Two Days Ago I Didn't Have A Clue

That is, the day before yesterday I didn’t have a clue as to how I was going to prepare whatever I was going to prepare to present as my business at a women’s business owner’s luncheon today. While I’ve been preparing to launch my business for a very long time, I have been serious about it for only a few weeks, over the course of 2012. Much of my effort has been on developing a routine, getting software I need set up on equipment I need, rearranging my web presence, and reconfiguring a couple other elements of my life to support this venture. What I had not done was create display materials, a portfolio, or materials I could distribute.
Sometimes I just have to set not only deadlines, but exterior events which integrate with the deadlines, in order to get me to kick it in to high gear and produce whatever it is that needs to be created or done.
I have been freaking out a bit because time is flying and the drop dead, deadline that I’ve given myself for having all my marketing materials, media kits, and online sites integrated in a complimentary and consistent manner was BlogHer 12. I will arrive in NYC on Aug 1, so I had been thinking that July 31st was the drop dead date. But then a few days ago, I realized that I needed to have everything ready a couple weeks earlier than that because of family events that are going to keep me busy 24/7 from mid-July on. So I realized I was going to have to amp up my production schedule if I was going to be ready to go in a month.
So, what did I do? Last week I decided I would attend a Meet Up of “Women Who Successfully Work for Themselves.” The June meeting was today and it was a member/attendee round robin in which every person who attended had a few minutes to present her business.
I thought I would have the weekend to prepare for today’s meeting. Wrong. The whole weekend revolved around politics for me. I had hair and nails appointments scheduled on Saturday during the day so I would be presentable for several upcoming events. Then Saturday night was the political fundraiser with Al Franken for Richard Carmona’s Senate campaign. And I wrote it up after the event.
I had not planned on writing another well developed political piece on Sunday, but things began clicking for me and I realized several connections I had been thinking about had ripened, so to speak, and if I didn’t pick the fruit at the right time, the ideas would rot. I spent most of the the day before yesterday writing about the flip between “states” that I believe to be in motion for later in the year when the back and forth pivot that happens in systems, in this case, the American political system, will actually happen. The conservative trajectory that has been in play for several decades seems to have stretched as far as it can, and over-reached a maintainable course, so that the snap back to a progressive trajectory seems to be in the works.
I spent Sunday threading the needle and finishing the seams between events, people, and places that defined some of the landmark elements in this political cycle that are intricately tied to the State of Arizona that seem to signal a sort of fin de siecle to a process that traces back to Barry Goldwater and probably beyond him.
Sometimes it is difficult to remember exactly what happened when, but when distinct events frame a moment of clarity, it is relatively easy to remember what happened when.
So even though everything kept pushing required business preparations back into the work week, yesterday I did major revisions to this blog’s appearance in order to have the load time decrease and be friendly to mobile devices. That left all my materials creation to be done this a.m. for a late a.m. meeting. But you know what. I designed two marketing brochures that I will also be able to use as web pages, then I designed my new business cards, and started laying out a postcard mailer, and created a label to use for QR codes and business card updates, and then I finally started my product list and designed my first sale flier.
I think I will remember these past few days as a glommed together whirl of activity.