One of the most important lessons I’ve learned being a stay at home, work from home father starting my own business is to find balance in my work. By this I mean finding time for both my work for others and for my personal projects. Work for others grows business worth, personal projects grows self worth. It is a welcome break. A chance to work in your own world. A vacation. Above all else, self worth directly grows business worth.

I have found as I work on my personal projects, my inspiration and excitement towards my business work grows. Even if it is just 15 minutes a day, I set time aside for myself. It is a means for me to unwind and relax my creativity. It is a reminder of who I am and why I love design and love my job. I set goals for myself and always keep plenty of ideas in my head for the future. It keeps me fresh and ready to tackle any project.

This week has been my busiest yet. I have begun work with a company designing CMS websites. I have spent a vast amount of time training with the technology and I’m excited about its possibilities. I have decided to migrate my Duck of All Trades site over to a CMS system. I hope to have this done in the upcoming weeks. In addition, it will most likely be combined with this blog. The combined site will be put on www.duckofalltrades.com and this site as a mirror site. Nothing will change with my blog and you can still read it here, but it will be more of an integral part of Duck of All Trades. This should be a great example of personal work influencing business.

I will keep you up to date and share my experiences with the new websites I will be producing. In addition, this week should see the finishing of Stromple the puppet. He now has skin! Just not on his body. I will have a big update for him tomorrow and he should be done by the end of the week for an unveiling on Monday. Wednesday I should have a Moo-Pig update for you and Thursday Purple Fish will stop by. Of course Friday’s are always fun and exciting.