OCTOBER 2020 UPDATE: A funny thing happened this month when someone reached out to see if I sold pencils! HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED.

July 2020 Update: The Year of the Pencil is still going strong! Thank you to the BLACKWING PENCIL COMPANY for sending me a box of beautiful (truly, they are — see my Instagram pic) pencils and a legit sharpener.

(Post originally published January 21, 2020)

I’ve never been a pencil fan. My favorite writing tool since grade school has been a pen. Always blue. Never black. Unless that’s all I had around.

If you know me well, you probably know that: a) I recycle everything I can — it’s another thing that dates back to grade school; and b) I hate it when things go to waste. I blame this tendency on my frugal grandmother. She reused and sometimes re-gifted aluminum foil and resealable food bags. #truestory

Last month when I looked at my cluttered office desk and overflowing desk drawer, I counted more than a dozen pencils I never use. I thought about throwing them away but couldn’t. (See item “b”.) Some were half-used remnants from my son’s school backpack. (He’s in college now, and I have no idea what’s in his backpack. Probably a good thing.) Others I found in my mom’s apartment after she passed away in 2017. There’s no way I can easily let any of these stubs go.

The Year of the Pencil

Around Christmas, I made a vow to use up all the pencils I could get my hands on, once the new year started. If I found a pen in my hand, I vowed I would immediately put it down and grab a pencil instead.

This low-bar New Year’s resolution inspired me so much so that I began to think of 2020 as The Year of the Pencil. (The marketer in me never misses a moment to brand something.)

I went to CVS and bought a package of erasers because most of my pencil tops are rock-hard pink stubs. I guess they don’t like the dry heat here in Arizona.

I made sure I had a few pencil sharpeners at my disposal. I found three — not surprising since my son used them in grade school.

21 Days to Make Pencils a Habit

I’m 21 days into The Year of the Pencil now, and you know what they say about how much time it takes to form a habit. My pencil pact is on point. (Pencil pun FTW.) I even took pencils with me on a recent trip to Savannah, carefully packing them so they wouldn’t break en route. And, yes, I took a sharpener, too.

Since New Year’s day, I’ve pondered the pros of pencils. I searched for a deeper meaning to my pencil pursuits— something more profound than just using stuff up — and think I found it.

Quickly Erase Fears and Mistakes

True confession time: I’m a marketer who sometimes neglects her own marketing. It’s fueled by the fear I’ll make a mistake that someone will see and judge. (“How could she do that? She writes for a living!”)

This quest for perfection causes me to not complete some of my own marketing efforts. (I’d never do that to a client’s marketing. Just ask them.) I start blog posts I don’t finish for weeks. I stress out over my own email marketing. I get behind on direct mail I planned to send prospects.

In The Year of the Pencil, I won’t worry so much about pencil-perfect marketing. I’ll use my No. 2 to quickly edit a thought or note I write in my day-planner. This should be refreshing because I’d rather rip out a daily sheet instead of looking at a mistake I crossed out with a (blue) pen.

In 2020, I’ll work harder and smarter to get things out the door more quickly, both online and offline. I’ll still keep a focus on things being accurate and complete, but Just ship it will be my motto.

I’ll hire a proofreader more regularly to check my most critical work since typo terror is one of my fears. I know two great and reasonably priced proofers — so there’s no excuse.

Sharpen What’s Dull

Using a pencil for so many days now, I’m reminded they get dull quickly. Now I keep a sharpener by my side wherever I am, even when I head out to work at a coffee shop or do a networking meeting.

In The Year of the Pencil, I’ll stay sharp and look for signs of impending burnout so I’m at my best for both my clients and me. I’ll make more time to read marketing and social media articles and stay tuned in to podcasts to keep myself current on best practices and new approaches to things I might be doing on auto-pilot.

I’ll do even more Phoenix-metro coffee meet-ups than I did last year to grow and strengthen my network. I’ll continue to surround myself with smart, interesting people who keep my personal and work life interesting and never dull. (Iron sharpens iron. Probably pencils, too.)

Use What’s at My Disposal

Living in The Year of the Pencil also means I won’t spend extra money on tools or software I don’t need. I already have much at my disposal. A plethora of pencils. Too many social media scheduling tool accounts. Software I pay for each month and don’t use.

If I tap into my existing resources and don’t spend mindlessly, at the end of 2020 my small business will be more profitable. This will give me more money to save for retirement and more funds for another trip (or two) I hope to take before year-end.

Try Harder, but Still be OK Being No. 2

(Sorry. Had to work that No. 2 pun in somewhere.)

I’m at a point in my life and career where I don’t feel the need to prove myself as much as I did when I was younger. I’m still competitive, with drive and creativity to spare. But in The Year of the Pencil, I will grow even more content knowing my business is a party of one. It’s just me working for my clients with maybe an occasional contractor to help out on a special project.

During my first stint at self-employment in the early ’90s, the idea of growing my marketing consulting business was often on my mind. I thought about how exciting it’d be to own a small agency employing several people. I bought and devoured the book The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, meeting every couple weeks with other small business owners reading it, too.

The “grow bigger” idea still occasionally nags at me, but it’s time to put it to rest. I’d like to have more clients, for sure, but I don’t want an office or employees. I don’t want a more complicated life. (Mine’s pretty easy, thankfully.) I respect other small business owners who have growth as a goal, but I’m comfortable knowing it’s not for me.

PenCils Inspire creativity

In The Year of the Pencil, I won’t abandon my New Year’s resolutions and goals before St. Patrick’s Day, as if I’ve done in the past. (I do have other goals besides using up my pencil stash, BTW.)

My goals feel solid right now. More attainable. More meaningful. More creative. Maybe pencils have something to do with it; here’s what the prolific inventor James Dyson has to say about my new-favorite writing instrument:

I like that thought. I want to break free. Free from perfectionism when it hampers progress or creativity. Free from prospective clients that my gut says will wear me down. (This means I won’t bid on certain new business.)

I’ll break free from thinking I need to be so darn frugal and finally crack open the colored pencils I got at a conference last year. I won’t tell myself to save them for something special. Today’s special enough.

I find myself getting a little misty as I prepare to wrap up my thoughts. Thinking about pencils, the new year and creativity makes me miss my dear departeds, my grandma and mom. One was super-frugal, as you now know. The other encouraged my creativity from an early age — not just drawing (which I repeatedly told her I couldn’t do) — but also creative writing and thinking and making up limericks in the car,  laughing until we cried. (This is one of the best memories of time with my mom, and we continued the limerick tradition as we grew older.)

My mom’s encouragement is probably a big reason why I’ve been Melanie the Marketer almost my entire adult career. It’s my identity. My joy. It’s what I never ever get tired talking about.

I wish my mom was still around so I could thank her for leaving so many pencils in her desk drawer back in Missouri. They remind me of all I want to do in this new year and new decade and how much I wish she was still with us. She’d so looked forward to visiting the Deardorffs and experiencing our new and happy life in Arizona.

My mom never made it here, but her pencils are with me now (so is her dog) — and many fond memories of Melanie the Marketer’s Mom made the trip to Arizona, too.

Pencil Photo: Lachlan Via UNSPLASH