Courtney Eliseo (@designworklife) is a Connecticut-based graphic designer, and founder of the popular design blog Design Work Life.
This conversation focuses on how to stay organized as a solo designer, the workflow of writing blog posts, and the balance of running a content business while staying relevant as a practitioner.
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Show Notes & Links
- Seamless Creative, Courtney and her husband’s design practice
- Graphicology
- Design Work Life on Pinterest
- Courtney on Skillshare
- perez-fox.com, Prescott’s design blog (2006–2014)
- Prescott went to grad school
- RSS, for reading blogs
- The “brass ring” is clientless work
- Courtney lives by her to-do list
- Design Work Life is a show-and-tell blog. No problem with that.
- Both Courtney and Prescott use Harvest for time-tracking
- Omnifocus for to-do lists. Good because it’s based on GTD
- Courtney’s husband is a web developer
- Past Busy Creator guest Armin Vit is half of a husband-wife team
- Prescott’s grandparents are a husband-wife team, married for 70 years.
- Paul Graham, from Y Combinator wrote about Maker’s Time vs. Manager’s Time
- Customizing Apps in Podio
- Work.com and Do.com, both by SalesForce
- Asana, a checklist turned project management app
- Software as a Service
- AJAX
- Jackson and Graham, contributors to Design Work Life
- Courtney wants to experiment with a virtual assistant
- Courtney is up at 6:00; at work by 7:30
- Businessology, with Jason Blumer & Dan Mall
Tools
- Skillshare
- Harvest
- Omnifocus
- Teux Deux
- Podio
- ScheduleOnce
- Google Calendar
- Asana
- Zirtual
- Press This, WordPress bookmarklet
- Photoshop, and Photoshop Actions
- Rescue Time
- Mailplane
Techniques
- Dedicate one day to separate aspects of the business (client work, blog, finances, etc.)
- When designing a brand identity, think of digital from day one
- Use the to-do list over the calendar
- Build workflows and automation for recurring tasks, such as resizing images for your blog
- Listen to podcasts while you work
Habits
- Stick to a plan
- Meet with your boss every other week, review time
- Generate a time report in Harvest
- Create a “Dollar Jar” at work. Give $1 every time you email about a project instead of post on Basecamp (or your tool of choice)
- Wake up early. (oatmeal optional)
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