Organise or Die

Bit of an ominous Post Title there. I like to be melodramatic. In my Immersion course that I'm doing at St Martins at the moment, a lot of emphasis at the moment is being put on organisation - having lists, priorities, goals, ambitions, and a system in place to record them all so that they can be acheived. I generally use my diary and lists on random bits of paper. But I've been coming across a few things that would make the process entirely more fun, or at least a bit prettier.

First up, these genius Reminder Magnets found via Art At Heart:


Great if you keep bills/random stuff/your entire life stuck to your fridge. Time to bin those awful novelty seaside magnets and put all that important and forgotten stuff under the right magnets! I particularly like the 'fyi' and 'etc' ones the most, as they are the most ambiguous... and thus least useful I suppose, which kind of defeats the object. Whatever, I just like the thought of having a pile of stuff under the title 'etc...' They can be bought from See Jane Work, which is full of other lovely 'I will find a use for this' things like these Day of the Week pegs:


Next, also from Art At Heart (great blog btw, I recommend it), is this rather awesome All in One Wooden Desk Organiser...with iPhone charger! Nifty:

Actual wood with actual charger for actual iPhone. Nice mix of organic and technological. Made to order though... $199. Maybe not eh.

Next is one of my favourites. It's from Erin Vale Design, free printables for Blog Post topics!

Anything DIY is cool in my books. It's a downloadable PDF that you print out and then either just stack up or be a bit adventurous with it - I discovered it via Gingham Cherry and she made this ace little book using it:


Having a blog post schedule is a really good idea and something that I don't adhere to enough. Bloggers like mrYen have got it down to a T - what with his Weekend Goodness and WIP Wednesdays and all that. I don't really have that discipline yet - difficult with a full time job though. But I'm always writing down ideas for blog posts in random places so this is perfect for me, and a step in the right direction! Going to make this this weekend I think, will be nice. The only thing I find is that I have post ideas anywhere - not usually when I'm sitting in front of my computer. So should probably keep them in my bag or something. Although I usually end up noting things down on my phone. Hmmm. When I get an iphone this will all be solved. Atm my 2 year old phone is driving me crazy. Tiiiny screen =/

I saw these in Paperchase and still need to get them. Get The Hint mini sticky notes, I want to use them for bookmarking my magazines etc when I'm in the middle of reading them. And also just for sticking around the house. Or on people's faces.

More fun than actually critically important but still ace. And less than a fiver. Very needed.

On to a much more useful item; a real to-do list. With an octopus. You basically can't get any better. From Shanalogic, the octopus to-do list:

And it's printed on recycled paper! Bonus points all round. I like that it has 'Done' and 'Not yet' boxes... no pressure, like it.

A really good online tool for those who 'don't do paper' is Teux Deux - which is basically To Do in a french accent. How very high brow.


I heard of it a while back now through Swissmiss, who I believe had a part in its creation. This blog explains Teux Deux very well, (which is also where the above image is from), but is beauty is it's simplicity; it's not got loads of gadgety extra bits, it's just a simple list format, with a week to view - type in what you need to get done, and if you don't do it, it gets moved on to the next day. As soon as they do an iphone app, I'll get it. When I have an iphone. Which hopefully will be soooon =/

Last is from See Jane Work again - these cute and slightly sarcastic sticky notes for the office:

I need these a lot at the moment. Especially the 'Do This By' and then the 'Yesterday' box. And Note To Self, that's great. Seriously though, I can see these actually being quite useful around my mac area, being a fan of the overuse of post-its myself. With these I can stick my to-do lists to things like... lightswitches so I remember to do them.
"Blah Blah Blah'. We all need a pile labelled that.

So hopefully one or many of these items will inspire you to get yourself organised a bit. Or just laugh at the lack of organisation you currently have. Either is good. The plan for me next is to develop some kind of planning system for my life. Hopefully using the above things!

Shock horror, my 100th post!

Yay! What a momentous occasion. Although, considering I started this blog on the 16th May 2007 (that's over 2 years ago, completely missed that milestone), 100 posts is pretty terrible going, really. Which would account for my lack of followers and 100s of comments.

However, I am taking this post as a starting point for this blog being bigger and better than it is now. My lack of posting recently is down to a few things - 1) working long hours at my recent placement and never wanting to get in front of another screen at 9pm after looking at one all day and 2) said screen is in fact attached to my ridiculously slow, full up, sad, sorry, vista-based windows laptop that I hate with a passion (don'tdiepleaselaptopIloveyoureally). It takes 15 minutes to start up for god's sake, what a joke. And Firefox has randomly decided to just not open, at all now. So I'm using IE. Which I hate.

