Monthly Recap: End of month assessment & Goals for November

October is coming to an end, and it is time to assess and prepare for November. In October I didn’t have any big goals or expectations, but I did plan quite a lot of projects. Some got finished some got postponed.

October Goals

Promote Christmas Products from Zazzle on Pinterest

( including creating mockups for the entire month and for November and prepare the Pinterest Boards)

Make EVERGREEN products for my 2nd Zazzle store

( this includes reassessing the store, designing new designs, posting them for sale, making new thumbnails and headers, making mockups for marketing, make a new Pinterest account solely for this store)

Make plans for January & February

(what holidays can I make designs for, and what projects can I start preparing for)

To be completely honest October turned around really fast. I don’t even know when it all came to an end. But I have mixed feelings about it.

I did accomplish almost all the goals that I set at the beginning of the month but along the way, since they are not showing any results yet, it does feel like I was working for a month for nothing. But that is OK, sometimes it is like that. When it comes to freelancing, POD, and advertising, if you don’t have a large following things tend to run slowly. I just need to accept that and move on.

I did walk away from this blog for a couple of months but now I have new knowledge and new batteries and I’m ready to move forward.

When you start a business things don’t happen overnight, and you don’t get huge sales immediately. It takes time and perseverance.

The first priority this month was to complete my Christmas designs on my main Zazzle store, and I have to admit I’m quite pleased with the products I’ve created. People can modify them as they please, they can add their family photos and text to them with ease. I’ve decided to move away from Redbubble and focus on Zazzle because it brings me more gain and I don’t feel like I’m completely wasting my time and efforts for no sales. I’ll still keep my store at Redbubble but for now, I’ll focus on growing and building my Zazzle stores.

If you would like to see them, go to missing.in.art store

I did manage to make mockups for all the new products as well and I finally made a decision and purchase a subscription for Placeit.net I am very happy with that platform. Especially because I can make mockup images and videos with ease, and they really look awesome. I could do it with Affinity Designer and Photo myself but that takes so much time from me, and I need to focus on getting things done faster and easier. To be honest I didn’t really plan on this expense but since last month I didn’t spend much I figured I could afford it.

I created Pinterest pins for the end of October and throughout the whole of November and will be posting them on a daily schedule. Will see how it turns out if I get more click-throughs than with my pins created with Affinity Designer and Canva.

On this note, I can conclude that I’ve accomplished my first goal.

Moving on to the second. Make EVERGREEN products for my second Zazzle store which to be honest I’ve neglected a bit. It is a store about healing, self-help, awareness, and reiki.

I’ve succeeded with that goal as well. I’ve gone through the store and made thumbnails for shop categories, made new collections and products. Also made new designs for the shop.

You can check it out HERE.

I’ve also made a new Pinterest Account for this store and already I’m seeing good results. It’s not much but it’s growing. All the mockups and pins are almost done for the November posting. My plan is to post 6 pins per day. Three pins of products, one of simply art, and two pins from other people. We’ll see at the end of November what the stats are, and if I’ll keep up with that schedule or change the strategy.

I did lose on the last goal though. I didn’t do anything about that yet. I’m planning on pushing that to November. So, designs I plan to make for January or February, for holidays such as Valentine’s Day, Australia Day, Lantern Festival, and Chinese New Year… I’ll plan about that next week.

This brings me to November's goals and plans.

November Goals & Plans

Post all the pins and mockups for all stores throughout the month

(scheduled posting, maybe make some new pins, stories)

Create content for this BLOG

(at least two months in advance to have some backups ready)

Make videos for YouTube again

(one per week, make a few in advance)

Dedicate at least one to two hours per day to exercise and learn about online work, how to run a business, and being consistent, ...

Even though I planned more goals for November some of the things can be grouped together and that way done faster. I also don’t post pins individually each day I use the schedule option and I post for 14 days ahead. It gives me some leeway time to do other stuff.

I also decided to go back to YouTube, I’ve neglected my channel for quite some time. I guess it’s because my topic is about art, I draw, do speed painting, and sometimes I speak. It’s one of those topics that not a lot of people watch and it’s not vlog-like. I guess I have that IMPOSTOR syndrome, where I’m ok watching other people do stuff, even if they seem they have no idea what they’re doing but when it’s my turn to do it I stop myself. And when I watch all those artists doing their vlogs or videos, they have perfect settings, the lighting is perfect, they look perfect, and the background is posh and new.

Where do I film? My house is 300 years old everything is old and falling apart. My desk is a mess, nothing is aesthetic. I don’t have that 100 dollars view and on top of that, I don’t live alone. I live with a person that doesn’t know what the internet or personal space is.

Anyway, I’m getting off-topic. To summarize everything together, October has flown by faster than I could say “ha?” but I did manage to complete all my tasks and goals. Which makes me proud of myself, even though I do feel like I didn’t do anything this month. I am eager to enter in November.

The goals that I set are not that high and big, but at least I hope to complete them before December comes.

Love,