đ Good morning from Los Angeles! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is Plan Your Nextâa Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thingâŚ
Update: You can view my newsletter, Make It Yours.
đĄ Whatâs new?
Iâve got a few things to talk about today. Which affects mainly me, you, and this newsletter.
But first, I built something Iâve come to depend on when I start out a new project. Itâs called the Design Vault, and itâs a collection of highly organized, hand-picked sites that I love. This is an evolving vault with the intent to add 1,000 sites within a year. Snag it now at a 40% discount. (And enjoy the new site!)
Make it yours: A new beginning
I believe I have found the secret to productivity.
Let your wife and daughter head back to Wisconsin for four days to take a vacation give you time to think, redesign your entire site, launch a newsletter, and create a new product.
And I didnât even attempt mushrooms once.
When you have the house to yourself as an adult doing adult thingsâlike trying to be responsible and not buy Ben & Jerryâs three times a dayâyou try to make the most of it.
And so, if you read nothing else, hereâs the TL;DR of my current sitch:
We are expecting another girl in December
I am doubling down on Approachable Design
I am consolidating my newsletters and rebranding them as âMake It Yoursâ
When I created Plan Your Next, I didnât know what the hell I was doing. And most days, I still donât.
But in the past five years since creating Plan Your Next, I started writing, quit writing, then started back up. My life changed when I took Write of Passage, had a daughter, left my job post-acquisition, started drawing again, had my best-grossing year of freelance work, started Approachable Design, collaborated with friends, co-founded Fresh Prompts and Hey, Good Game!, and have met incredible friends online that I will have for a lifetime.
The last five years have been the most personally transformative five of my life.
Why Make it Yours?
I wrote an essay a while back called Make It Yours, and that phrase has stuck with me ever since. It hits on a core belief of mine that your taste matters more than ever. Our ability to discern and lean into what makes us unique is simply an edge for you to have in a world with this much noise.
Make It Yours is a statement that wherever you are in life, you should be leaning into your stories, experiences, and taste. Itâs what separates you from any situation you find yourself in.
Even if youâre in a corporate environment, standing out gives you leverage. When youâre applying for a new job, cutting against the grain and bypassing the traditional paths gives you an edge.
And, the boat storage company Iâm helping out with at the moment needs to lean into its unique perspective to stand out against its competition.
Building a business or a product has never been easier. But how you bring it into the world and differentiate it matters more than ever. Community matters, people matter, and taste matters. Itâs why I donât rely on templates or predefined color palettes.
Make It Yours extends what I write about already, but brings it more closely aligned with how I want to help people with design.
What changes for me?
Not a whole lot! Iâll do some exporting and importing into ConvertKit, and give you an easy way to opt-out if youâd prefer.
However, Make It Yours will be more design focused for non-designers. Iâll make the transition as seamless as possible.
Whatâs happening to this site?
Honestly, Iâm not 100% sure yet. I might migrate a lot of it over, but I doubt it will get shut down for a while. At the very least, Iâll likely redirect this .com to the new page and design a landing page so itâs not all that confusing.
What if Iâm a paying subscriber?
I will be pausing all subscribers, and going 100% free from here on out. Itâs been a great experiment and Iâm thankful for the support, but as I was sitting out on the grass with
a couple of weeks ago while our kids ran as far from us as they could, I realized that having a paid newsletter was not my calling.Whatâs new?
Iâm so glad you asked! I will be talking and writing more about how to make better design decisions in your business and life. Iâll also be doing breakdowns by people or companies doing this well, giving you a blueprint to do this yourself.
But what Iâm most excited about is doing more sessions around how to improve your design, and how it affects everything from your personal/creator brand to your startups and businesses. Keep an eye out for those.
How can I help?
Can I just say that these questions youâre asking are incredible? Spot on.
Iâm not going away, Iâm just slightly leaning into what makes me unique. I want you to do the same.
But if you need help with your brand or business, please find some time on my calendar, or check out some of my products.
See you next week!
âĄď¸ Your next creative hits
đĄ Does anger fuel creativity?
đ¤ Will our daughter have an AI partner when sheâs older?
what the hell everyone's gonna blame me for this change??? Wait but its a good thing so yes I did it
Congrats on this new approach, Nate! I love the clarity and focus: name, audience, content, and even modelâall super well aligned! And Iâm also personally glad that youâve chosen to narrow in on content that Iâm particularly excited to get!
But, even more... congrats on the growing Kadlac crew! đ