MARCH: STUDIO UPDATE, A BIT ABOUT AD(h)D AND A LIFE HACK

Update time and a little bit about AD(h)D.
A little update on our studio. We moved in about two months ago and we loooove it. So much space, so much light! Wohoooo! It is so fun to start in a fresh place again and we have a lot of short, mid and long term plans. If you know me a bit you might not be surprised that I want to do them aaaaall, NOOOOWWW! Drop everything, put my Bobbinhood overalls on and start reno, forget to eat, sleep, forget to screen print and just work full time on the studio. Lucky me, 40 years of human experience have taught me that that isn't a good plan. It might feel like a fun plan, I love going aaaall in, but I know that after a month, 2 months, 3 months? Whenever I come to the surface again, every other aspect of my life will be a trainwreck, this happened to me many times, hello AD(h)D. The cool thing about AD(h)D though is that one of my superpowers is analysing and I am lucky not to be scared of analysing my own behavior. My diagnoses when I was 32 definitely did help to understand myself better and to embrace myself more. Sooooo now I make plans, where I try to change the recklessness into wisdom and keep all the fun ;). Let me tell you all about them but not before I added a disclaimer.

*disclaimer*
Chances are some plans will be delayed or done earlier than we planned or changed compleeeetely because I like to be flexible ;) I get really nervous when things are all set out for a long time so I love shuffling things as we go.

Short term plans.
The storage and shipping area had to be ready asap, when we moved in. So that's what we focussed on. And it paid off, we are so happy everything has its designated place that actually makes sense and it all sparks pure joy (Marie Kondo would be so proud of us). We also made the storage a place where we can make some of our stock like pumping ink and packing stencils. We made an opening in the storage so it is easily accessible from the shop. We also made the shipping area ready to go, we used the old set-up we had in the previous studio. I have so many fun ideas for the shop area but I am just writing them down for now ;) so I don't forget and we will work on that later.

Mid term plans.
Now we are taking the next couple of months to work on different projects in the studio like a sewing/cutting station, a window bench, cabinets and a nice chill area. To avoid the trainwreck we have planned one day a week for studio improvement. We don't necessarily have a fixed order in projects, some we have to wait with because we have to save up for the investment and others we can work on already.

Long term plans.
After the summer we want to work on a real store, with a storefront designed by another artist every two months! We would love to host a series of inspirational events when we are all vaccinated and safe, think workshops, talks with inspiring artists, it will be a fun combo of whatever we feel like and whatever you would love to see!

Life hack to get things done.

As you might know I loooove to start new projects, when I am on a roll new ideas pop in my head like a pan of pop corn. There is one tiny (read pretty darn big) problem, I really hate finishing things. And that, dear reader, is not an awesome combo. If you also add the trainwreck behavior I talked about in the beginning of this post you might understand that I have felt incapable many times of my life. Incapable of finishing things, of keeping things afloat, of simply doing things that a lot of people seem to do so easily (like paying bills on time, getting anywhere on time, remembering appointments (I get a lot of why don't you have an agenda. Well, I probably have 67 of them, I forget to use them and trust me I have tried a gazillion times) aaaaanyways you can read more about the struggles of AD(h)D in the highlight of my stories. Let's get back to that hack.

So the super power of always having fun ideas/starting new projects turned against me many times and it was starting to feel like a burden. All those projects were weighing on me screaming: hahaha you can't even finish us, you are a failure, a looooooser! Yes go ahead, run away and start something new.....that you probably will finish NEVER (insert tongue sticking out). No fun for your self esteem, but I have another superpower that came to the rescue... drumroll please... fixing problems! I am the thinking in solutions kinda gall, hardly ever see a problem, so I had to hack myself out of that nagging pile. I decided to pick 3, max 4, projects to work on at the time. I have to finish one completely (and with completely I mean completely, no shortcuts there) before I can start a new one. I have to say while I am working on those projects my brain will challenge me all the time by coming up with all kinds of fun ideas, waaaaaaay funner than the one I am working on, it will tell me. But being all grown up and all, I write those down on a big list called crazy ideas. When I finish something I will pick a new project from that list. It really works! The list keeps me all excited for new things and I am starting to love finishing things now, because it means I can start something new! HA!



I am even more excited now because in our new studio we have a special cart for those projects and it rolls right in and out my storage and it makes me beyond happy. One day I will spray paint that chart yellow to add even more fun but that is on the long term list (or should I drop everything and do it right now? ;)).

XO! Barbara