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Archives for March 2017

Why I’m getting up at five every day

March 28, 2017 by Susanne Leave a Comment

Yes, I know that’s early.

I’ve been whining about not getting anything done for months now. And it was even worse on days when we didn’t have to get up for school, and I didn’t have to teach. And I tried being more disciplined (nope), and writing my novel in the evenings (not going to happen), and telling my family that really, I would spend all afternoon working on that novel-thing but it never happened.

I had this regular writing time in the morning, right after our son left for school and that went somewhat okay most days. Depending on when my husband would get up I got about thirty minutes of writing time in. Or less.

And I tried, and tried, and tried. And then there was this Sunday where I was adamant about working on my novel but in the morning just when I was pulling out my computer to start our son would show up for breakfast, so I made him breakfast and sat with him as he ate, and then just when I thought I’d had a bit of time to myself my husband came down for breakfast too, and then it was time to do the dishes, and then it was time to help with lunch, and then it was time to do some more dishes, and then I practiced the piano, and then I went online for a bit, and then every single time I sat down thinking, that now would be the time someone wanted something from me. You know how this goes.The wifi went down, and I had to fix it. My husband needed me to find out which train to take to a concert the day after, he wanted my help with an email he was writing, there was always something.

Some time around 4 pm that day I just gave up.

And I remembered that just about every single writer I knew who still had a day job said that they were writing first thing in the morning. And 5 am came up a lot. And just a few days earlier I had listenend to the „Petal to the Metal“-podcast, and they had talked about this, and so I borrowed the „Miracle Morning for Writers“ book, read it that day, and set my alarm for 5.30 the next morning.

As recommended I did my meditation, and a bit of yoga, and affirmations (still not quite sure about these), wrote in my journal, and then I started working on my novel. And it went very well. And right after breakfast I worked on it some more. And it was fun! Not the drudgery from before. I was doing really well. And I was even thinking about novel revision throughout the day, and spending a bit of time in the afternoon to prepare for the next day’s revision.

It was glorious.

So I did it again the next day, and the next, and after a week I set my alarm even earlier to 5 am, and that’s what I’ve been doing for a few weeks now, I’m getting up at five, even on weekends, even when I go to bed too late, I don’t care, I just love this so much, and yes I know that’s weird.

But no matter what happens throughout the day, no matter who wants something from me, or if something goes wrong, or if I have a lot of work that day, no matter what I get to spend time just for me and with my writing first thing in the morning.

And it’s making me really, really happy. A little tired too but I’m hoping to work that out soon. Also it’s not as if I had been getting enough sleep every night before that.

So. What do you think? Is being really happy worth getting up at five?

Filed Under: changing habits, life

Handgemacht – Folge 74: Interweave Crochet Spring 2017

March 18, 2017 by Susanne Leave a Comment

http://creativemother.de/audio/Handgemacht74.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Gestrickt habe ich:

  • Silk Argyle: fertigimage
  • Sunny Knee Socks: beim ersten bin ich mit den Zunahmen für die Wade fertig
  • Next Generation Pot Holders: have die ersten zehn Reihen aufgeribbelt, mit einer kleinere Nadel noch mal angeschlagen und bei Reihe 3

Gesponnen habe ich:

  • etwas Targhee auf der IST Crafts Turkish
Gehäkelt habe ich:
  • Maschenprobe für Floret Crop Topimage

Erwähnt wurde:

  • patreon
  • deutsche Alternative zu Patron: Steady
  • The Petal to the Metal-Podcast
  • Miracle Morning* von Hal Elrod (gibt es auch auf Deutsch)
  • Miracle Morning for Writers* von Hal Elrod, Scott Young & Honorée Corder
  • Knitty-Artikel: Extreme Knitting: 2 Socks in 1
  • Kathryn Vercillo ist die Dame, die Kolumnen in Interweave Crochet geschrieben hat
  • Doku über Tracht in Bayern: „Unsere Tracht und die Macht“ Teil 1 und Teil 2
  • Citizen Pullover aus Interweave Crochet
  • Burda Vintage „Die sagenhaften Sixties“. Ich werde wohl das Modell Tina machen.

alle Links mit * Sternchen sind Affiliate-Links zu Amazon

Filed Under: Podcast

Define “doing nothing”

March 8, 2017 by Susanne Leave a Comment

In the past ten days I have been kvetching to everybody about the fact that I haven’t gotten anything done in all that time. And then the person I was speaking to turned to me and said, „But you have been doing your running during, haven’t you?“ And my first reaction was, „Duh. Of course I’ve been running. That goes without saying.”

