Oh, ho, ho. Pain points. That's the first time I've heard them referred to as pain points. Lady, that's an apt name for them.

 

1. The notebooks. 

  I have had a non-system system of noting things down in notebooks and never organizing them. This has left me with dozens of full notebooks, some at 400 pages, with all my plans and great ideas in. I frequently find myself rooting through them for my chicken scratches when it would be easier if I just digitized them or noted the useful stuff and ditched the rest.

 

2. Weak plans

  Last year I was working from home full time and had been for the 3 years prior. I took a break and went back to a day job for a while. When I returned to self-employment this year, I really struggled to make consistently good daily plans. If my morning schedule is a weak checklist with no details, I can't get started on it in the morning. Often leaving me flailing about after lunch not knowing where to start. 

 

3. Easily distracted 

  I used to have a laser focus when writing. Now I often find myself opening tabs and looking at internet fluff. I think I need one of those plugins that only allow you to visit certain websites during the day. Otherwise, I just... Oh, I don't...

*Click*

Hey, hah, look at this silly cat being filmed doing a funny thing on the internet!

  

4. Communication

  I've lost touch with the fine art of chasing new customers and staying in contact with old ones. Even just a friendly, non-business, hello via email can sometimes nudge an old punter into giving you some work. I need to set some time out in my day to talk to old and new contacts on social media, at the very least.

 

5. Not allowing creativity to flow

  I used to create daft short stories every day along with an art. It only took an hour of my time but ensured I always had good content to post and my brain got a creativity dump every day. Without that, my mind wanders too much. I need to get up a little earlier, go for a run, then hammer out some arts and stories. Then I can begin my day without my characters doing laps around my brain.

 

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As a PS, why is there a pixel art bird on a branch as my cover photo? Because she's from a series of 20 short stories. A series of tales, each less than 512 characters long, in which dead-bread attacks living creatures. Chaos, necromancy and puns ensue. Last year, the entire series complete with images and voice over videos would have taken me a day. This year, this series just took me 3 weeks to finish. 

 

Man, I need to organize my time better.