I've got mail

...or I've got the latest issue of RUM with the mail... Besides books, I love magazines and I have more than a 1000 spread around the apartment. One of my favorite danish magazines is RUM interior design – a magazine with a lot of great inspiration I've been reading since their first issue! This issue has an inspiring series of personal office spaces and personally I love seeing how other people decorate their workspaces..

Illustration of the day

So far I've had one of those great saturdays, where you get to do a lot the things missed during the week, so today I cleaned the entire apartment, baked a delicious bananabread and took the time to draw a little something; I ended up drawing 3 pieces, 2 small colorful ones (I'll show them later on) and this A2 illustration with a simple pen on a grey piece of carton. It's not art, but to me it's kind of meditative to totally concentrate and take a break from all the thoughts flying around in my head, while doing these kind of things! I ended up liking the result, framed it in a white frame and the piece is now decorating a wall in my bedroom.

 

Follow me with Bloglovin

This is my post no 300 and I'm so happy to have you guys following me – actually it would be really exiting to know who you are and where you're from???
Since I can tell that a lot of other people not following, stop by and read I therefore encourage you to follow me with bloglovin :) Press the picture below or at the bloglovin app in the sidebar. That would be awesome! :)

The importance of a Daily Schedule

If you're a freelancer or working on your own, you may be familiar with some of the pitfalls when it comes to productivity and time management in general. Certainly sometimes I do, and therefore I think that the first step in becoming a better selfemployed, is to acknowledge that you may need to be more in control of your time and plans than first expected.

In attempt to control and manage my own time to make sure I get everything done, I've bought this great "Action Journal" from the 99%-shop – a small notebook with space enough to write both text and calender - and then it has a special column to emphasize the more important and specific action steps of the day.

I've stolen the following text directly from FreelanceShack, and take absolutely no credit for the following lines, but I would love to hear if you're a freelancer or have any great additions or ideas to this subject!

ARTICLE

When we gave up a job to work from home as Freelancers we probably had visions of a productive home office, that would provide us with being paid for doing something we love to do, combined with the freedom of self employment to take care of our life responsibilities

For many of us however, the reality is we wake up in the morning full of intentions to complete a chapter of the book we are writing or to make a start on allocated assignments, only to find at the end of the day we have actually accomplished very little.

Sound all too familiar?  Most of us have are probably nodding our head in agreement.  We can probably all relate to taking a little longer over our morning rituals of reading emails or checking our social media accounts in the name of “work”.  When we are ready to work we face writers block or have a feeling of overwhelming fatigue we find hard to shift.

If this is your experience, here are 4 simple, but very useful strategies to help Freelancers control their day and increase productivity with minimal effort and little change of routine.

1. Have a daily schedule mapped out:   Plan your day and prepare a to-do list that is achievable. Include the things you have to do AND the things you want to do.  Multi task where you can by combining different tasks together.
2. Work solidly for a set period of time but take frequent breaks to enable you to then surge again.  A little like the popular “fat burning” routines that people are getting such great success from.   Short exhausting stints and a cool down break produces pleasing results.
3. Achieve one task on your to do list at a time.  Enjoy the feeling of ticking off that one item and seeing the list become shorter as the day progresses.
4. Decide if you work better with or without a distraction. Use music if it keeps you focused, but turn it off if it causes you to loose concentration. Schedule other distractions like checking emails for a specific time each day.  Resist the temptation to keep your social networking sites open whilst you work.  Don’t forget to reward yourself for completing a task.

Unless we are very strict with ourselves schedules tend to be broken more often than they are kept. Despite all our good intentions, unexpected interruptions happen to freelancers and we can still find ourselves in the middle of an unproductive day, where little has been accomplished and we are far behind on those deadlines.

What steps can we take to regroup and turn our productivity around?   The most useful advice is don’t panic.  Don’t get frustrated and angry with yourself and others.  Don’t stop planning either.

Three simple steps may prove helpful.

1.  Take a look at what you still have to accomplish and rearrange the tasks so that you can achieve the urgent and important tasks and leave the non urgent ones for another day.
2. Where possible reschedule any non essential appointments and tasks to minimize the need to leave your desk for any length of time until the work is completed.
3. Reduce other responsibilities for the day by having an emergency back up plan you can call on when absolutely necessary to create some extra time.

The humble daily schedule may seem an unnecessary task that adds to an already over full “to do” list, but in a distraction filled work environment, it is the freelancers best asset to improve and maintain optimum productivity.   

A small glimpse

I have had a great morning so far, got up very early, walked with Basse in the lovely morning sunshine, got back, ate oatmeal and took a shower, got dressed, read a magazine, took Basse under the arm and headed to the office where I am now at. On my way, I picked up a dangerously looking juice and the latest version of Gaffa magazine – and now to the point of this post; a small glimpse of a small part of one of the latest projects I've been working on... Can't wait to show you the rest of it when it's all done!

