When I asked Karen about how she finds balance between
work and home she laughed saying, “Hah! Balance? That’s
something I struggle with every day. There are always so
many competing demands for my time, as with so many
of us these days. Have I mentioned that I’m a list maker? That helps to keep me sane. But I’m also an opportunist, willing to take advantage of a sudden sunny day after
a week of rain.” But she said, “I try not to be too hard on
myself when I can’t keep everything up quite as well as I’d
like all of the time. So my blog may languish for a week
or two when I’m in the middle of a project. Or the dishes
might stack up in the sink a little more than I’d like. I try to
keep my eye on the things that matter most and even if I
can’t tackle them right at this moment, make sure to circle
back to them as quickly as possible.”
Karen W
So when I asked Karen what keeps her motivated? She
said, Curiosity plays a huge part. I find myself asking ‘what
if’, and then I have to go and figure it out. Stubbornness as well, especially with the larger projects, such as
my books. It can be hard to stay focused when I’ve been
working on the same project for months.” She also said
that goals help, “I have a calendar filled with goal posts
from now through the end of the year and if I don’t want
to fall too far behind, so it helps me stay motivated.”
Other things that she says help is to “change things up on
a regular basis. I alternate between working on the book
itself and creating new samples to go into the book, rather
than completing all of my examples then starting to write.
Even the writing itself takes many forms. There’s the actual writing of instructions, but also lots of time spent creating diagrams, editing photographs, and then carefully
massaging all of these elements into please page layouts
and designing the actual book.”
Karen also encourages people to find time to play with
a new medium or techni