lists

• I am so tired at the moment that the only thing I’m longing for is sleep. All I can think about is how marvelous it would feel to just lay my head on the table and close my eyes.
• Of course I promptly forget all about that every evening when it’s time to go to bed, and I then start battling tiredness with food.
• Which is not unrelated to the fact that I’m about two to three kilos heavier than I want to be which at times makes me feel totally fat. And the next minute I see myself in the mirror and marvel at the slimness of my hips. These days when I tell someone how much weight I lost they tend not to believe me.
• I slacked off in a rather grandiose way the last week which means I will have to do everything today. Until 2.30 or so. I am postponing the taxes, though, will have to do those over the weekend. Strangely enough I don’t enjoy doing taxes.
• I am also full of ennui to the brim. None of the hundreds of unread books (or the dozen of books I have already started reading) appeals to me, everywhere I look there is so much stuff to do that I just lay back and flip through yet another book or website. And then I think how unappealing all of this is. Even the chocolate I’m eating by the handful is unappealing.
• One of the most unappealing things at the moment is the novel I’m writing. I am about four hours away of finishing the rough draft, and of course that’s the point where I decide the whole thing is just too bad, too boring, and not worth it.
• It’s a good thing that I know by now that that is just a normal part of the process for me. I’ll go through phases where I think it’s a) not too bad, b) the best thing ever, c) completely horrible in various stages. None of this means anything.
• Of course that doesn’t make the writing any easier.
• Of course sitting here waiting for me to be in a better mood won’t be changing anything, the only thing that will change my mood is kicking myself in the butt and do something.
• This will be a fun weekend, I’m sure.

So, how are you doing?

• It is the first week of Easter break, and I’m so out of sorts that I typed „Thursday“ in the headline at first. As you know I’m always a little thrown by things like weekends and breaks, and this week my husband is also away with a friend for a few days in Italy. Of course I thought I’d have huge amounts of time on my hand in which I could do all.the.things. Finish sewing the muslin for the performance dress, make all.the.music, read all the books, write like the wind.
• Instead I spent Monday morning waiting for my husband to leave, then got frozen pizza at the last minute, made that, had lunch, taught a student, went to a doctor’s appointment with out son (we biked there and I managed to get lost twice), then teach another student, and that was that. Then go to bed way too late.
• Tuesday the sloth descended on me, and I basically did nothing the whole day but sit, read and crochet. Until my back and arms hurt. I skipped my Tuesday run, did not practice, did not shower, and was extremely cranky by the end of the day.
• Since past experience has taught me that me sitting and reading and knittein (or crocheting, whatever) and doing nothing else is a fast track to depression I decided to do everything right today.
• I got up, did my morning routine, wrote, had breakfast, wrote some more, then waited for our son to get up (bad move when you have a teenager), was late for the run that I had decided to do today instead of yesterday, tried calling my mother, and just when I was about to get out the door to run errands she called me back, we talked for 45 minutes, I was way too late for erranding, went to the health food store and the pharmacy, went back, made baked beans and eggs for lunch, decided to read a bit before doing the dishes, and really buckling down, and the next thing I knew it was three hours later.
• While I am halfway through the book I started yesterday somehow that doesn’t really give me that fulfillment and rosy glow that I hoped for.
• I plain forgot to blog last week, by the way, which just goes to show how out of wack I am.
• I promised my husband to buy gasoline for the lawn mower back in the fall, and he put the empty canister next to my bike. I then promptly forgot until he reminded me a few weeks ago. Also twice since, and last week. I might want to go and get gasoline but it’s always really weird to bike to the gas station, get the canister out of your paniers, fill it with a few liters, carry the canister inside to pay because I can’t just leave it standing around, and if I put it in the paniers the bike will topple over, and the bike back home.
• I also forgot that I need to go to the cobbler to get my shoes back twice. Even though I put it on a list. Lists only help if you look at them regularly.
• And now that my husband isn’t here not only do I have to cook every day (I have almost forgotten how to do that, by the way) I also have to water the millions of plants everywhere that are supposed to be planted in the garden in a few weeks. His whole studio is full of pots with seeds and tiny plants in them. Also I can never remember which of the vegetable beds outside is the one without seeds in it. I just water them all.

