Hi! I'm Damon. I help creative businesses share their message online. I also send sporadic newsletters about creative life.
a better alternative to "working on it" 🧠💡
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How's it going Reader? Right now, something I’m working on (lol this is about to get very meta) is clearing up brain space to reduce some ongoing mental fatigue I was experiencing. Part of that is investigating the specific words I use when talking/thinking about my creative projects. There’s so much to be discovered there, because it changes how we approach things! We all say we’re “working on” things as a casual way of talking about our goals, whether that’s a tangible project or something broader like improving a skill. I end up using it a lot, especially with emotionally loaded tasks… e.g. sending messages to new LinkedIn connections (which can be very nerve-wracking) or working on an important project that I don’t want to mess up (like making a new website for myself 🫣) The vague “working on it” language can make these tasks feel lighter. You no longer feel obligated to do them. And since you haven’t set a goal of how much you’re going to do, you won’t feel like you’ve failed if you don’t get much done. BUT You don’t get any sense of completion or achievement. I’ve found that leaving something unfinished takes up a lot of my mental space. Ticking something off as "finished" IMMEDIATELY frees up space. Even small things. Rather than “working on” things, I’m practising turning at least one to-do list item each week into an achievable finish line that I can tick off ✅ I'm very glad to say that this change in approach actually worked for my new website! I got out of "working on it" territory (where I'd been for a few months) and actually finished it 🎉 I think I'll write a couple more emails about the website building process... it seems like one of the top 3 things that creatives get stuck on 😅 Do reply and tell me about your own experiences! Bye for now, Damon P.S. if you've no idea what you want your website to actually say, send me an email at hello@damonsiseman.com and let's see if we could work together on it! 🌿 Stuff I'm Doing Recently 🌿July Week #4 (Links with an * are affiliate) Find me on: My Website | Instagram | TikTok | LinkedIn |
Damon Siseman
Hi! I'm Damon. I help creative businesses share their message online. I also send sporadic newsletters about creative life.
How's it going Reader? Do you ever think about how often we are expected to do things quickly and efficiently? I've been writing blog posts in the creative industry for 4 years. Compared to other types of work, I'd say blog posts (and writing in general) are pretty undervalued. It's frowned upon to be charging loads for them because they're "just blog posts". Despite that, I can never get myself to rush through them for the sake of earning more for my time. I want to put so much care into...
Hey Reader! On Tuesday I talked about my experience with making a new website for myself, realising that there were a LOT of big decisions about branding involved, and getting stuck in with the design aspect of it (read here) Today I'm gonna share about the writing and building aspect. Website building is also copywriting in disguise As I said last time, I started out by playing around with templates in Squarespace. But I quickly got stuck because I still had no idea what I wanted the site to...
How's it going Reader? I recently made a new website for myself, and the building process was actually fairly doable! It was all the preparation beforehand that was difficult af and took aaaaages... Most advice for creatives says to not build your own website, because a designer can do a way better job of it + help you avoid the generic Squarespace Template look. Many of us, however, will choose to do it ourselves anyway. I'm not here to debate whether I recommend doing that or not, because...