Scaling back (again, but better this time)

Last month I said six kits felt like a better pace.

It turns out… even that was too ambitious.

Trying to make 6–10 listings in a single session started to make me avoid working on the shop altogether. My days were stretching from morning to night, and somewhere in there I lost any real “off” time.

So I’ve adjusted things again.

Lately it’s felt like there are too many different avenues, and none of them feel more important than the others.

I’ll start one thing, then feel like I should switch to something else because what I chose isn’t more important—and then maybe switch again. By the end of it, nothing has actually moved forward.

Even sitting down to work has been harder than it should be. I’ll spend twenty minutes just figuring out where everything is, trying to decide what I can do, then what I should do—and by the time I get there, it already feels like too much.

I think part of it is that I’ve been holding myself to an old level of capacity. There was a time when getting ten pieces done in a session felt reasonable. But right now, if I only have the capacity for three and I’m still expecting ten, I end up doing nothing at all—just sitting there, staring at the screen.

So instead of fighting that, I’m adjusting.

I did make progress—two full kits finished, and several more close—but I’ve been stalled on uploading them because I don’t love how I’d have to deliver them. Rather than forcing a solution, I’m putting kits on the back burner for now and letting that problem sit.

In the meantime, I’ve given myself permission to finish the individual components and share those instead.

Today that meant finishing a couple of folios—and even stumbling into some new journal paper designs along the way.

Small things, but finished things.

I think there are seasons for doing a lot, and seasons for doing just enough to move one thing forward.

Right now, I’m in the second kind.

And I’m learning to let that be enough.

—Persephone Grace