quick cards is about cultivating the habit — keeping the cards near you on your desk, in your purse, or in a device that you use all the time (read: laptop, kindle, tablet) means it’s super easy to grab one quickly when you need it. I keep cards all around me so that when I get the urge, I can cultivate the habit.

Keep the notes simple.

And here are a few scripts I love. Take ’em, use ’em, run with ’em:

 

“Congratulations! I saw your recent good news and I wanted to say how inspiring everything you do is. Keep it up! XO.”

“Been thinking about you. I know it’s been forever since we’ve connected, but I wanted to drop a note and say how delightful it is to see what you’re working on. From an old friend, XO.”

“Sending you lots of love and hugs right now! I know that life has a lot of rough and tumble spots and I wanted to send a little smile your way.”

“I wanted to drop a quick note and say THANK YOU for hosting me this past week. It was wonderful to stay with you and meet your crew and I appreciate your hospitality so much!”

“You’re the best. Seriously. Thank you.”

“Just wanted to say hi!”

When in doubt, add your favorite quote or two and just a couple of sentences. It doesn’t have to be an epic letter — the note says enough when you send it.

I love handwritten notes.

Send a little happiness into the world!

sarah signature

Hustle is a dial, not a way of being.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

There are appropriate times to hustle in your business. Sometimes you’re hustling for a year or two on the side, creating your escape route and freedom business to jump ship from your corporate job.

Sometimes you stay up late and hustle the night before a course launches, or when you’re putting the final tweaks on a project before a deadline. Sometimes you hustle in between gigs, moving across the country, lining the highways in a bus, or getting from bookstore to bookstore to sell copies of your book.

Hustling, however, is not a way of being.

Many professions and careers (and managers, unfortunately) make hustling an expectation. Too many companies create expectations that people will work non-stop, jump at an email, and stay up late with very little advance notice; this is hustling as a result of poor planning, not as a result of the ebb and flow of project schedules.

With few exceptions, hustling as an expectation and a way of life—when you’re staying up too late and waking up early again the next day, time and time again, without an end date—is not sustainable. You’ll get sick, fall into depression or adrenal fatigue, contract bronchitis, or want to quit. The advent and appeal of lifestyle design comes not from people who are lazy but from people who are fed up. People who want to regain a bit of control over their time and want their efforts to matter.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, an employee, a self-directed freelancer, or a consultant, constant hustling isn’t always indicative of a great environment. There is such a thing as too much hustling.

Hustle is a dial. Dial it up, ratchet it back. A mode that you can press to apply a bit more pressure, and ease up when it’s time to rest.

Hustle is a dial—play it up, pull it back.

Play it like an instrument. Step on it gently or firmly like a gas pedal. Know when to apply the hustle. Know when to apply the brakes. (Brakes are there for a reason, and it’s not just to slow down).

And as a counter-point: if you’re not hustling, I suppose it’s time to find something worth hustling for. Once in a while. It’s alright to love something and want to work on it a lot. Ratcheting up the dial can make downtime so much sweeter.

But if you’re hustling non-stop, it’s probably time to step back.

Project hangovers, self-criticism, and the necessity of making messes.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

I have a confession.

Sometimes–more nearly like every time–after finishing a project, I hate it.

My writing class? Sucks, obviously. Last week’s essay? Good God, that could have been better. All those open and empty drafts waiting to be finished? Seriously, could have worked harder to get those done. 

And on and on… My brain and the ego mind can be wicked.

When a project is done and in the world, I want nothing to do with it. I see it in all of the flaws, errors, imperfections. All the ideas that didn’t transpire the way I wanted them to show up; the folds that didn’t turn into corners and angles the way that I wanted, the misprinted line weights, the typos, the sentences. The project in its fascinating speculations and then, the seeming sigh of its final iteration. The scalding difference between my brain’s dreams, desires and wishes and the tested, iterated manifestation of creating that product with my hands and resources.

It seems impossible to see the final product without the embedded knowledge of all of the processes that it took to get there.

