enJOY it

I am so excited to share more about the eleventh month of MAKE29 with you today.

It's shocking that we're already at month 11 of 12. But as this edition will tell you…big things happen one day at a time. And it's been 299 days since this MAKE29 launched.

When I set out on this project I (purposely) didn't think things through all the way. I didn't think about the fact that 12/22 is three days before Christmas and NOT a huge online shopping day. I didn't think about much, actually. (Including what a hassle unique coupon codes would be.)

So this past fall when it came time to get a plan in order, I was stumped. What do people need in late December? What do people want in late December? A nap for sure. But how will I ship it? 😉

And then I remembered the calendar I used in 2010 to track my workouts. It was a simple calendar with 365 boxes. Each day that you completed the activity you checked the box. It was HUGELY motivating. Not because I was able to see every day checked off, but because I was able to see the whole picture. This is what I had to say about it (in this post) after the year was over:

"I kept that paper chart (and it's spelling error) with me through three moves (remember, we spent two months in Sacramento before coming down to San Diego) and diligently maintained it. At the end of a week, I might have been bummed that I only got to the gym once, but by the end of 2010, I felt like I had really accomplished something. I could see how many days I had made an effort overall. Even better, I was inspired to do more in 2011."

I really believe that progress is better than perfection because progress is something we can strive for. Progress is motivating. Perfection is paralyzing. This calendar's goal is to encourage you to pick ONE THING for the year. Something you can attempt to do everyday. And then this calendar will help you track it and hopefully remind you that there is a much larger picture to see here.

My personal daily goal is to have dinner at the dining table as a family every night in 2015. It's SO MUCH EASIER to just feed Ellerie at the counter while we're prepping "adult" dinner and then for Paul and I to eat in front of the TV after she's gone to sleep. (It's fun too.) But I would rather we carve out that together time. I want to establish the habit now before Ellerie remembers anything different. I'll be hanging this calendar in our kitchen and checking off every day we make it work.

For fun, I wrote out a list of 100 ideas of things you could do daily. It was shockingly hard to come up with this list but they are all such simple things. (#35 is a nod to Ross, obviously. #pastepants)

So that's concept. Let's talk production.

My original plan was to print 2900 of these. Seriously. I wanted a ton because I wanted a ton of people to be able to try out this idea. And then I thought about the logistics. 2900 envelopes. 2900 mailing labels. 2900 packages being shipped out (and obviously, these would only be issues if I actually sold 2900 prints which was a gigantic issue in itself).

So I scaled back to an edition of 290 and decided to have them letterpress printed. And I also decided to offer a digital download of the same file in .PDF form for people who just wanted use the calendar but didn't want the letterpress and/or were international and didn't want to wait for shipping.

The letterpress prints are limited to 290 but the digital download is totally open.

To up the incentive for actually purchasing the physical product, I'm including a fun 3×3 sticker that has the same message AND I am including the downloadable file. (So you'll get a letterpress print & sticker in the mail and a digital print in your email inbox.)

The .PDF can be printed as many times as you wish (though please not re-sold or shared digitally on a blog or website). Maybe you have a friend who could use a jumpstart? Or a habit your kids want to try? Or something different you'd like to do daily at work? There you go. You've got a back-up copy.

The last part of this behind the scenes, is that my original 290 letterpress prints, in classic Elise fashion, had a typo. I left an "R" out of "progress" which would only be more appropriate if it had been left out of "perfect." I spent so much time making sure those dates and numbers were correct that I didn't pay enough attention to the text. #awful

The saving grace here is that I hadn't gone with the 2900 and didn't have to get 2900 reprints (there would have been many tears instead of face-palming if my mistake had been that costly). The new version is typo-free and ready for you to mess up with your sharpies, markers, pencils and ball-point pens.

WHEW. That's so many words about one simple product. I tend to get VERY WORDY at the end of the year. For a professional goal-setter, the year's end is the finish line and that makes me giddy. On January 1 we get to take a deep breath and start all over again. I hope you'll consider bringing a new habit to the starting line with you.

Letterpress calendars will be available for $8 and the downloadable file will be $4 here on 12/22 at 10am PST.

Progress > Perfection.