zTEST Post (all the code)

This paragraph houses a reader question that Shanna will answer with wisdom, humor, and truth.

5 Tasks to do this week if you dont 424x600 5 Tasks You Should Do Now if You Dont Want Them To Hold You Back In 2015

This lovely photo was made using Canva.

This weekend I was chatting on Google+ with Abigail Markov. What would we do if we didn’t have to work? The answer is, of course, work anyway. Working is fun.

But working for yourself means managing your energy and motivating yourself when you need to. Although you’d think drag racing is just about who’s the fastest, it’s actually about who has the most intuitive understanding about when to let off the throttle and when to hammer it again.

This paragraph introduces the post…you know, just in case it’s a guest post or part of a series.

2015 is breathing down our necks, and with it tends to come a lot of energy and enthusiasm. Everything seems fresh– a chance to begin anew.

This is the “note” class that comes built in with Thesis. It’ll make text look more handwritten than the long blockquote and less fancy than the short one.

So the corollary is that January isn’t a good time to be tying up loose ends. You want to do new fun stuff! Not boring old stuff that isn’t quite finished yet!

Here’s your basic, unfancy blockquote. No class, just the generic styling for a plain old blockquote element.

At least that’s how it is for me. And so every year I make sure to do these 5 things before the new year gets rolling:

#1 Clean Up The House

Not the most inspiring thing to do, but you know what also sucks? Getting three weeks into the January and having to take time away from all the absorbing new things you’re doing to put away Christmas decorations.

This is a bold, inspiring quote. Let’s see what happens if it gets a little longer.

Get stuff put away and vacuum the floor at least, or you’ll be picking tinsel off your socks until Valentine’s Day.

#2 Clean Up Your Bookkeeping

Whatever your filing system consists of, you’re going to have to make room for the 2015 bills and paperwork. And, you’re going to want the paperwork for taxes all organized in one place. What I do is just lift last years folders out of the filing cabinet, tidy and sort them, then make new ones for with the same labels. Boom– new year ready to roll.

Here’s a longer blockquote with some nonsense text in it.

Candy canes liquorice chupa chups wafer bear claw macaroon powder sesame snaps. Lemon drops cheesecake applicake fruitcake fruitcake oat cake sesame snaps pudding. Powder chocolate bar jelly-o sesame snaps. Sweet roll sugar plum sweet pastry wafer donut tootsie roll halvah marshmallow.

Topping pastry chocolate. Marzipan topping unerdwear.com pie unerdwear.com halvah. Toffee chocolate bar jelly-o sweet roll halvah. Sugar plum cookie cotton candy donut.

What’s even better is if you start putting together the paperwork you’ll need for taxes. For me, this means printing out reports from Amazon and Paypal. You might use invoicing software like Harvest, or budgeting software like YNAB. Obviously, you’ll want to wait until Jan 1 to do this, but I always find it a lot easier to do it right now when the year is wrapping up than wait until April and try and figure out what information I have to track down before I can figure out my taxes.

#3 Pay It Forward

In the Commonwealth, December 26th is Boxing Day. Traditionally, people would box up the things they didn’t need and give them to charity. It seems easy at this time of year to look in your closets and cupboards and realized that you didn’t use or wear that thing last year… or the year before that.

Here’s an interview question, or other highlighted text. It’s a span instead of a paragraph: “What should I do with it?”

So pull it out and get it out of your house. Pass it on to someone who can actually use it. As a bonus, you will free up space and you won’t have so many items to keep clean and organized.

#4 Make a List of Things That Will Make Your Life Easier and Acquire Them

This year on my list? Smaller dinner plates. A USB adaptor for my microphone. Organizer racks for canned goods. A cream-and-sugar set for coffee. A tall stool for my standing desk. These are little ways of removing friction and frustration from my life. Take some time to reflect on the little things that could make your life better.

#5 Make a Plan

After the holidays, getting back to work can feel weird. Your routines are all messed up. You’re suffering from an overabundance of enthusiasm that may make you dive head-first into projects without thinking them through. And you’re all rested up and raring to go. So make sure you steward that energy wisely.

Make a plan, ease back into your routine, and focus on the fundamentals. You’ve got the whole year ahead of you, and you want to begin as you mean to continue.

Need a little help?

If you’ve got big plans for 2015 (or you don’t know where to start) check out my brand-new program Practical Planning. Registration is open until Jan 1!)

Now allow me to get into some strange default text to demonstrate the various list styles.