I’m really not cut out to deal with change in any way, I know. I’m hoping to get better some day but right now the only way I see is to just get the shoes and the gas right now (before the cobbler closes), then do the dishes, do strength training, go to bed on time, and hope for the best for tomorrow.

So, how’s your day going? Sloth? Not-Sloth?

• After the big guests/performance/music-upheaval at the end of February I though things would be back to normal by now.
• They are but it seems that normal contains more things to do and to think about than I like.
• When I talk to people and try to explain why there is so much stuff I never can remember what exactly is so much. That’s because it’ s a long string of small things, not one or two big things.
• My husband, by the way, is already working on the next big project. He is planning something for February 2017, and is up to his neck in planning, and playing songs, and deciding on equipment. No, I don’t quite understand it as well.
• I, on the other hand, am furiously working on finally completing my first novel. Revision is a bitch but I can see the light on the end of the tunnel. I had hoped to have it finished in two weeks but by now that looks rather unlikely.
• I am also working on getting all the things I want to do crammed in every day. Exercise, housework, knitting, spinning, blogging, learning French, playing computer games, reading, spending time with my family, it doesn’t always work out.
• As usual for every day that I get it right there are two or three where I drop the ball. I haven’t managed to clean the house in weeks despite doing some cleaning every Friday. Then I decided to do a little each day, did that twice, and that was that.
• Today I go and get myself a new pair of glasses. Since I now need progressives, and since I am really nearsighted they will cost a fortune. In fact I have been saving money for about a year now just for these. It is a little disheartening.
• But then I am really looking forward to being able to read again. Playing piano from sheet music has become rather unpleasant what with me looking at ever more fuzzy notes.
• I did not forget about wanting to post here once a week, really, only somehow I didn’t manage during the last few weeks.
• And finally I actually enrolled in a free class about blogging a few weeks ago. Guess what, I already knew all of what I was taught there. Seems that if you do a thing for nine years you end up knowing something about it after all.
• On a brighter note it looks as if it will be spring here soon. That doesn’t mean there won’t be freezing nights anymore, or snow (there is a reason why planting time here starts in May) but today one can go outside without winter coat, without a hat and mittens. I like it.

 

1. Tidy and clean the top of the fridge.
2. Read all the books that sit on the kitchen bench. And in my studio. And on my ebook reader. And on my desk. And on the shelf above the kitchen bench. And on the dresser in the bedroom.
3. Finish sewing the two skirts that I started years ago.
4. Sew the bag for my DSLR. (Because I need to finish the skirts first. And the two t-shirts for which I bought fabric ages ago.)
5. Clean under the porch.
6. Work on the revision of my novel-in-progress. I was pretty sure it would be finished by March. Last March that is.
7. Put the things on top of the shoe cupboard in the attic.
8. Clean the bathroom.
9. Take pictures of my finished knits and put them up on ravelry.
10. Give myself a pedicure.
11. Make my son pick up his room.
12. Put a new zipper in my husband’s favorite fleece jacket. (It’s only been three years or so, he’ll hardly notice.)
13. Record the next podcast.
14. Sort through the piles of paper in the house.
15. Finish spinning the yarn for the sweater I’m currently knitting.
16. Make my son study Latin.
17. Finish knitting the projects that have been sitting next to the kitchen bench for months now.
18. Sort through my clothes and only keep the ones that fit that have no holes.
19. Buy myself new hiking boots because my old ones (and also the pair I bought last year) make me feel like someone smashed my toes with a hammer. I will probably wear those again all winter instead of winter boots because I’m too lazy to get new ones. Also my record finding hiking boots that fit is not good. (Note to self: next time don’t buy ones that are intended for men even if they are on sale.)
20. Do anything productive today.

So. Do you have any plans for this nice Sunday? do you do weekend to-do-lists? Life to-do-lists? I actually love the lists and like making them but then I usually ignore them completely.

