If you recall, I had some plans for this year. To wit:
Guidelines for 2009
* Do the hard thing first.
* Be Abby.
* Be consistent.
Top 10 Goals
- Spend 30 min/day on me. – Not done. Struggling to accomplish this.
- Kickass employment/predictable revenue streams. — Working on it!
- Start a side business. — Working on it slowly.
- Write something long-form. — Working on it slowly.
- Get summer vacation tickets before April — Possible hold, pending Goal #2.
- Meet financial goals for 2009. — Ongoing.
- Make house comfortable. – Massive progress!
- Take 1 picture & post daily. — Not done. Struggling to accomplish this.
- Compete in triathlon. — Workouts are progressing, tri signed up for, all systems go!
- Manage me better. — Not done. Struggling to accomplish this.
Every Sunday (usually), I sit down and review the goals for my accomplishments, disappointments, and lessons for the previous week and plan the next week. This part is working brilliantly. What’s not working so well is actually doing the things on the plan.
Perhaps it’s the new Twitter obsession. Or having to understand a new Facebook layout every two months. Or spending too much time telling the dog “Off!” and “No!” and “Don’t eat that!” (”But, Moooooom…”)
There are two parts to my struggle to accomplish the goals:
1) What if the idea in my head doesn’t come out as well once executed? This hangs me up on the photo taking, the writing, and the side business. I get caught up in how to make it match what’s in my head as part of the planning process and then I never actually do it. I haven’t figured out a solution to this yet. Any ideas?
2) It all feels like chores on a to-do list, and I’m not doing anything fun. To counter this, I’ve decided that the things that are actual chores on my list get 1 point per 1 hour/task completed. Five points means I can take an afternoon to do something I like to do with no guilt attached; 10 points means I can do something that costs money, like go to the movies, again no guilt attached.
As far as the guidelines go, I tried out not letting myself do anything fun until after I had completed that day’s hard tasks. No go. It just made the whole day chore-ridden and lacking in any sort of amusement. I have been more successful in being me–laying down boundaries, sharing some of my strengths, and not apologizing for weaknesses. The weekly planning is helping with the consistency, as is nailing down a more regular schedule. I’m truly terrible at the free-form Zen-like no-schedule days: I get nothing done and feel guilty about having spent all day on it.
On the two goals on which I’ve made massive progress:
- Make house more comfortable: Photos of the new veggie beds and container gardens and an ornamental grass bed
- Compete in triathlon: I have some funky tan lines I’ve earned with swimming 2x/week & the longest bike ride yet (12 miles).
Next quarter, I should have some news on the job front, photos from the summer vacation, and the financial progress pending the job. I can’t believe we’re 25% done with 2009. So fast. Too fast.
Flickr PhotoStream
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2 Responses for "Q1 2009 Review: 1/4 to Heavy"
hey abby, just a shout out to say that i struggle with many of these same things (tho like you, i’ve overcome it this season enough to get some kickass gardening in!)
to address your two points:
1) i think the only thing here is to give up on quality or even conformity to your vision as requirements for you to be satisfied or happy with what you’re doing. this is a tough one for me, too — i want everything i write to be perfect the first draft, for example. the key may be to focus on process instead of product, and just keep making stuff, with the faith that even if only one out of every 5 or 10 products is any good that’s still one more than you’d have if you let your evaluating/judgmental get in the way. i could be a lot better at taking my own advice in this regard btw.
2) i struggle with this one, too — i’m a great one for making to-do lists (and having a great time doing so) that then feel like they’re hanging around my neck like granite weights. for myself, i’m not really sure that a reward system is the best approach to getting through what feels like drudgework. i stubbornly want to insist on finding some way to enjoy everything i do (not that i accomplish this, but i feel religious about its possibility.) it seems like when i’m actually accomplishing a lot of what could conceivably be considered drudgework (like the gardening, for example) what’s actually happened is that some switch has been thrown in my mind such that i’m simply doing, working, and feeling motivated to keep doing so; it’s like my complaining or anxious self has just been turned off for the duration. it’s the Zone, as they say. i think that finding some way to cultivate or trigger this state may be a greater aid to productivity than keeping my mind on some future reward and grimly gritting my teeth through whatever task i’ve set myself. one mantra that helps me get there sometimes is “just do the next thing.” but like yourself, i’m a work in progress…
For me, the way I see it in my head is never perfect: it’s vague and unformed, and I know I’ll have to dump that if the thing I’m trying to do is ever going to really be interesting. The idea is something becoming something else, and it’s when it starts becoming a thing I could not have predicted is when I start having fun. Sometimes things just sit for years (decades!) before they start turning into something else, which works fine for me, but I know it’s pretty counterintuitive to most people.
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