Hey Rebooters! Is it too late to say Happy New Year?! It’s only three weeks into February, after all… Welcome back to Creative Reboot! We’re Carla Watkins and Sarah Wayte, and there have been some lessons learned from last year’s podcasting 😂
This is Creative Reboot’s third year. THIRD! Where did all that time go?! And when we looked back at 2021, we realised that three full seasons in a year is wonderful, but waaaaaay too much on top of our actual businesses. We’re very proud, but definitely need to scale back a bit – because as much as we love this podcast, it’s not our full time thing – and 30+ episodes in a year is an insane amount of work.
What we learned from 2021
We had a conversation just before Christmas where we were both worrying about what the other one was thinking, then it turned out we’re on the same page. Which is good!
We discovered that we both really love our podcast (phew!) and that we have incredibly different working styles.
Along those lines, there have also been some really interesting conversations and situations that we’ve been able to learn from, in terms of our working styles and deadlines, the way our brains operate, and what we need from each other in order to get stuff done without too much stress.
People in general, and in our experience especially anyone who is self employed, are feeling the impacts of the pandemic still. There’s a feeling of uncertainty and scarcity, and everyone is sort of grappling with what to do next – what has changed, what work is still out there, how do we get back to a normal kind of working routine when everything could still change at a moment’s notice?
And those of us in the UK will have either done our tax returns, paid our tax bill, or both in the last couple of months, which was the 2020-21 year with the five and a half month lockdown in it – so our finances are front and centre of our minds, too.
Languishing is the word that keeps coming back to mind, perfectly articulated in this article as “a sense of stagnation and emptiness”.
Our own plans for 2022
It was surprisingly hard to get into planning mode at the end of 2021, a feeling echoed by lots of other creatives we know. Maybe we were all just exhausted?
Carla’s words of the year are expression, magic and flow, and 2022 will hold a focus on personal work, her first exhibition, and having more boundaries and structure around her work and joint venture work, while trying to keep a lid on the physical chaos. And talking a bit more about personal stuff is a sort-of goal for the year.
Sarah has a word and supporting words for the first time, and has chosen possibility as her main word. She’s looking to branch out into different things with her business, not all one to one services, and making it possible to pick up her laptop and take her work with her on her travels if she wants too (eeee!).
Our REALLY EXCITING NEWS
Spoiler: we’re not eloping! But Sarah is coming to the UK! And staying with Carla for a little over three weeks in March – squeeeeeeee!
We’re off to a writing retreat together, with seven other amazing female writers, and we’re going to loll about in the pool, eat fish and chips on the seafront, and oh yes, actually do some writing.
And then when we get home we’re going to be able to do some work together here and at Carla’s studio, record podcasts together in actual real life, and swap brand shoots – it’s going to be mad but wonderful!
Podcast plans for 2022
So, this year we’ve decided to change things up a bit. Rather than making ourselves cry with a silly number of seasons, Season 5 will stretch through most of the year. It’ll be twelve fortnightly episodes, kicking off on May 17th. The episode you’re currently listening to is our overall intro, and we’ll also have an overall outro/reflect/review episode around December time.
We will be recording one episode from the writing retreat, a panel with the other writers and it’s going to be a bit chaotic and a lot fabulous! We also have some brilliant guests lined up, and this hopefully all means that we’ll be able to structure our releases a bit better, for the benefit of you lovely listeners, our wonderful guests, and last but not least, our own sanity!
Over to you
Really, we just wanted to let you know we’re still about, and our plans for this year, with this episode, so if you’re subscribed you didn’t think we’d fallen off the face of the planet.
If you’d like to join us, or if you think you’d like to but you’re a bit nervous, we’re making lists for season six and panel editions, and now would be an excellent time to get in touch, as you will have the best part of a year before you need to worry about it. (you don’t need to worry about it, though – we are very friendly and we’re told guesting on Creative Reboot is a really fun experience!)
And if there’s anything you’d like us to cover, discuss or generally talk about, give us a shout and let us know!