Excuses, excuses.

So, I finished my placement at Open yesterday. Which was really sad - didn't want to leave, I really enjoy it there, the work was always varied, it was tough and hard work but at the same time fun and a great environment to work in. (Yesterday I was drawing on the walls, that's not something you do every day.) So hopefully one day I'll get the chance to work with them again, we'll see.

This now means that I am unemployed once again. This has good and bad points, thus:

Good:

• I have more spare time on my hands to start illustration projects, and draw more, and generally create stuff.
• Which means I'll have time to publish said stuff on my website/blog/twitter, and also promote my work more to people I want to work with, and get involved in various projects.
• I can focus on redesigning this blog (which is in desperate need), my website and also my twitter page which is tres dull.
• I don't have to get up at 5,45am for a while (although I didn't actually mind that).
• I can go out on tuesday nights! Oh em gee.
• In fact, I can go out any night, any time, anywhere, I can even bugger off to Paris if I so choose. Because for some random reason, I really want to do that. Like, right now. Paris. Now. Let's go.

Bad:

• Being jobless kinda sucks, I do actually need a reason to get out of bed.
• I have 0 money coming in and with an overdraft as big as mine, and a student loan, and no savings, and no car, I feel pretty worried about that.
• I can't afford to rent anywhere so I'm having to move back to my parent's house in Bedfordshire. This is fine, our house is lovely, except I have very few friends down there. No social life makes Rachel sad in the face.
• No money means no new clothes. No new anything.

And so, I need a plan of action.

1. This starts first of all with buying a Mac. Because with no working computer (yes I'm talking to you, useless laptop) and no photoshop/illustrator, I can't exactly DO anything. I can't even scan a drawing in right now. So like, my illustration career won't exactly get very far if I can't actually illustrate. I think I have just about enough money to cover this, but then I will be well and truly broke.
2. Does anyone know if I can buy a Mac on 0% interest? That would be great right about now.
3. Once I'm back home and unpacked, I can start applying for jobs in and around Birmingham. Which isn't so simple if you're in Bedfordshire. Also, I'll start looking at London properly, as I live only 30 miles away and it's easy to get to.
4. Although, I have plans to move in with my friend up here in the Midlands. If I get a job in London, that's not so good. But needs must. And she doesn't have a job yet either.
5. Simultaneously as all of this, I need to be constantly drawing and illustrating and designing cool stuff to put out there.
6. I then need to make a big list of all the magazines/companies/studios/art directors I want to send my lovely postcards to, and send them out. And expect not to hear anything back, such is the way of the world.
7. I then need to think of cooler self promotional ideas and do that instead.
8. Get some kind of job so I'm not in a pit of despair and I can come back to the Midlands. Ideally this would be in the field of what I want to do, i.e at a design studio or agency, designing, illustrating, thinking conceptually, generating brilliant ideas, you know being awesome. But I also would be fine working in Retail. Honestly. (fashion, only, mind. Paperchase at a push) because I also quite like the idea of Visual Merchandising. I need to look at this further though. I had an interview at Urban Outfitters the other day and I would actually love to work there. I'm not holding out much hope though, apparently they were interviewing 60 people. Omg. I love recessions!
9. Buy Lotus Elise.
10. Hopefully get a few editorial illustration commissions, this is my big major short term goal.
11. Chill out a bit, I haven't had a holiday in over a year so maybe I should just.... relax. If there is such a thing in this current situation.

As you can gather, that's not the greatest formulated plan. I'm at this point where I could go so many ways. Do I just want to try going freelance illustrating, with a standard side job to get me through? Do I want to work as a designer/illustrator in a studio?Do I want to get more into marketing and branding and explore that side of me? Do I want to be a Visual Merchandiser? Should I just get married and be a housewife? (ew. shudders.) Do I want to stay in the Midlands, or go to the bright lights of London, which is nearer home and where I want to be eventually anyway?Should I just run off to New York and start a new life there because I secretly yearn to do that?

Should I just get over this cold first, and figure out how the hell I'm going to get this suitcase on the train?

Answers on a postcard please.

For now, I'm fully intending to blog way more frequently, about way more interesting things other than myself, and a full redesign will appear as soon as I own a shiny iMac. Donations welcome.

Lots of love to my current followers and commenters, you make me happy when I know I'm not talking into the ether.