I wonder why on earth I did the project in the first place, and whether or not its worth anything. Surely, they’ll all hate it. The same is true on stage. I finish my talk, I finish the presentation, the idea, and I leave, not deflated, but with a fatigue from the project’s finale and the owner’s knowledge of everything that could have been or should have been, with the result left on the table. Everything left. Performance. Done.

Could have been better.

But I remind myself, each time:

Messiness and imperfection are part of the process of creation.

[tweetable hashtag=”#creation #manifestation @sarahkpeck”]Messiness and imperfection are part of the process of creation.[/tweetable] Manifestation and realization—bringing something to creation—requires endless amounts of decision making. There is a cruelty inherent in cutting out all of the ways you won’t move forward, in order to move from the infinite boundlessness of ideas to the limited arena of conception. An idea always seems smaller when it becomes a practical thing. Perfection is an ideal that lives in our minds, a lifting, an aspiration, a drive towards the higher creativity we all have within us. The act of creation, however, is messy, fragile, fraught, and filled with the mistakes of making.

The secret grace of making (and pushing publish):

The thing is, no one else knows what you know.

What’s fascinating is that for all the razor-edged criticism I can muster, the audience is presented only with the work at hand; they see the work for the first time, with new eyes, with their own perspective. Everyone has a different opinion. Many see flaws I never saw. Conversations are sparked and ideas fly.

Sometimes the reviews are quite good.

Because I, the owner, cannot comprehend what it means to experience the data, the idea, the print, the drawing, the presentation for the first time. (This is why giving presentations is also so difficult). But the thing is they don’t know inside my brain, inside all of the things that could have been; they just see what is.

[tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck”]Your audience, users, customers, visitors–they don’t know what they don’t know.[/tweetable] (There is grace in this). They don’t know the alternate version of the website. They don’t know the eight chapters that got chopped. They don’t know the fourteen other parts to your talk that you accidentally skipped over. They only know what they saw. What you gave them, in it’s presented version. Just because you know all the details, doesn’t mean that they do.

What does this mean?

It’s important to remember to maintain enthusiasm through a launch, through a release. The birth of a project is a commencement for you–the end of the creation cycle–and the initiation of the new project in the audiences eyes. They experience newly. Look at it with their wonder. Try to visualize experiencing it for the first time.

Planning for the rhythms: making time to rest after production.

It is important to also remember that a project life cycle has within it the natural hangover phase; the point at which you are so sick of hearing or thinking about it any more that it’s time to put the pencils down, pin the work up, step back, get feedback, and take a short rest.

An overnight to reconsider.

And preparing for this lethargic state, in my experience, helps wonders. I need to plan a night of quiet before the storm of publication or release. You can’t stop a launch after you release; rather, this is when the communications and marketing builds steam.

Practices for finding the good + restoring your energy:

:: Find the good. Think back to the moment you began, when this idea was nothing but an idea.
:: Thank yourself for having the grit to make something.
:: Thank yourself for showing up.
:: Write down at least a dozen things you did right in order for this to happen. List out all of the things you did right. (We’re too quick to forget this).
:: Acknowledge how much energy and time you gave to the project, no matter how it turned out.
:: Acknowledge that you are smarter, wiser, and more learned that you were before.
:: Trust that you get to keep all the knowledge you built along the way. Even if the project goes in the trash, your skills stay in your mind.
:: [tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck”]Look to the long view, and remember that this is but one moment of many.[/tweetable]
:: Forget about the project, and cradle your heart in your mind.
:: You did well.
:: You did good.
:: You are a good person.
:: That is all.

And sometimes, months later, I go back and look at the work that I did, the project, the talk, recorded digitally, the book, on a fresh counter top. And I realize, finally, strangely, after the time apart, that the work isn’t all that bad. Of course, sometimes the work is bad, and I cringe, and I learn–but sometimes, I finally see.

That maybe, in fact, I did a good job.

Good job.

Alright, Carry on.