And that made me realize how much my definition of „doing nothing“ has changed.

There was a time when I was still living with my parents where I didn’t have a to do-list, I didn’t even use a calendar, everything I needed to do I could just keep in my mind, no problem. And doing nothing at that time did not include any kind of physical activity or housework for sure.

Mind you, when I was a teenager „doing nothing“ meant a lot of reading (we’re talking about ten books a week or so), a bit of playing the piano and the odd walk because even a couch potato as sedentary as me needs to get some movement at times. It also involved a bit of piano playing and singing. And knitting. Some sewing. Very little TV because we’re talking about the time when there were only three channels in Germany, and none of them showed anything during daytime, apart from weekends.

These days when I talk about „doing nothing“ or rather „getting nothing done“ I mean that I am somewhat on top of housework, and grocery shopping, and laundry, and that I have managed to do something like ten minutes of singing warmup and my twenty minutes of piano warmup, and my regular exercise, and such. And of course the knitting.

But the important things, the ones that count, are the creative ones. The writing. And the blog, and the podcast, and all the projects that I want to finish. And so I feel like I did nothing if I didn’t manage to write or revise anything.

And no, that doesn’t mean I’m hard to myself. It means that I am someone who wants to do projects and follow her creative dreams, and finish things. And if I am content with just the everyday things that won’t happen.

I’m still somewhat proud of being able to deal with the everyday things, and that exercise and playing my instruments are a regular part of my daily routine, that is as it should be. It still doesn’t mean that that’s enough for me at this time of my life.

I mean, after those two days of rehearsal the weekend before last when I was completely wrung out, after that I didn’t expect myself to get back to my projects right away. I scheduled a day off. And when I found that I was still really exhausted the day after I took another day off and that was okay.

But not doing anything besides mundane everyday things for a week without anything being seriously wrong? Not okay.

So, what about you? What means „doing nothing“ to you?

Filed Under: life

Handgemacht – Folge 73: Bullet Journal oder das einzig wahre Notizbuch

March 5, 2017 by Susanne 2 Comments

http://creativemother.de/audio/Handgemacht73.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Gestrickt habe ich:

  • Black Slant Socks: fertig
  • Pi-Tuch: fertig gestrickt, wartet aufs Spannen
  • Silk Argyle: angefangen, bin bei der Ferse des ersten

Gesponnen habe ich:

  • lila Malabrigo Nube auf dem Louet Victoria mit Hochgeschwindigkeits-Flügel

Erwähnt wurde:

  • patreon
  • Black Album von Metallica; das heißt aber gar nicht Black Album, deswegen wohl auch kein Zusammenhang mit dem White Album, das offiziell scheinbar auch nicht „White Album“ heißt; man lernt nie aus
  • Raveler-Treffen 2017, hier die Webseite Bielefeld spinnt
  • Kieran Foley und hier das 
  • Bullet Journal von Ryder Carroll
  • Roter Faden Taschenbegleiter
  • Leuchtturm 1917
  • Julia Cameron
  • mein System des Projekt-Managements mit Karteikarten

Filed Under: Podcast

Where my energy goes

March 1, 2017 by Susanne Leave a Comment

Now time management seems like it's not enough. I find I often have time to do something, like an hour after dinner or so, but I lack the energy to do it. And that is a problem.

I'm not the type of person who strives to be all productive all day with no downtime, and no room for spontaneity or doing nothing but there are quite a few things that I want to get done every day, and I get grumpy if I don't manage that.

I read something on the internet about a guy who schedules three minute meetings, for example, that is not what I want to do with my life. Planning like that means that every thing that you haven't planned for – like being stuck in traffic – means your whole schedule gets thrown off course.

