Opportunity minus 4 days! As anticipated, I have been plugging away at the tasks I need to get ready for this “epic” opportunity I have next week. OK – epic might be overstating it. But it’s epic enough that I need to organize my chaotic thoughts about all of the work.  One of the few things I miss about working in Cubeville (aside from all of my BFFAW’s and the SpecialK bars from the cafeteria every Wednesday) is I could ALWAYS find a whiteboard that I could use to empty my brain of disorganized thoughts.  I invested in a 4ft X 3ft whiteboard from a cool used office furniture store in Northeast Minneapolis, but I can’t really justify the investment in more! Not to mention – eventually you need to erase a whiteboard for it to be really serviceable. The idea of all those thoughts now smeared on that nasty dry marker eraser makes me sad. Yes, I took pics of them with my cellphone, but it was never the same as being able to have them stare back at me – demanding my attention morning, noon and night! Once these moments of brilliance hit my photo stream, it’s like they were dead to me. So I knew I had to find a non-permanent, low cost way of capturing the ideas, then making sure they recaptured my attention.

Earlier this week, I happened to spot these GIANT Post-it notes at Target, and grabbed some on impulse. Since then, I’ve used them to literally line my home office walls with ideas, sketches, flow charts, brainstorming lists, to do lists.  I guess I’m a visual learner and thinker; I respond to the stimulation of the written word. Maybe because I was an avid reader as a child?  I knew this accelerated timing would require a new way of satisfying this need – and I’m thankful for 3M and their designers for accommodating me!

So, aside from my wallpapering the office with these beauties, I’ve also spent quite a bit of time putting together a website for this new venture (you can see the wireframe up on the wall). I would say “DESIGN” but it’s clear after this exercise that in fact, I am NO Designer! I’ll chalk that up to needing overly developed powerpoint slide deck building skills  and how it must have stunted my creativity. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve never had training of any kind for visual or graphic design.  But here’s the reality – I need a website by Tuesday.  I need it because I’ll be handing out business cards at the meeting – and what kind of a business card doesn’t have a website on it these days? Only those that were printed before 1994!

So – I rolled up my sleeves, put together a wireframe and found as much free (and high quality) photostock as I could that was relevant to the venture and started writing. And writing. And editing. And editing more.  And I finally pushed the “publish” button yesterday. And I’ve already made about 20 changes since then. So – rather than give up on the opportunity, I’m going to take the same advice I give to people all the time- don’t let perfect get in the way of excellence. And don’t let excellent get in the way of good.  I’ve promoted this idea as a way of combatting fear of starting – Doing something is always better than doing nothing!

As of right now – I think I can get close to halfway between good and excellent by the time that first business card hits the pocket of one of my future clients on Tuesday.  I’ll keep plugging away at it over the weekend and get some hard feedback when my trusted advisor (husband) and by the time I meet with people on Tuesday – It’ll be pretty darn good!

It’s time for me to get back on task and keep marking things off on my list. Next up is working on my “pitch” I wonder how many Big yellow post-it’s I’ll use for that process? I’m guessing at least three – Or maybe I should just erase my whiteboard and start with that. Oh my – isn’t that living dangerously?!