paulalynnmathias-blog

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[paulalynnmathias-blog]

Inspirational Post

Days after (finally) getting one mess of a job back on track, another lands in my lap. I’m back to working through lunch, 12 hours days, and working Saturdays. I want so bad to just... get it done. Do whatever I need to do to get these huge jobs off my plate. I have 4 jobs at work now that would be considered “huge design jobs”. Three of them are messes the last designer made that I’m still cleaning up. Just when I thought I was past it, and could get my days and weekends back on track..but no. Its exhausting, and frustrating. Cutting corners seems like something that would be alright, because I just want to get to the other side. Trying to juggle work and school this time around may end up being too much. I don’t like that. I don’t like not having any downtime. I feel like a string pulled too tight.

I printed this quote out and added it to my wall in my office. I know I’ll have to repeat a job if I mess it up. Luckily, I haven’t had to cut corners to meet a deadline at work. I am yet to miss a deadline at work, actually. I was threatened with being fired twice last week, but I’m pretty sure that was just their frustration bubbling up, not necessarily anything my fault. Still, a good motivator I guess. 

I just remind myself, daily, that if I can’t take time to do it right this time, how will I make time to do it again and again?

Image: Unknown. (May 23, 2013).  https://interiors-designed.com/2013/05/23/kind-of-loving-this-thinking-it-may-be-good-to-post-in-our-homeschool-room/

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Inspirational Post

So this week, and last week, I’ve been getting a crash course in setting up and outputting files for two new printers. I’ve made mistakes every. single. day. I get down on myself for messing up so much. I have to remind myself I’m learning. My boss reminds me I’m learning. These quotes are actually printed out and hanging on my office wall.

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Personal Learning Network

New Papaly account. Added some things I’ve already been keeping bookmarked, and found some others to add.

New Feedly account. Found some interesting things to follow.

Had a LinkedIn. Updated a little bit.

Logo I’m currently using for myself. More stuff: paulalynndesigns.com

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Month 1 Mastery Update

My original objective for obtaining my master’s was to become a more rounded Graphic Designer. My recent experience with job hunting showed me that “graphic designer” has become kind of a catch-all term. A lot of the job listings I saw were graphic design/marketing, or graphic design/social media. I want the skills to do almost anything a potential client may ask. When I started this class, my knowledge of marketing was minimal. I took one class at a local college about 8 years ago as part of my Associates degree. Internet Marketing Fundamentals has given me a step toward my goals by giving me a foundation to build on.

Something else I had intended to try and improve over the course of my master’s was my time management skills. I can say now, that I have made no improvement on that during this class. I recently received more responsibility at work because they are trying to get me to a point where I can take over as lead designer (yay!). Unfortunately, this leads to not a whole lot of time during the week to complete schoolwork. I’ve missed discussion posts, or only completed my initial post with no replies. I’m so behind this week, it is looking like I won’t get to making reply posts this week either. It is currently 12:30pm on Sunday, and I have yet to start my research paper. Basically, my time management skills are still a disaster.

From the course content, I was able to build myself a foundation I can build on. Each week, I have taken the things I’ve learned and started to apply them to my new job. Week one, we wrote a marketing research paper, and I chose my employer as my company. One of the things I’ve been tasked with at work is our online presence and their email marketing. Week two, I was able to take what I learned about search engine marketing and keywords and apply it toward things my company could do to just be found. Week three, I used the competitor website analysis to make notes on how to improve our website. And week 4, I focused on email marketing and content for my discussion because those are the areas I think my company needs to improve on first. My goal with this is to show my employer why we need to change things, and how we need to change them. Currently, they are working to prepare me to take over as lead designer, but they have mentioned that when I finish with this degree, there is the potential for me to create and lead a marketing department and for marketing to be something new we can offer our customers.

One thing that I can’t forget through all of this though, no matter how much I learn, or how good or bad I am at it, I am not getting this degree to replace my Graphic Design degree.

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Inspirational Post

I’ll be honest, I don’t know where either of these came from, or if the second is actually a Japanese proverb, they have just been on my Pinterest board for a while and always manage to pick me up. The combination of these two is my inspiration. Failure is an opportunity to learn, not something to be feared. If you don’t try you’ll never succeed. There are a lot of different types of quotes saying similar things. 

I try and keep a mentality of: “The worst they can say is no.” or “The worst that’ll happen is I’ll have to try again.”

For more that inspires me, go here:

https://www.pinterest.com/paulalynnx/life-lessons/

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Intention Statement

My intention for my mastery journey is to help me become a more rounded Graphic Designer. I’m pursuing my Masters in Internet Marketing because I feel it will be a great compliment to my Graphic Design Bachelor's Degree. I want to be able to take a client from start to finish in regards to their marketing and advertising. 

I would like to be able to look at how a company markets itself, understand where they are going wrong, and create a new idea to fill any holes in their current plan. I hope to be able to say, “hey, this ad is a waste of money, I’ve sketched out this and it’ll increase your business by this amount”. I’ll also be able to more effectively market myself and get myself off the ground for freelancing. I have not yet decided if entrepreneurship is right for me, but it is always worth it to keep that option open. The way I see it, on the path to working for myself, I may find a really nice job that I love and it will all work out, or I’ll end up working for myself, and it still all worked out.

I hope to learn how to understand SEO and analytics, how to utilize social media correctly, and other things I don’t know I want to learn yet. I am at a bit of a disadvantage in comparison to other students because I did not complete my Bachelor’s degree in Internet Marketing. I will be starting this journey with a Graphic Design background. My current knowledge of marketing is very limited. Something I will have to learn, that is not really “included”, is time management.

I think I will have no other choice but to learn how to more effectively manage my time.

Break it all down though, I just hope to learn new skills that will help me along in becoming a better designer, marketer, person, employee, boss, businesswoman, or all of these, who knows.