 

The Weather, City Edition - Free Mac Screensaver

I came across this lovely and free screensaver for Mac by Stefan Trifan (via Milk and Mead blog). Choose your city and download the minimalistic and very graphic screensaver! I love it!

Visit website HERE

Snaps from the office

I haven't worked from the office at Nørrebro for a long period, but today I'm back and it feels great! Here a few snapshots of some of the things I have here.

A stack of some of my great books with graphic design and illustration. Maybe I should do a review of some of them?? What do you think?

Lovely letters - as I have grown a small collection and since I've got so many things at home, it's great to have another space to decorate.

Small collection of some of the notebooks I have at the office - I have a lot of notebooks in general, but that's for another post....

Reading these wise words and getting inspired by a small book by Paul Arden "It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be", a gift from my sister. This text in particular is something that's been a lot on my mind lately, more on that in a different post.

My little puppy Basse also enjoys sleeping in the sun at the office.

A little pink door

A quick post from a picture I took yesterday when I was on my way to Christianshavn and walked passed this cute little pink door and simply had to take a picture. Sometimes you need to notice the small things in life and open your eyes and start looking at the beautiful details you might find. Sometimes even a simple discovery of a little pink door can bring a smile on your face.

Magazine papercuts collage, March 2012

I made this collage yesterday – as I expressed in my former post about the book reading I went to, I've felt really inspired the last couple of days, and besides that I've started to write a bit again, I'm also getting back to doing a bit more of hand-crafted creative things, and this was the result of yesterdays small escape. (In addition I feel great when I use my magazines (worth half of my savings) and give them a new "life" and purpose! Bonus)

Collage March 2012, A2, magazine papercuts

A book reading

I know that my blog mostly has been filled with posts about design and more material stuff, but as I have a lot of other interests (like literature, poetry) I think it's time to start sharing this side as well. Wednesday me and a friend went to a book reading with Josephine Klougart – a young danish writer who's words I find so very appealing and interesting. I love how Josephine has a very special style in her writing – and that her texts are in the field of both poetry and novels. The bookreading, was for me, a very giving experience and I love to leave a thing like this with a feeling to have expanded my horizon! And other than that I just find some of her texts very personal and for me very relatable. Sometimes I almost feel as if she puts some of my thoughts into words, and that's a very rare thing! I bought her latest book - Én af os sover - and started reading right away and I'm already spellbound in her universe... and in my own...
 

Remember to follow my tumblr blog

Remember to follow my tumblr blog RIGHT HERE

5 Design items of the day

Last week I went to Illums Bolighus in Copenhagen, a store with a lot of great design! I went there to buy a tray from Hay to go with my new Hay Tray tables, and as always I ended up walking around the store to have a look. I took a few pictures of things I liked and below you can see 5 of them.


Julie Nord, signed print - I've always had a thing for Julie Nord and her amazing universe, and I would love to have this spider girl print hanging on my wall.

Old news, but I've always found this small rabbit table lamp from Moooi very appealing and fun!

Feathers from HAY in a lovely combination of pastels and red - I would really love to have a few of these, but I have absolutely no idea where to put them...

Wallpaper from danish illustrator/artist Kasper Købke – portraying the streets of Copenhagen - amazing and I really love the details.

Cute vases with faces (!) - I really think they're sweet and they would fit perfectly in with all of my other ceramics!

Quote of the day

COME SPRING - color theme of today

Spring has come! And today – as I happen to wear a green-ish skirt – I decided to "celebrate" the beginning of a lighter period with a green/mint theme. Okay, it's my version of green - meaning that it's pastel, petroleum and more bluish tones, but still... Pictures from various stuff I gathered in small groups...

Me in my greenish skirt (with my little dog playing in the background - and from the picture was taken until I posted this, he already managed to scratch the fabric, but hey, I guess it's my own fault!)

Petroleum ankleboots, mint clucth and metal bracelet.

Last months Cover magazine in a lovely color scheme, mint folder and bracelets.

Totally random with a picture of 2 balls of wool but I remember buying these only because I liked the colors - I still haven't figured what to make of them but I guess one day they'll have a purpose (other than posing in this picture...)

Now back to work! - Have a nice day! 

Work is not a job

Every now and then we all need a little inspiration/motivation, both on good and hard days. I regularly visit the blog - workisnotajob - where you can find quotes and small texts to inspirate and get you in the right mood to start/continue living the life you really dream of... it's not very heavy reading at all, and peronally I think it's a good idea to print out your favorite quote and look at it on a daily basis! Here I bring you their Manifesto - but I think you should visit the blog and have a look.. WORKISNOTAJOB