Making Money as a Creative Entrepreneur: How I Make Money, Where I Spend My Time, and What I’ve Learned From Launching My Own Ventures

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

When I was four weeks old, my mother and father took our then-family-of-four from Germany to Idaho Falls, little baby and tiny toddler in tow. We were standing around in the living room, as my mother recalls (to be be fair, I can’t recall and I certainly wasn’t standing—more likely drooling), talking about the insane temperatures sweeping in. My grandfather looked out the window at the temperature: it was minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Indoors, the heater warmed the house to 70 degrees.

“That’s a temperature differential of 100 degrees on either side of that glass pane,” my grandfather remarked, tall and lanky, white hair puffing out of each side of his head.

“That’s pretty impressive,” he chuckled.

Across the states, temperatures have been dropping and reeling – with 40-degree changes in mere hours as cold fronts sweep down invisible air channels and smother cities with their frozen molecules.

As a small-business entrepreneur, these temperature swings are analogous to the feast-and-famine cycle that can be all too familiar when you’re getting your business off the ground and becoming friendly with the ideas of cash flow, budgets, expenses, projections, and launches.

Dealing with the volatile ups-and-downs of entrepreneurship: it’s a bit windy out there.

Some days and months are big days full of courses sold, booked with clients, resulting in high-cash-flow months. “I’ve made it!” You think, gleefully, unwilling to look at how much you’ve spent to generate that cash flow (and just how far it really goes—because if you knew that it would only last a couple of months, you’d be back on the streets selling again the next day).

Other months are buckle-down, negative-zero income periods where you spend what money you have on resources and materials that you need (labor, equipment, time, skills)—in order to invest in and make what you want. It doesn’t matter if you’re a brick-and-mortar shop owner, an online retailer, a consultant, or a freelancer—creating a life you love involves seeking and finding customers and clients, understanding the highs and lows of business, deciding what you need to spend money on now and what can wait, and—for better or worse—’making it work.’

“Make it work!” — Tim Gunn.

So how DO you make your money as a creative entrepreneur?

What does it take to branch out and start your own side hustle, business, or creative endeavor? As a long-time “side-hustler” who started both a consulting practice and more recently an online teaching business, I’ve been invited to participate in a “blog tour” of people writing about their reflections on life as an entrepreneur.

While I still stumble over the words “entrepreneur” and “founder,” I’ve started a number of projects that have turned into profits. This month, as part of the Laser Launch Blog Party, Halley at Evolve-Succeed asked me to contribute to a collection of stories from small-business owners with all my tips for making your first and second year as a business owner fun and profitable. This post is part of a collection of essays with reflections, wisdom, and lessons from the journey it takes to become an entrepreneur.  (If you’re curious about the rest of the collection, check out the footnotes at the end of the post to see more.)

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at what I’ve learned so far about “making it” as a creative entrepreneur. Some of the questions people ask me all the time include:

  • How are you making your money right now as a creative entrepreneur?

(Right to the point: they want to know where the money is — and I don’t blame them! Things in life cost money.)

  • What were some of the biggest surprises about starting your own business?

(Oh yes, there were plenty).

And often longingly:

  • I wish I could do whatever I wanted—do you get to just sit around in your pajamas? 

(Hah! I wish. Nope, that’s not my life right now). 

I wish I could say the last one were true — except I love learning and creating far too much to sit around all the time. In addition, the job of finding, getting, and retaining customers is a full-time job, so while I might write early in the morning in my pajamas and preferentially wear yoga pants during the day, I don’t just sit in my pajamas at home all day (and we don’t have a TV at home, either).

A quick disclaimer: I don’t have the magic recipe for everyone, but I do have a few nuggets of wisdom from learning and making mistakes along the way. Take what you will and enjoy.

Getting started (money-wise) as a creative entrepreneur:

As I shared with Brazen last month, these are the big 3 things you need to make it as a creative entrepreneur:

  • First: reduce your costs.
  • Second, save a bit of runway (emergency savings), and
  • Third, start with a side hustle to test your ideas.

People often think you need a big plan, a giant 30-point strategic framework, or have it all figured out to get going. The reality (in my opinion), is that you start small, test and iterate, and get smart about not spending too much money where you don’t need to.