As most of you know I usually have quite a few projects going on at the same time, and so I’m in dire need of something to help me manage them. I do use two different apps, and my calendar and everything but still I could never quite see the big picture.

Then I had an idea. Back to the roots! Something that helps me spread out all the projects, see them all at once but that’s still portable and small. I didn’t want to establish a huge whiteboard or cork board and have all my students and every visitor to the house see what I’m currently working on. And I spend a lot of time working in the kitchen, or my bed, or other places so small, easy, and portable was what I needed.

This is what I came up with:

 

Index cards. I know this is not a new idea but it works surprisingly well. Each project (and a project is everything that takes more than one or two steps, is not routine, and takes longer than a few minutes) gets its own card. “Leftover Sockyarn Blanket” has a card, but so has “write my own songs”, or “plan next year’s vacation”, or “get a functioning bathtub”. As soon as I have an idea for a project that I really, really want to do one day, or that I’ve already started – my life isn’t all that orderly sometimes – I write it down on a card. Along with the date, and the very first step I can do to start it. Often I also add the second step. I like it when I can see that there’s this one small thing I can do first, and after that I can do this other small thing.

Nothing more. I do note if the project is in planning, in progress, or finished, though.

On the picture above you can make out an envelope in the top left corner that says “Do”. I ended up sorting the cards into four piles: “Do”, “Wait”, “Find”, and “Finished”.

The “Finished” category doesn’t really need an explanation, I think. That’s the one I pull out when I’m a bit down, and feel as if I never accomplish anything. The “Do” category is what I’m mainly working with. Those are the things I’m actively making progress on, however small, the knitting projects sitting in the kitchen that I pull out and knit on for example. The “Wait” category is for things that are on hold at the moment. For various reasons. Like the “leaner to draw”-project, that’s on hold because I have too many other things going on so that’s not happening at the moment. Or the denim skirt I want to sew is in the waiting pile because I want to finish the orange skirt first so I have a pattern to work from.

The”Find” category is a bit embarrassing, I have to say. I found that I have quite a few projects on hold because I can’t find the things to finish them. The reason for that is the massive pile of stuff sitting on my dresser. It accumulated when I was depressed, and so far I’ve only managed to sort it, and put it in plastic bags so that it is easier to dust. Well, I did put all the leftover yarn away recently so there might still be hope.

But in those piles, and in some drawers, and I don’t know where else, there are things like the buttons I bought for the mittens I made. I need to find both in order to finish them. Or the zipper that I know I bought for the cardigan I’ve been wearing for almost two years now but I don’t quite know where it is. (The cardigan is in my closet. At least I know to find that one.)

One of these days I’ll have a house again where I know exactly where everything is. In the “Find” envelope are also things like me wanting to learn how to play Bossa Nova strums on my ukulele. Because I need to ask my husband to give me his João Gilberto CDs. Which I can’t find on my own because he has way more CDs than me, and unlike mine his aren’t organized alphabetically.

 

Just about every Monday or so I sit down with my index cards of projects and look through them. Which next step is finished? What do I do next? Which isn’t? Why? Can I do something to make this easier or faster? Is there something else I want to learn or make? How can I do that?

I sort cards from one envelope to the other, something that seemed urgent and exciting might wander back into the “Wait”-pile, something else gets pulled out from that and ends up in the pile of things I’m actively working on.

All of these projects are things that don’t really have a deadline, and most of them are things I’m working on because I like to, not because I must. But still, even if I make things for pleasure the making needs to have a bit of structure so that I don’t feel overwhelmed. Charting progress helps me when I feel like I’m working, and working on something, and nothing moves. Like that two pounds of fiber I spun that will eventually become a cardigan. For months and months I spun away on that, five minutes here, ten there, and I fly as if the big bump of orange always remained the same. Then I divided the two pounds into small chunks. Chunks that could be spun in two hours. And I noted my progress each day. Now it’s all spun up.

Do you have an organizing system for projects? Do you need one? Is it digital, or is it a list in a notebook?

I’m curious to know.