Here’s a bulleted (unordered) list where all the points are single lines or paragraphs:

Selfies aesthetic slow-carb, kale chips semiotics stumptown keffiyeh wayfarers tofu cornhole Godard migas Bushwick artisan kitsch.
Small batch photo booth hoodie, before they sold out High Life 3 wolf moon Austin.
Blue Bottle craft beer swag Carles Pinterest, meditation master cleanse.
Typewriter ethical lo-fi stumptown fingerstache Carles.

Next up, a numbered (ordered) list version of the list above:

Pork belly deep v cred Godard tofu gastropub American Apparel, chambray street art.
Pinterest brunch slow-carb, flannel actually +1 cray.
High Life organic dreamcatcher, meggings slow-carb lumbersexual drinking vinegar ugh retro pickled.
Drinking vinegar High Life Portland kitsch church-key.

Now let’s get fancy. Here’s what it looks like if you brave the more complicated formatting to include multiple paragraphs in each point. First, the bulleted (unordered) list:

Direct trade put a bird on it Pitchfork, ugh YOLO pug bitters. Brooklyn lomo dreamcatcher Helvetica aesthetic cronut stumptown. Pickled 3 wolf moon mlkshk, meggings lomo McSweeney’s health goth High Life roof party. Mixtape pop-up Tumblr squid letterpress, slow-carb stumptown freegan migas mustache tote bag blog raw denim cardigan vinyl. Leggings pour-over PBR&B, fingerstache taxidermy Austin crucifix meditation Helvetica High Life banjo mlkshk YOLO Pitchfork Carles. Taxidermy YOLO letterpress photo booth chambray polaroid, Echo Park narwhal 3 wolf moon pickled wayfarers. Polaroid paleo Truffaut authentic blog 8-bit.

Art party Shoreditch meggings bicycle rights. Master cleanse PBR&B artisan, before they sold out wayfarers pork belly messenger bag hashtag actually kale chips. Biodiesel Truffaut Helvetica Intelligentsia, fixie fap tousled twee art party. High Life pour-over mumblecore lumbersexual occupy.
Tumblr artisan Truffaut, hella put a bird on it roof party gluten-free fashion axe. Tote bag quinoa Shoreditch single-origin coffee. PBR&B Brooklyn letterpress, VHS ennui cray skateboard stumptown post-ironic.

Selfies aesthetic slow-carb, kale chips semiotics stumptown keffiyeh wayfarers tofu cornhole Godard migas Bushwick artisan kitsch. Small batch photo booth hoodie, before they sold out High Life 3 wolf moon Austin. Blue Bottle craft beer swag Carles Pinterest, meditation master cleanse. Typewriter ethical lo-fi stumptown fingerstache Carles. Craft beer post-ironic mlkshk, taxidermy aesthetic migas meggings Thundercats pork belly disrupt squid fingerstache. 3 wolf moon umami gastropub forage direct trade master cleanse, slow-carb crucifix tote bag Kickstarter farm-to-table McSweeney’s. Semiotics pour-over aesthetic, Shoreditch paleo fingerstache literally hoodie four loko.

And finally, the multiple-paragraph-per-point numbered (ordered) list:

Pinterest brunch slow-carb, flannel actually +1 cray. High Life organic dreamcatcher, meggings slow-carb lumbersexual drinking vinegar ugh retro pickled. Drinking vinegar High Life Portland kitsch church-key. You probably haven’t heard of them fingerstache mumblecore, tilde 90’s letterpress jean shorts chillwave forage gluten-free bespoke banh mi cliche salvia ethical.

Craft beer chambray Odd Future, sartorial beard kale chips hashtag gentrify squid Truffaut salvia. Wes Anderson street art DIY Echo Park, shabby chic crucifix chia kogi +1.
Direct trade put a bird on it Pitchfork, ugh YOLO pug bitters. Brooklyn lomo dreamcatcher Helvetica aesthetic cronut stumptown. Pickled 3 wolf moon mlkshk, meggings lomo McSweeney’s health goth High Life roof party. Mixtape pop-up Tumblr squid letterpress, slow-carb stumptown freegan migas mustache tote bag blog raw denim cardigan vinyl.

Leggings pour-over PBR&B, fingerstache taxidermy Austin crucifix meditation Helvetica High Life banjo mlkshk YOLO Pitchfork Carles.

Taxidermy YOLO letterpress photo booth chambray polaroid, Echo Park narwhal 3 wolf moon pickled wayfarers. Polaroid paleo Truffaut authentic blog 8-bit.

Finally, some buttons. The small one:

Small button

And the larger version:

Large button