First, reduce your costs — live on the cheap:

Live minimally. Gain freedom from your job by not needing the paycheck. The more expensive your lifestyle, the riskier it is to jump to something new and uncertain that could have a potentially low income at start. The more you can reduce your overhead, the less risky it is to make that jump.

“The more expensive your lifestyle, the riskier it is to jump to something new and uncertain that could have a potentially low income at the start.”

If you want to start something new or break out of a dead-end job, follow the path of the Ramen-eating hackers who live cheaply. If you live an elaborate lifestyle, you may burn through your paychecks. See how much you can cut.

Make it a game. Buy a $75 sewing machine and give up buying clothes for a year (which is something I did—and now I don’t buy new clothes very often, if ever). Learn from the family in San Francisco that lives with no trash. Eat on the cheap. Give up restaurants and alcohol for a year, or even a few months. Track all your purchases and decide whether that night out with friends or new pair of shoes is more valuable to you than your freedom.

The nomadic entrepreneurs who live around the world and work from anywhere are often working in places where the cost of living is low. They’re not somehow richer than everyone else; instead, they’ve often worked the airline systems to get thousands of frequent flyer miles and travel on the cheap. The life they’ve built is incredibly inexpensive, making the need for a giant business (and lots of possessions) unnecessary. My fiancé and I talk about and analyze ways to live with less—figuring out what we truly “need” and what makes us happiest, often discovering that things are not synonymous with happiness. The more I interview and meet people as well, the more I realize that the happiest people don’t “have it all”—they have what they want, and skip the rest.

Sound like too much to give up? Consider how much you want to leave your job or chase your business idea. What’s it worth to you? How much do you want to start this business? When you want it, you’ll make it happen.

Second, shore up your emergency savings for when you *will* have low-cash-flow months.

This is part two: save up a nest egg or a “freedom fund” while you’re on the job, if you can. Cobble together several different income streams (bartending, teaching, coaching, waitressing, and many other side hustles kept me in positive cash streams).

When I started my first job after school, I actually made less than the cost of my rent and loans. In order to make it work, I picked up two side jobs: teaching swim lessons on the weekends and tutoring high school students in the evenings after work by posting an advertisement on Craigslist as a geometry and algebra tutor. That extra $200 a week was my savings and food budget, and I was able to save a little bit each month—and eat. [tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck #money #freedom http://dev.sarahkpeck.com/money”]To get started on your next project, create a freedom fund.[/tweetable]

After a year, I had saved $4,000 on the side from little side jobs. It was just the cushion I needed for the next step: several months where I used that same night and weekend time to concentrate on tweaking my side business endeavors. Soon I started making thousands of dollars on the side.

More recently, I left San Francisco to head to New York to start my next business adventures. To make it happen, I sold my car for $12,000 and had about the same amount in liquid cash savings that I was willing to use towards building my next set of projects. I also tested the projects I wanted to build in advance, demonstrating that people were willing to buy what I wanted to make—and then, not leaving until cash flow was positive and knowing that the buffer funding was there for the variant months of lower-than-expected income (or higher-than-expected costs).

In an ideal world, you’ll have about a 6-month buffer so you don’t work month-to-month, but in the real world, you do the best you can. Nearly every one I’ve talked to has said it takes longer than they expect to generate consistent income—so that cash savings helps during the buffer months when you’re making money—but not as much as you need. [tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck #money #truth http://dev.sarahkpeck.com/money”]The less your life costs, the longer the money lasts.[/tweetable]

The lower your expenses, the longer you can stretch your savings. If every paycheck goes straight to paying your expenses, consider taking on a small side job to boost your income, even while building your project.

Third: build it as a side hustle, if you can.

Does it make more sense to start your business from scratch or build it as a side hustle?

I recommend that everyone have a side hustle. It’s called moonlighting, and it’s a great way to test whether something you want to do is feasible. For some it’s a paper route or a nail salon job; for others, it’s taking care of elderly on the weekends, for me, it was teaching swim lessons and tutoring high school kids. It’s a great space to make a little side money, keep your options open, and develop your skills in a particular area when you’re thinking of changing careers.

[tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck http://dev.sarahkpeck.com/money”] The best time to try out your new project is now.[/tweetable]

Test the market viability by seeing if there’s any traction for your ideas, and tweak each iteration a bit to improve the offering. Perhaps you want to start a side culinary and health business. Set up evening showcases on the weekends for friends and family and let people know you’re doing a cooking class at a discount to raise awareness. Pitch your services to local vendors. Offer to teach at a high school. Spread the word about private lessons.

After a couple of months, reevaluate and see if you’ve made a profit. Tweak your project to build something people want that you also enjoy doing. If you need to, stay home and do things no one else is doing to make it work.

How do you know it’s time to finally take the leap?

There are times when you need to make the leap without a nest egg, without changing your costs, and without a plan. This happens, and people make it work. Sometimes the intensity of the jump forces laser-like clarity and an immediate reduction in expenses. But [tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck http://dev.sarahkpeck.com/money”]if your goal is to set out on your own by next summer, start building your business and reducing your overhead right now.[/tweetable]

Most folks running their own businesses and building the life of their dreams are always in the process of doing that — running and building. These are active verbs, which take time, energy and innovation. It’s not about pulling all-nighters or creating an endless stream of energy; it’s about being smart about building something a little bit at a time.

People who are working on new projects or problems aren’t immune to risk. But they’ve mitigated potential risks by using strategic tools, building up their savings, creating clever cost-saving lifestyles and forming plans to tweak their systems to get what they want.

Leave your job when you need more space in your business or venture and when you have a few leads. I knew it was time to head out on my own after I made almost half of my full-time income on the side—I decided to trust that if I put my day-time energy into my side-hustle, that I’d be able to make up the difference. I also kept trying to get my expenses down to make it easier to make the transition.

If you can save a little, cut your costs, and test your ideas on the side, you’ll be excited about what’s ahead because you’ll have already planned for the risks and confirmed that project has the potential for success.

How I started teaching online and in-person:

I’ve always loved teaching and coaching—from one-on-one tutoring in high school to assistant teaching in graduate school. After I left school, I kept teaching by signing up for workshops and events and volunteering my time to run events.

I started teaching on the side—in the evenings and on weekends—by putting up an advertising on Craigslist as a tutor, by pitching conferences and workshops as a workshop leader, by running lunchtime events at my company, and by reaching out to places like General Assembly, Skillshare, and Udemy to work with them. As I built both my teaching experience and reputation over several years, I was able to test my curriculum, build ideas, practice presenting, and later teach more through my own website.

What if you have savings and a side hustle, but you like your job? When did you know it was the right time to quit your job?

I liked what I did in my day job—I got to manage the communications and work on our marketing efforts at a 200-person architecture firm. It had it’s own challenges and entrepreneurial endeavors—we created a new blog, redesigned a website, and launched a journal from scratch, and I got to work with some of the most respected names in landscape architectural design. It was intense, demanding, and rigorous. 

Yet I knew I needed to leave when I got too tired I couldn’t see straight, and when enough people were asking me for what I had—and I couldn’t answer their responses quickly enough during my night hours.

(It was also convenient that my then-boyfriend and I decided that living in the same city might be nicer that cross-country dating, so the universe conspired to get me to head out to New York. Life tells you to move and change, if you’ll listen to the call). 

Financially, I knew it was the right time to work for myself when I was able to draw clients, fill up my classes on a regular basis, and when I wanted to chase the next challenge in front of me.

What do you do now as your business—how do you make money?

Ahh yes, the money question. (I suppose I thought I could get away with not answering this!)

I do three things: I run a teaching and media company (SKP Media), I consult, and I coach. From time to time I take on additional creative and collaborative projects as well—depending on what needs to be made in the world, how much time I have, and how exciting (read: “Hell Yes!”) the project is and the people are.

SKP Media is the bulk of my current time and energy. It’s where I teach writing workshops, content strategy workshops, and my newest course—Grace and Gratitude, a two-week course on cultivating kindness and gratitude in your life. We have sold-out (and over-sold) each of the courses, and during teaching months I spend a fair amount of time interacting with participants, reading and grading, running the program, and researching new examples to share with the crew.

