I know a guy and his name (kinda) rhymes with caution. He stares at you with those dark, empty, eyes. He doesn't play nice. He doesn't believe in being fair. He just stands there, waiting for you to make the first move.
I'm talking about Options.
Options are one of our greatest hindrances to start anything new. Yet we are constantly faced with them from the moment we wake up. What brand of milk do we buy? What color socks do we wear? What new album should we stream? I could go on but you get the point.
More specifically though, I want to talk about options as it relates to getting work done. One question that I commonly hear is what (insert your tool of choice) do you use? Could be what brand of pencil/pen, what kind of sketchbook, or how did you make the jump from full-time to freelance? All are good questions, but all can trap us in the quicksand of options. The more we ask, and move about, the further stuck we become on not making a decision — thereby not moving forward with our ideas.
Our ideas are always more important than the tools we use.
So my response is this — use what works best for you, around you. Meaning, you don't need to go out and buy the latest and greatest just to get started. If you wanna draw, it's as easy as printer paper and a #2 pencil. If you wanna take photos, well there's a good chance you have a camera on your phone. And if you want to change your job situation then you're gonna need to make a ton of extra time to start doing that thing (whatever it is) when you would normally be doing whatever it is you like to do to veg out.
All this to say, starting simply is the best place to start.