Weekly Goals, Week 35: Two Weeks Until the Fall Show

Last week was a crazy week.  We were house sitting for my husband's parents, which meant a lot of back and forth to take care of our cats every day.  Thankfully the diabetic cat went into remission just before we started house sitting, so this time we didn't have to time our visits to give her insulin injections.

In addition to the house sitting, I had a pretty productive week.  I had some big writing days, got a bunch done to prep for and promote the museum's Fall Show, and kept up on social media.

I also had an idea for a new, fun YA novel.  I didn't want to lose the idea, so I started working on it right away.  I wrote nearly 8,000 words for it on Thursday!  Right now I'm trying to maintain both the new novel and the sequel to Amnesia at the same time, which is tough as they are very different novels.  Some days I've only worked on one or the other, and other days I've managed to do a little on each.  I figure what matters most is writing every day, regardless of which one.

All in all, I feel pretty good about last week.  I had three goals, and I feel like I accomplished what I set out to do.  I got an effective system set up for Todoist and Google Calendar, I wrote every day except for Monday, and I got a bunch of stuff done for the Fall Show.

This week will be more of the same, except that the Fall Show is coming up quickly, so I'll be focusing heavily on getting ready for it.

1. Keep writing every day
2. Stay on top of social media and communications for the Fall Show in 2 weeks
3. Work on dolls and restringing kits for my workshop at the show

I will need to maintain a decent level of productivity this week.  The Fall Show is just under two weeks away, and I need to keep promoting it on social media, keep in touch with others who are working on it, and get everything ready for my workshop.  There are other things I'd like to start working on soon, but I'll put them off until after the show, to ensure I get the most time sensitive things done.

Weekly Goals, Week 34: Trying a New System

Last week wasn't as productive as I had hoped, but I'm hoping the next week will be better.  I have a new tool and a plan!

A month and a half ago, I read a book that had a significant impact on how I view time management.  Four Thousand Weeks is all about how our time is limited, and the time management tends to make us feel like we can do it all if we just organize our time well enough, rather than encouraging us to focus on doing the important stuff and not feeling bad if we don't get the other things done.

For a little while after reading that book, I struggled in the face of trying to restructure my priorities.

Now I think I may be figuring out something that might work better for me.

You may remember that I schedule my tasks in Google Calendar.  It works fairly well for me, as I have to think about how long tasks will take and block out the time for them.  It helps to keep me from overscheduling myself, although I still do, of course.

Unfortunately, when I don't get to tasks, that means rolling over the calendar events to the next day and, eventually, the next week.  Since I still tend to overschedule myself and procrastinate, I have amassed a number of events that get rolled over week after week.

Four Thousand Weeks addressed this, in a way.  That book talks about having a master list of to-do items, with the understanding that you'll never be able to get to all of them, and a short list of active to-do items that is no more than 10 items long.  Then, as you finish one item, you can put another on the list.  The result is a rotating list that isn't dependent on day and allows you to keep a master list of items that you can choose between when selecting your priorities for the day.

Google Calendar doesn't allow an efficient way to do this, since moving all my undone tasks to the next day or week is quite inefficient (not to mention demoralizing).  So I revived my old Todoist account, which allows me to keep a "master" list and easily move things to my active list by having different ranks of priority.  The projects and tags also offer myriad ways to organize and view my tasks, which I also like.  It'll give me a way to do things like note down photography or content ideas, for example, that I'm not going to get to any time soon but don't want to forget to do eventually.

So this week, my goals are as follows:

1. Get a good system going in Todoist
2. Get back to writing every day
3. Prep for the Fall Show in just under 3 weeks

As I get going in Todoist, one of the things I need to decide is whether to spring for their paid subscription, which might allow me to manage both my to-do list and my task scheduling in Google Calendar without having to duplicate work.

I do want to get back to writing every day, as well.  I've done better in the past week, as I worked on my novel about every other day, so I'm making progress there at least.

And the Fall Show for the museum is coming up quickly!  I have a workshop at the show, two speakers that I've organized, and a variety of things I still need to recruit doll people for (exhibits, volunteering, etc.), so I have a bunch to do in regards to that.

Lots to do!  It'll be a busy week for sure!

Weekly Goals, Week 33: Catching Up

The theme of this week will be catching up from being sick.  The very end of last week didn't really offer enough time to do all the catchup I needed to do.

It'll also be a chance to get back into a routine after several weeks of disruption.

I've let myself fall out of my daily writing habit, which is one of the first and most important routines I need to reinstate.  The pressure to get back to organizing has been building again, so I also want to get to work on that.

I also have a doll restringing workshop coming up at the museum's Fall Show in less than four weeks, so I need to finish getting everything together for that.

My goals for the week may be overly ambitious, but I have a lot I want to get done.  We'll see how I do:

1. Get back into a routine of writing every day
2. Work on dolls and doll stuff
3. Work on organizing and cleaning

It looks like a simple list, but actually there's quite a lot I need to do.  It'll be a full week.

Weekly Goals, Week 32: Recovery Time

Well, last week didn't go as planned.  It started out fine, and then took a dive as first my husband, and then I came down with covid.

I was hoping to recover faster, but I was on the couch full-time through Tuesday.  I got a lot of reading done, which was at least enjoyable and a benefit to being sick.  I'd hoped to get a little writing done too but I had too much of a brain fog for that.

Yesterday was my first day without cold medicine and I was feeling a lot better, but I also wasn't fully back to 100 percent yet, as I found when I crashed in the evening.  Today I have a more normal day planned, most catching up on some tidying and organization that didn't get done while I was sick.  Tomorrow will be my big cleaning day, as I want to do laundry and clean the house properly to get rid of all traces of being sick.

I'm not going to make much of my goals this week, since the week is almost over and I fully expect cleanup and recovery from being sick to take up the rest of it.  I do have one goal, though:

1. Get back to work on my novel

I didn't work on it when I was sick, but I do want to get back into the habit of writing daily again, as that has fell by the wayside lately, between getting sick and other various reasons.

I also have some projects I want to accomplish this weekend around the house, but those are more flexible, as I don't know yet how I'll be feeling physically.

Hopefully everything will be back to normal next week!