This is where I spend about half my time, and it brings in about half of my yearly business income. With this business income, I invest in teaching equipment, the fees and hosting charges for each of the platforms I use (in addition to processing fees), pay taxes, hire a teaching assistant, and collaborate with a number of other freelancers (like proofreaders, web designers, and graphic designers)—who help get everything up and running. It’s important to note—business revenue is not the same as income, by any means. If my business is making $60,000, I might only be paying myself $30,000 depending on the variables of expenses. So reducing your expenses and living costs is a great way to help in the early stages of building.

In addition, I consult from time to time with clients who are interested in publishing, writing, content development, and social media movements—my typical clients are people interested in developing their own thought leadership platforms, need help running a multiple-month PR campaign, or want help understanding and developing their social media and content strategy.

I also take on a select number of coaching clients if there’s space in the schedule, but I’ve been keeping this part of my business quite small as I ramp up the teaching and media company, which is taking up the majority of my time at the moment.

It should also be noted that not all time is spent on activities that make money directly—writing, for example (such as this post) isn’t something that necessarily generates a lead or a sale directly, but takes a fair amount of time. Learning how to balance business-generating activities with other activities that don’t directly generate income (writing, social media posting, meeting people at conferences)—is a balancing act, and one that’s been subject to a lot of finessing.

What else do you spend your time on?

The above strategies for how I earn my income and spend my time add up to about 60-70% of my time—but I spend a fair amount of time writing, as well (as much as 30-40% of my time, if I’m lucky).

I write about 100,000 words on this blog and my essays annually, and I write an additional 30-40,000 words for each of the various program platforms I create as well, which doesn’t include the amount of writing that’s left on the cutting room floor when I go back to edit and revise.

Each morning I get up early and write, for as much time as I have time in my schedule. (Some days are booked solid with client and teaching work, so my writing window is from 7-8:30AM before my day gets off to a roaring start). Other days are luxurious when I spent 7AM—11AM writing, before getting in to begin my work. I still have a habit of writing on Friday evenings and Saturdays, as those times are “me” times that are often undisturbed by regular work calls.

There are other parts of my life that take up significant portions of time — sleeping, eating, meeting with people face to face, yoga teacher training, traveling — but this list is focused on what I do in my business life.

What about you? Do you have any other questions about making money as a creative entrepreneur?

What have you done that’s worked? Do you have any advice for small-and medium sized business owners that would be helpful?

Leave a note in the comments! 

For more from this series on entrepreneurship, small-business success, and business wisdom, check out the posts going live this month over at Evolve and Succeed. 

 

 

The best of the blog: behind the scenes on organization, archives, and new reading collections for your weekend.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

IMG_0118

“Sarah, how long does it take to build a website?”

That’s a great question. I get asked this question all the time, not surprisingly. And the answer, well–the answer is difficult to pin down.

Because it’s not just about the design, or the bones of the site–it’s about the content. And the organization of that content.

Building this site has been a labor of love.

Building this site is and has been a labor of love (and increasingly a business), and it’s taken me a very long time to do—I’ve been blogging for three years and I’ve written nearly 300 posts. The simple reason I’ve kept doing it is because I love writing. I love learning, ideas, and growth—and I learn through writing, philosophical contemplation, and grappling with ideas.

But how can you show how complex, layered, and deep a site is with a pixelated interface? The surface of a flat screen–whether a tablet, mobile device, or computer–only hints at the edges of the body of work; and often, we only notice the things that work poorly.

The length of time it takes to build a website is directly related to the amount of content that’s within the site.

And content creation is often the most difficult component. (I know: I’ve built and designed sites for people and waited months for the copy for the About and services pages to come; and I’ve done the same on projects where creating the paragraph to describe who I am and what I do takes an incredibly long time).