On the contrary, I have learned to plan for buffer time between things. When I stop teaching for the day I could theoretically just turn around, sit down and do something else. But experience tells me that I often need about fifteen minutes to wait for the student to leave, pack away everything I needed for teaching, check my email one more time, and maybe read something on ravelry.

Of course I would be more productive if I didn'tdo that but forcing myself to not do it usually just makes me cranky and after a few days I go on strike and spend all my time surfing the web. If I allow myself that fifteen minutes I'm happy to start practicing afterwards. Or making dinner, or doing strength training, or whatever.

Now I've talked about this at least on the podcast but elsewhere as well but my big revelation in the past few weeks was that time is really not the problem, energy is.

The way my life is structured right now I should have about an hour or two each night where I can do something productive, and I can still eat dinner in peace, do the dishes, read and have quiet time before bed.

I am definitely not a night owl so the things I schedule at that time are usually things like, “watch a video about book marketing”, or sewing, or spinning. Nothing taxing, nothing that I need a lot of concentration or energy for.

So I had scheduled that – very sensibly – and I had even managed to wash the dinner dishes in a timely manner instead of playing iPad games or reading, and then I found I was just way too tired and couldn't do anything anymore.

So I declared defeat and went to bed, read for two hours and turned the lights out too late. And was angry at myself for not getting the things done that I wanted to.

After a few days of that I got really angry, and so I told myself that I absolutely had to sit down, spin and watch a video, even if there was not a morsel of energy left in me anymore.

So I moaned and groaned, and moved my spinning wheel in front of the computer and spun and watched that video for half an hour.

And then the funny thing happened.

I had more energy instead of less.

That was strange.

My very first impulse when I am feeling low on energy is always, always to sit back and do nothing. I mean, that is how you recharge, right? I already know that doing nothing for a long period of time makes me feel completely limp and unable to cope with life, so I force myself to exercise even when I feel like I have no energy at all because I know from experience that exercise makes me feel more energetic in the long run. But not giving in to that evening slump felt completely impossible.

My theory (and not only mine, check out “The Power of Full Engagement” for more on this) is that there are several kinds of energy that I have and need. Physical energy, mental energy, social energy, all kinds. And all of them need replenishing. And sometimes what I need is not to sit and read and do nothing but instead to move something forward that's important to me.

So the past two weeks or so I have forced myself to practice for the upcoming performance. Even though I felt awful and tired and exhausted beforehand. I still didn't feel all that energetic afterwards but I didn't feel more tired and exhausted either.

And the funny thing is that I have had less trouble sleeping. I guess my subconscious is feeling better because I'm taking care of things that are important to me.

Who would have thought that there were so many things to learn yet?

 

Filed Under: life

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Subscribe to Handgemacht » Podcast

Handgemacht mit iTunes abonnieren

Subscribe to know when Susanne’s next book comes out

* indicates required

Manic Writing & Such

500words-150w

Archives

Categories

  • birthday letter (3)
  • blogging about blogging (21)
  • blogher (1)
  • changing habits (53)
  • crafts (55)
  • creativity (37)
  • daily journal (1,045)
  • family (20)
  • fashion (15)
  • gender (12)
  • green living (8)
  • happiness (5)
  • health (20)
  • hear me sing (7)
  • just post (28)
  • knitting (47)
  • knitting patterns (2)
  • life (212)
  • lists (39)
  • meme (19)
  • mindfulness (1)
  • music (34)
  • NaNoWriMo (12)
  • parenting (39)
  • pictures (33)
  • Podcast (162)
  • procrastination (2)
  • project 365 (14)
  • projects (35)
  • Projekt "Farbe bekennen" (14)
  • reading (9)
  • Rhiannon (5)
  • script frenzy (2)
  • self-help (40)
  • sewing (7)
  • spinning (31)
  • story of the month (13)
  • travel (12)
  • Uncategorized (62)
  • week in review (23)
  • weight loss (8)
  • wordless wednesday (9)
  • writing (24)
  • year of happiness (8)

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