| 24/05/2024 Intentional Direction |
| The Earthen Wurmin design is great for the blog but not the gardening business.However the two designs below are ideal for the Earthly Comforts business. |
| When I first started Earthly Comforts, I was involved in many other projects and passions, such as worm farming, composting, allotmenteering, blogging, and gardening. The most significant thing I was involved with was juggling, and the object I continually endeavoured to balance was Time. The latter is the one commodity l share with you all; we all share the same 24-hour time window to a given day. It matters not how l wiggle and jiggle and wangle and try to untangle it – there are still only 24 hours in one day. A friend suggested to me the other day that I had given up on all my different interests and even hinted that I had failed at them. I can’t deny that this angered me. But l moved on and countered that perhaps he needed to readdress the language he was using. I kept my cool and said, “We can’t get any more hours in any single day, no matter what we do. Trust me, I have tried to squeeze the proverbial blood out of that stone, but it doesn’t work. “The reality isn’t a failure; the actuality is working with new priorities in our hours. What is the most efficient way to occupy my Time? Even successful people have to work with the same 24 hours as l, or you do.” Did I have Time to work on ALL my passions and award them all the Time they needed to work? No. Decisions had to be made for success and forward progression to be achieved. If a new direction needed to be walked down, other paths had to be eliminated or lessened. If I wanted to work towards more freedom and control of my life, I had to review the Direction I was taking; it was that simple. Things had to be given up to ensure success. Intentional Direction became my new go to. I had to let unprofitable things go and ask myself what was absolutely necessary to keep. The answers were straightforward—income earning or entertainment successes. Identifying the main things in my life gave me the gardening business, the allotment, and writing [blogging]. Two worm farms became a single farm, and they became self-sustaining. Hot Composting had to take a back seat, so l introduced another autonomous system that allowed me to not have to slave for hours and lose even more valuable Time and ironically saved my eyes from deterioration with the disorder l have which raw compost conflicts against. Even the allotment whilst being kept had to have concessions introduced to ease the Time issue up which was made by not attempting to grow seedlings from seeds but by purchasing everything in plug form. The blog is staying as a really bad weather project – [l tend to work during rain anyway but not heavy], but the writing and publishing has had to be reduced dramatically and for the moment l accepted l would have to create mostly journal styled content because l don’t have bucketloads of free Time on any given day and topical content is easier to create than evergreen which requires time to research. I did consider letting the blog go which is still a possibility. My day starts between 5 and 6 am, when I rise, and ends around 10 pm when I retire for the night and that is seven days a week, six with the business and all day Sunday with the allotment. At the end of each day and week, I am physically drained. I am also at the allotment for half five every morning; we both are, and my first gardening client starts between 7 and 7.30 am. It’s standard on sunny days to start before 7. The business is prioritised above everything else – but l had to introduce elements that would make the job easier if possible – any form of gardening is physically demanding work, and most nights, I go to bed shattered and wake up the following day marginally refreshed ready to press the wash, rinse, and repeat button. “I don’t view these backseat movements as failures but as intentional refocusing on critical issues. I have chosen to reprioritise my life for the next few years. I have deliberately let go of things to work towards the greater goal.” I have realised that when you take responsibility for your actions and purposefully remove things from your life, the guilt of no longer having the Time to work with them disappears. You accept that it’s not a case of you being unable to fit everything into one day but more along the lines of who could fit everything into that one 24-hour day. We can’t do it all, no matter how often we try to convince ourselves that we can. My highest priorities are to take the front driver and passenger seats, which is to ensure that 1] Earthly Comforts becomes a successful gardening business that will employ people from next year, 2] working on Plot 17 and ensuring that Suze and I can reap the fruits of our labour and love for the table, and finally, 3] still being able to enjoy writing and blogging. Everything else has been allocated to the back – although blogging is currently positioned behind the front seats! The new language isn’t using the term failure but introducing newer words, notably Reprioritising and Intentional Direction. With that in mind, l realised early this year that the ‘logo’ l used for Earthly Comforts’s gardening business must be corrected. It was fine for the Earthly Comforts blog but not for the company. A few months back, Monty of Monty’s Blahg and I briefly discussed redesigning the gardening business’s existing logo. That conversation reshaped into a new one this month, and between Monty, and myself and Suze—we came up with the new logos for the Town Gardening Business. The Earthen Wurmin logo will stay with the blog, but the new Flower Outline design will become the symbol for all my merchandise and printed literature. But Earthly Comforts—Town Gardeners, as a business, needed more clarity and a more straightforward approach to visuality, and the Earthen Wurmin design wasn’t suitable for the primary logo – but also the worm design displayed elements that l no longer worked with. It was right for the business’s launch, but I realised I needed something more impactful, practical and meaningful as the company expanded. I wanted the logo’s colours to remain burgundy, green, and orange like the blog. However, I needed an image or images that reflected more of an actual gardening bent, and that would look good on business cards and workwear. Monty created the two designs. The flower is the lead design, while the bee is mostly a secondary design. Both will appear in the new printed literature, such as the loyalty and business cards and the marketing leaflet, as well as on the workwear polo shirts and so on that will be purchased in the next few months, and in support of the Garden Moments series here in the blog. I am thrilled with the two new designs – they are more straightforward in style yet still impactful. So cheers, Monty, thank you. |
Earthly Comforts 
I appreciate the opportunity to create together and be part of your evolving vision. Thanks for the opportunity!
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Many thanks also Monty, when the logos are on the merch and the promotional marketing l’ll write another post and link you to it 🙂
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I love the logos. The first one has earthy vibes and the bee represents nature. I agree and feel they are more straightforward and a clear representation of your business.
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Thanks Eugenia 🙂 Yes they are earthy, clear and direct and especially unconvoluted making it ideal for merch and literature 🙂
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You’re welcome, Rory.
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I like them both. And they carry the same theme as your blog logo.
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Thanks Sadje 🙂
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You’re most welcome
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Some jugglers who do not give up things never experience the sampling of a fuller life. Getting bored with sameness is the bigger failure!
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“Getting bored with sameness is the bigger failure!” is a bit of a mind boggler … 🙂
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Bravo JB! Priorities are important! I’ve moved “self care” higher on my priorities list.
And you’re absolutely correct about not failing. We’re all navigating our circumstances in the best way for us. It may look different to others, but that’s their perception. As long as you are content, that’s all that matters.
💌💌
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Precisely Grandma, contentment is paramount to happiness 🙂
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