Besides designing my jewelry collection, I’m working on a social media maintenance plan, kicking my marketing into gear and learning photography. Each one has its own learning curve. But so far, the photography has been the toughest. I’m always in mental overdrive.

This past weekend, I spent time reading fiction, something I used to do before I started my job-juggling-self-propelled-re-invention. I read The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. Integrated into the story were a few lines about the philosophy of the Swiss sculptor and painter, Alberto Giacometti. I found it to be some of the best advice yet for anyone undertaking a project.

“…sometimes just to paint a head you have to give up the whole figure. To paint a leaf you have to sacrifice the whole landscape. It might seem like you’re limiting yourself at first, but after a while you realize that having a quarter–of-an-inch of something you have a better chance of holding on to a certain feeling of the universe than if you pretended to be doing the whole sky.”

There’s a clue here that says you’ll make more progress if you don’t allow the essence of the project to get compromised by collateral stuff. For me this resonated like a bass drum. I made a list for myself on how to use this information, which I’ll share with you tomorrow. I call it my 8 Things to Remember BEFORE Biting Off More Than I Will be Able to Chew.