On taking December completely off

featuring stress balls

⚠️ TW: pregnancy/loss a very long time ago. Nothing new though, please don’t panic.

This December just gone (happy new year, by the way!) is the 3rd time I’ve tried to take December off.

But this year, I really meant it. And I ACTUALLY DID IT. Wahoooo!

2024 was a year of really exciting stuff. I worked and played with my pals at The Good Ship Illustration (we went to Bologna, released a new business course for illustrators and started podcasting weekly), I scaled Illustrated Live all the way up to 24 illustrators and 3 salaried employees + a VA, worked with lots of new illustrators and exciting clients, and finally ticked Adobe off my dream client list. 🥳

*Dream Client List: In 2019, I made a list of all of the companies I could possibly think of that I’d like to work with. Adobe had been in touch a handful of times over the years, but in 2024, two different Adobe contacts booked me for two separate jobs in the same week in September!? WEIRD. COOL.
We make hit lists like this in The Business Course and our Find Your Creative Voice: Fly Your Freak Flag course. When you write this stuff down, it is magic.

2024 is also the year that I dreamt I could fly if I just held onto a loaf of sourdough. Excellent dream. 10/10.

Anyways.

2024 was also the year that a bowl of stress balls nearly sent me over the edge.

I was live illustrating at a meeting for a company that shall remain anonymous.

On the big boardroom table, a plastic bowlful of stress balls winked at me. On closer inspection, I noticed they’d been branded with the company logo.

My eye did a little twitch. I zoomed out and imagined all of these little foam balls in the world. In the bin. In a thousand junk drawers. A sea of foamy stress balls. Completely pointless. Just…floating around yelling the company logo.

I tuned back into the room.

There was a fervent debate on the best way to get Gen Z to use more of their definitely-not-a-Gen-Z product. More, more, more!

And at that very moment, something invisible and definitely irreversible in my brain went ✨PING✨.

I’M DONE. WE’RE DONE. COME ON, BRAIN.

Pack ya bags. Let’s get out of here.

I was able to keep my ‘this is lovely, I love this!’ face on until the end of the event.

But as soon as I was around the corner, I plonked myself down on a bench and stared for a bit, hugging my yellow backpack.

Rain dripped down my face.

Now and then my brain zooms out and reminds me that this is all absolutely pointless. We’re all going to die. I promise I’m not depressed. I’m really not! I found a brilliant word to describe my attitude;

Optimistic Nihilism

“Optimistic nihilism is the ability of a person to create his own meaning after fully accepting that the universe is a large place of meaninglessness.”

Source: here

I first grasped this concept after one of the objectively worst times in my life™️.

**Wibbly wobbly dream sequence**

It was 2012. I was catapulted out of university into a recession, and I’d just been fired from my first graphic design job after telling my employer I was unexpectedly pregnant.

Then, after my first ultrasound scan, I was shuffled into a fluorescently lit room and the Doctor peered over a sad little box of tissues to say, ‘Your baby is 100% incompatible with life. We’ll book you in for a termination next week. See you on Monday’.

At that moment, I was completely numb, but in the months following, I gradually came back to life and I was not the same anymore.

We’re all going to die... Wait, you’re right.

We ARE all going to die!

PHEW! WHAT A RELIEF. Everything’s just made up. Thank goodness.

There it is, our good ol’ friend optimistic nihilism.

2012 had slapped me wide awake.

I realised I’d been faffing about, scared for no reason. But now there was an optimistic sliver of ‘Nothing’s real. This is all made up anyway. Might as well just get stuck in.’ I got my old job back at Lush selling bath bombs and took a desk in a shared studio. Then, once I’d stopped crying as much, I moved to Italy to work as a nanny.

**End wibbly wobbly dream sequence**

Those stress balls were a nice big sign that I needed to change something or else. So I made the decision to:

• Go back to scribing 100% online at events again from January 2025 🥳 (more time at home, less travel)

• Streamline the Illustrated Live team

• Do more of the work I really really love (Good Ship, podcasting, writing, making videos, drawing, maybe finally trying out more mural painting WHO KNOWZ?)

• Take as much time off as I could manage

How I took an entire month off work.

I blocked it out in my calendar a couple of months in advance.

Then, I told clients and updated my call availability - nice an’ easy. Once the first week of December hit, I set up my email autoresponder and felt that sweet, sweet, empty-calendar goodness. Mmmm.

Here’s what it said:

Hello,

Thanks for your email! I'm now off for the rest of December and won't be checking my inbox until the 7th of January 2025.

If your message is urgent and absolutely cannot wait until January, please email the team at SECRETURGENTEMAILADDRESS, and they will do their best to help.

Have a lovely winter break and see you in the New Year!

🎄🎄🎄

x Katie

**hyperventilating**

Did I lose work/money? Yesss.

Did it feel a bit clunky and awkward? Yes.

Did I immediately think, ‘shiiiiiiit, what do I do with all this spare time!?’ 100% yes.

Did I piss off some clients? Probably, yes.

Did enquiries still come in? Also yes.

Did clients still book live illustration at events in the new year? Yes! They did!

Did I finally feel human again and stop thinking, “When I die, it’ll be nice - don’t have to reply to emails when you’re dead!”

Also yes.

Setting the boundary of ‘i’m oot til January, byeeee’ was easy. The hardest bit has been sticking to my own boundary 😆 I have basically been sitting on my hands to avoid replying to emails.

I set myself a rule: If they didn’t use the ‘urgent’ email address? It could wait.

What I’ll Change Next Time I Take a Month Off

• More prior warning for clients - I’ll probably put it in my email signature from like 6 weeks before the time off happens.

• More team hours so that clients still get a nice prompt response… just not from me. (No need for that ‘urgent’ email address!)

• Overall just more prior planning. One of my goals for 2025 is to take August and December off from my live illustration business AND to fire myself from emails. I’m so bad at them. I dislike them so hard. I have no business being in there 😆

Planning Illustration Goals for 2025

If you’re anything like me, it’s kind of impossible to do any New Year planning stuff until everyone’s back to work. Yes, I’m “off”, but really, I’m a full-time bringer of snacks and a player of games. E got a doctor kit for Christmas, so there’s a lot of ‘you’re not well, Mummy. Lie down. Say AAAAH.’ going on, and not a lot of goal-setting ‘til she’s back at nursery. And that first week will be spent replying to a month of emails 🙃.

So, on the 16th of January at The Good Ship Illustration, we’re hosting a 2025 Planning Party!

It’s at 1:30 pm UK time on 16th January 2025.

It’ll be on Zoom, so you need to make sure you’re signed up to the planning party so we can send you the link. Here’s the place to sign up!

We always do a bit of visual goal setting and intention setting an’ that, and it’s very low pressure (but effective) for kicking the illustration year off nicely.

Be lovely to see you there!

x Katie