Adding new systems, getting organized, and site changes:

Over the past few month, I’ve been building into this site several new systems–from changing the frequency of posting to adding a newsletter and creating new sign-up forms–and I’ve also gone back and revamped and updated the archives and best of page. The complete record of all of the posts I’ve ever written (including some of the embarrassing early starts) are there.

How’d I get here? Simple. I wrote 250 essays, and I’m still showing up.

Going through all of the old content, watching my journey, looping together not-before-seen threads–let me discover new themes and do a macro-business audit. What do I continuously feel pulled to write about? What pieces were the standout pieces? Which ones surprised me? Are there areas and places I could improve the quality?

Some essays I would edit, massively. Time gave me perspective and new information. Others are poorly written (yup, happens to me all the time: the only way to get to the good stuff is to write it all out).

The benefit? I have 250 essays (well, probably 100 of those I would actually use). I can take these essays and build them into longer pieces; I can learn from them; I can build out longer documents by stringing them together, and I can start to layer complexity into future thought pieces.

So today, my treat: here’s a sampling of the best of the blog. Dig in, if you’d like. Have a cup of coffee and join me. I’ve curated what I think are the best of the blog, below. Enjoy.

On writing:

Life philosophy and the bigger picture:

Getting started, motivation:

Reminders, or how to keep going:

Making things happen–actually getting it done:

Psychology and the inner workings of the mind:

Useful tools, tricks, and tips:

Reflection, goal-setting, and tools for review:

Modest minimalist, and the art of having less:

Personal narrative and growing into your future self:

Reminders of kindness and empathy:

Swimming, running, athleticism, yoga + movement:

See the full archives or an extended list of the best-of-blog, in the menu up top or in the links. Thanks for being here.

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Are you minimalist enough? An experiment in giving up clothes for a year.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Leaning houses San Francisco

A little over a year ago, I wrote a post on Joshua Becker’s Becoming Minimalist site about giving up clothes for a year–and my experiments with minimalism, living with less, and what felt like too much pressure to whittle down my life to a certain number of items. Here’s how the experiment played out: 

Minimalist enough? Giving up (new) clothes for a year.

“We live in a world of scarcity. Which means we feel like we never have enough.” – Brené Brown

Living in a world of scarcity means that we’re constantly searching for the next thing to fill us up, the next destination or achievement to make us whole. Our world is filled with messages that tell us we don’t have enough space, enough stuff, enough clothes, enough fitness. We’re never skinny enough or pretty enough or good enough or rich enough.

This scarcity model drives consumption and accumulation; it spurs us to want more, to buy things because we think it will fill the void. We press to work harder, to get fitter, to buy more clothes, to acquire more things in the name of filling the hole.

The problem with scarcity, however, is that you can’t fill it or fix it with things.

The answer to scarcity, ironically, isn’t more. It is enough.

What you have is enough. Who you are is enough. As Danielle LaPorte says in her Fire Starter Sessions: “You already have everything you need.”

What about Minimalist Enough?

This cuts both ways, however. As a person with lots of things, and an apartment with hundreds of books, I sometimes feel like my efforts to de-clutter and reduce the number of things that surround me aren’t enough. In my efforts to reduce clutter and consider minimalist–or simplicity–as a strategy, I begin to doubt my efforts in being minimalist. And the thought begins to creep in: I’m not minimalist enough. I see someone who is minimalist and only has 100 things and the internal voice begins again, “I guess I’m not minimalist… enough.”

These attitudes are pervasive and can race around in my head. I can quickly become overwhelmed with the desire to eliminate stuff, lose weight, be better, do more, achieve….more.

But the idea of minimalism isn’t about reaching a goal, or checking off a box, or reaching a certain destination. To me, minimalism is realizing that what I already have is enough, and that adding clutter to the pile won’t make it any better. And chasing a dream of more minimalism is, ironically, not what I’m after either.

To me, as I breathe out and sigh into the life that I’m living, and find gentler ways to tweak, edit, and refine; I find that recognizing what is important and what is not is the most critical exercise.

Stripping away the excess lets us get to the bones of what really matters. Get to the heart space. Get to the pieces that are important. And that level can be different for different people.

