From the Desk of Nettio Designs Issue No. 7 

Welcome to From the Desk of Nettio Designs Issue No. 7. Ooo, lucky number 7! So glad to be back chatting with you again!

This past week I started reading The Art of Growth by Tara Gentile. If you don’t know Tara, she’s one kickass lady currently trailblazing a path for entrepreneurs to the New Economy. I’ve been following Tara’s work for quite awhile now and what I love about her is she makes me think and she has a knack for saying exactly what you need to hear at precisely the right moment.

While The Art of Growth is primarily a business-related book focusing on how to grow your business in an impactful way, while I was reading it I couldn’t help but draw parallels to how I look at growth as a scrapbooker.

In The Art of Growth, Tara talks about how growth is about maturity. How it’s like raising a child: in the beginning you have to tend to their every need and then slowly as they mature and grow older, they require less of your hands-on care.

The scrapbooking process follows this same path. When you’re a newbie scrapbooker every decision requires your energy and attention, but as you become more comfortable with your skills and style, you’re able to naturally do things that we at one time difficult, freeing up your time and energy for more meaningful storytelling and creativity.

As Tara puts it: at it’s core, growth is about identifying ways to maximize your impact while minimizing your efforts.

Wow. Let me say that again.

Maximize your impact. Minimize your effort.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen the goal of growth stated so simply before but when I talk about the importance growth as part of creatively capturing your life adventures, this is exactly what I’m talking about.

We want to maximize the impact our storytelling, photos, design, even maximize the impact our adventures and memories have on our life, while minimizing the amount of time and energy it requires to do these things.It’s all about getting the most bang for your buck.

This is exactly why Project Life has become so popular as a memory keeping system. Because it maximizes the impact of everyday storytelling as part of a simple and streamlined system.

But what if you don’t want to jump on the Project Life bandwagon? What if you want to keep doing what you do while still  maximizing the impact of your scrapbooking and minimizing your efforts? Are there other ways we can do this?

Here’s a few ideas I came up with:

1) Streamline your systems

How much time do you waste looking for photos, finding supplies and coming up with layout ideas? Why not instead use systems to your advantage?

Organize your supplies and photos in a way that not only makes them easy to find but inspires you in the process. Create a content capture system for all your storytelling layouts and ideas that pop into your head at random moments. That way when you have the inclination to get your scrapbook on, you’ll already be one step ahead.

2) Focus on what you love

We all have part of the creative process we love and parts we love not quite as much. So why not minimize the amount of effort you spend on those less fun tasks?

If you don’t love editing photos, embrace actions. If page design isn’t your thang, grab a template!

The less energy you expend on the parts of the process that don’t make you want to dance for joy, the more time and energy you’ll have to focus on the parts you love most.

3) Find your own style

In the scrap world, style tends to be seen as this elusive abstract concept. But in reality, all style really means is having the confidence to repeatedly do something in a certain way.

Understanding your own style takes the guess-work out of scrapbooking. It allows you to make more impactful layouts and designs because you know what you love and you know the steps to take to get the result you want.

Less uncertainty=more stories captured with less effort.

4) Dig deeper

Get to the heart of why you scrapbook and focus your time and energy on the stories that are most meaningful to you. Imagine yourself 10, 15, 20 years from now – what stories/moments/adventures do you want to have captured?

Start with those.

Now It’s Your Turn

I’m sure I’ll be revisiting this idea of maximizing your scrapbooking impact while minimizing your effort more but for now, I want to hear from you:

What’s one way you can think of to maximize the impact of your scrapbooking while minimizing your effort? 

I’d love to hear your thoughts so feel free to share in the comments below.

That’s it from me this week! I’ll be back next week with Issue No. 8 of From the Desk of Nettio Designs. See you then!

A little note: I did receive my copy of The Art of Growth for free as part of my KickStart Labs membership (which I paid for) but I wasn’t perked in any way to mention it, so just consider me a happy fan sharing some insight from a wise woman. None of the links above are affiliate links.

This post is Issue No. 7 of my From The Desk of Nettio Designs weekly email series. Want to get in on the action? Sign up for Nettio Designs emails here. 

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