citybirds chip: kate's irrelevant

yay, its friday, which means a fun citybirds chirp to help inspire those creative juices. i am super happy to introduce to you the sweetie kate from kate's irrelevant. she is extremely talented and just celebrated a birthday, hop on over to her blog and wish her a belated birthday!

Hi everyone, I'm Kate from over at Kate's Irrelevant! I'm delighted to be featuring on Citybirds Nest  :) I thought I'd share a little sneak peak into my upcoming e-course, Developing Your Creative Style, with you all - this particular snippet is a few handy tips of mine to help you have a good craft day! I hope you find them useful, and I'd love to hear any tips/craft rituals of your own.

These are a few of the ways I find that help me craft at my very best : 

001. Wake up early enough.

Allow yourself time to eat breakfast, get ready and get some of the slightly more mundane chores out of the way. Getting everything else out of the way first will allow you to spend the rest of your day concentrating on your project without any (or many, at least) distractions. Usually I'll wake up at around 7:30 every morning so that I can get myself ready to go by 9am, especially if I have to work - I like getting a couple of bits done before I go.

I'd ALWAYS say that it's best to get dressed before you start getting things done, even if you're not going anywhere, you'll feel a lot more productive than you do in your pyjamas.

002. Have a tidy workspace. 

If you're anything like me, your workspace will become more and more cluttered over the day. I find myself tidying things up quickly about three times a day, the mess ends up stressing me out otherwise. 

Try to clean up once you finish crafting for the day, so that it's neat and tidy the next time you return. If not, then give it a quick clean up before you get going. 

003. Have a to-do list ready.

I swear by to-do lists. There's no way I would even function a crafting day without one...or two or three. I tend to have weekly/monthly to do lists just so I know what needs to get done eventually, but I'll also write a quick to-do list for that day first thing in the morning. 

I also find it helps to have sub lists for each task. This probably could not sound any dorkier, but if I have a big project to do, or a lot of painting ideas, or a blog redesign in mind, I'll break it down and list every thing I need to do to get it done. Not only do you make sure that you get everything done but you get the satisfaction of ticking little things off every day as you make progress.

004. Put on music that inspires you.

Different music inspires different people, but I always find it a lovely way to start off my day. I can't say I have a terribly good habit of it myself, but it's always good to have playlists ready so you don't waste any time searching for songs.

005. TRY to avoid the internet.

The emphasis being on 'try' because I am terrible with this. I'm constantly finding myself checking Blogger for new blogs posts/comments and I simply cannot resist that '1 new tweet' on Twitter.

It's good to take breaks from what you're doing, and it's fun to tweet about what you're doing but try to get a task done in between website checks. 

006. Jot down ideas while you're crafting.

A very valid reason to momentarily distract yourself from the task at hand. Don't let an idea slip away before you have the chance to jot it down. Keep an ideas notebook close by so that you can quickly jot down some notes and come back to them later.


Thanks so much Cristie! It was a pleasure to be on your blog! :)