For me, minimalism is about having exactly what you need–and the things you love–without having stuff and clutter that overwhelms your life. It’s filling up your time and space with love, not excess.

My Modest Minimalist Journey.

I spent 2011 conducting an experiment in which I decided to stop buying new clothes for the entire year. (There were two exceptions: shoes and underwear, but only as needed). For an entire year, I lived without buying anything new, on purpose. As a female in a clothes-and-image-centric society, I wanted to see what it was like to live without shopping for a while.

I was always dismayed by the number of female friends that were readily going into debt to maintain their image in public. When I thought about it, $400 outfits (the average price on any feature shopping magazine page) can add up to a lot of money if one were to wear a new outfit every day for a year. (Think about it: $400 a day for clothes is $150,000 a year just on clothes—who are we kidding?). You might think I’m joking—but to be perfectly honest, I know people who are $20,000 and $30,000 in credit card debt from clothes shopping alone. The image pressures on females (and males!) can be increasingly intense. As someone with immense graduate school debt to overcome setting off into my twenties, the thought of doubling that debt felt paralyzing. I wanted freedom, not debt.

Yet over the year, as I experimented in my journey of wearing and re-wearing the same outfits hundreds of times, I also found there were times when I got discouraged—especially when I looked around online and saw things like the Versalette by revolution apparel. I inadvertently compared myself to other people who were doing a better job at buying nothing than I was.

But then I realized: I don’t have to be the best or the most minimalist. I can be minimalist enough. Minimalism isn’t about winning, and it isn’t about a particular achievement. It’s about finding out what matters to you, and getting rid of the peripheral.

Over the course of the year, I thinned out my closet and pared down to a few favorite items. I made over twenty trips to charity with bags of clothes and gently worn shoes that I no longer needed. At one point, I had socks and underwear with holes in them, and I got out my sewing machine and fixed them up. Making old things new again was surprisingly satisfying. Getting rid of all of my extra socks—and just having a few pairs to use each day—actually made my life simpler. The process of getting rid of things reminded me of what I liked and what mattered.

Over time, I started to become acutely aware of everything that crossed the physical threshold of my front door. The amount of stuff that piled up around me on a daily basis crept into my consciousness, and I’m still surprised by the amount of clutter we let into our lives each day. Every time I brought something new in—mail, letters, books, ideas, shopping bags—I tried to make a conscious effort that the stuff I was bringing with me was valuable, and that I was also taking enough stuff out of the apartment each day to keep my space maintainable.

Untethering from the need to consume was surprisingly easy. It was the attitude change that made the most difference: looking through my things and realizing I already had enough—that I didn’t have to rush out and buy something new to fill a hole or a need—let me breathe again. It was relaxing and reassuring to know what I had was okay. What you are is already good enough.

I learned, slowly, that having excess stuff was giving me a headache, wasting my time and energy, and wasting a lot of money I wanted to focus on eliminating debt.

Even though the experiment is over, I still carry several of the themes into my current shopping habits: I buy new things that are disgusting to buy used (exercise clothes, underwear, socks, and shoes are typically new purchases); and I buy things new that are very difficult to find used (long-enough pants and long-enough jackets are two of my indulgences); but my favorite place to shop is at a thrift store with a bag of donations in hand–I’ll exchange three old things for a few new things. The smaller my closet, ironically, the happier I have been.

Over time, I will continue to whittle away at the things I don’t need in order to make space for the things I love. It turns out, all those unnecessary clothes were crowding out the space of the things I loved. I got rid of several boxes and cleared off a space for all of my books—one of my loves. Clearing out, to me, is about reducing the unnecessary clutter in your life to make space for what matters, and finding a balance that lets your soul breathe. It’s about stripping away the things you don’t need so you can focus on what’s important.

Sometimes a subtle attitude shift or a small sacrifice can make a big difference. Like taking the time to appreciate that what you already have is enough. And your effort? It’s enough.

Because stuff isn’t what matters.

What you have is enough. YOU are enough. 

To read more about minimalism and check out one of my favorite blogs, see Joshua Becker’s site, Becoming Minimalist.