The No Excuses Project: Making time for important people

Good friends and family members can be both the worst hindrance to a new endeavor and the best support. And what a great excuse if you want to avoid doing that scary thing like write a business plan. Picking up the phone for a minute  can quickly turn into an hour with a sibling.

So how to find and keep the happy medium? First off, let the phone go to voicemail if you’re in the middle of something. Return the call the same day if at all possible but when you’re done with the task at hand.

Second make appointments on your calendar to check in with the friends that you don’t see on a weekly basis – doesn’t have to be much; a phone call or email. Time can slip by when you’re busy and suddenly five months have gone by since you chatted – that’s no way to preserve a friendship

Lastly, let go of the guilt if your mother thinks she doesn’t see you often enough (or grandmother, or whomever) If you’re honestly making time on a regular basis, just treat it as a compliment and let go.

Next week: getting travel into the mix

Holding Myself Accountable

So here’s how things are going

Gardening – still going according to plan and the spinach is up

Photography -moving along and picture taking continues

Jewelry – baby steps but progress is being made

Losing weight – more exercise is happening but not enough

Treasure hunting – budget is growing and plans for the next weekend

Chores – settling into the new routine

Romance – breaking some old bad mental habits and it feels good!

Technorati Tags: family relationships, time management

The No Excuses Project: Important relationships

While relationships can also serve as an excuse “can’t make those calls – need to take Mom to lunch” too often they are the victim of having too many other things to do. Relationships can also be a goal unto themselves – those more strained that you feel the need to improve.  But what about the ones with friends and family that are just fine but which you manage to neglect rather than avoid?

I know I’m guilty of looking up from everything else and realizing that I haven’t seen a particular friend for two months or that maybe it’s been a bit longer than I thought since I reciprocated on family stuff. It’s neither conscious nor deliberate but “I’ll do it later” or “I don’t have time” still slip in there.  All the other goals are going to lose quite a bit of meaning if these folks aren’t there with you when you achieve them.  Delayed gratification has some merit but not when it comes to people. Relationships like so many other things are about process not the end result.

Next week – some thoughts on carving out time for the really important people

Holding myself accountable

• The garden – still going strong despite the appearance of the first mosquito
• Photography – an unexpected request for more information that took up the allotted time but that’s acceptable
• Losing weight – renewed focus after a frustrating shopping trip, doing better with exercise and not picking up the office treats
• Jewelry – ok – this one is a miss for the week
• Romance -doing ok on the plan to get out more
• Treasure hunting – also ok – nothing due this week!

Technorati Tags: balance, excuses, family relationships

The No Excuses Project: Chores still need to get done

There’s nothing glamorous about taking out the garbage or loading the dishwasher. It’s even hard to relate that to making that trip to Italy happen or retiring to Baja. But. not getting them done, at least the basics, does keep you from achieving those goals. Partly because the rest of your life doesn’t flow as smoothly and partly because the guilty part distracts you from those projects every time you walk by the dishes on the counter or that pile of unironed laundry.

I’m as guilty as most of putting these things off with an easy excuse until they grow overwhelming and turn into a project of their own. In the past, it’s worked to assign a chore to each day of the week instead of doing everything on the weekend. That won’t work with my current schedule so well so I have another approach. Simply finish what I start – if I run the dishwasher that means putting everything away when it’s done, laundry gets done, folded, ironed and put away the same day adn so forth.

That may seem simple but it’s a committment none the less and designed to root out the ‘I’ll do it tomorrow when I’m not so tired.’ If you’ve never ever said that then I’m pretty sure you can ignore this entirely!

Next week: Keeping up relationships with family and friends

Holding Myself Accountable

First off, I made myself a chore chart – not that different from the one when I was six that resulted in a trip to the toy store when I got enough stars.  Most of life relates to when we were six.  This one I did in Excel but this way I’ve got a single point of reminders of what I’ve committed to.

• Gardening: This one is going smoothly; hanging baskets planted and everything fertilized
• Losing weight: funny how that chore chart made me hit the treadmill immediately – all in all, better
• Photography: next set of pictures selected for the book
• Jewelry: working on improving some techniques, a little low on the marketing efforts
• Romance: well, I’ve enlisted someone else to keep their eyes open so I guess that’s a start.
• Treasure hunting – found a new hunting buddy so that may help get me out there a bit more…

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, common excuses

The No Excuses Project: everyday chores

I am not a neat freak nor is that required to achieve grand things in life. But if you, like me, periodically stare at a stack of dishes that could have, should have, made it into the dishwasher the night before it’s worth considering how much time and energy goes into repeating “I need to get to that”.

From dishes to running to the post office, chores are inevitable and shouldn’t always take priority but… neither should the excuses run rampant. It seems to me that the excuses around chores are some of the most insidious because they’re some of the most well-practiced – starting in early childhood:

• I’m too tired (the all time classic)
• I have too many other projects
• It’s too big
• I’m not in the mood
• Nobody will notice
• I don’t have the right equipment/supplies
• I’ll do it tomorrow

If those sound familiar or you know you literally pout while taking out the garbage then excuses are holding more power than they should.

Next week:  getting the chores under control

Holding Myself Accountable

Gardening – the plan is still working…

Photography – time to pick up the camera again

Jewelry – a bit behind but committed to new designs this week

Treasure hunting – I made it to the beach and found a giant iron stake (I’m very good at finding those…)

Losing weight – well, doing better on the exercise

Romance – hmmm, might be avoiding this one just a little but not completely

Technorati Tags: common excuses, getting organized

The No Excuses Project: Keeping jewelry design in the loop

It would be nice to think that eliminating all the excuses would somehow cause the day to double in length – wouldn’t that be an incentive?  But it doesn’t seem to work that way.  So here I am trying to turn sea glass jewelry into an active business and finding everything else getting in the way, including the excuses.

The first thing I’ve done is make sure I’ve got the essential supplies (the ones that would actually stop me in my tracks) restocked before I run out. I’ve listened to the feedback I’ve gotten and incorporated that into the plan as well.

The rest of it is execution and marketing. So my plan is to do at least one thing in each area every week. One marketing action, one production action. The real question is is that enough?  There certainly may be times when I need to do more but that will become deadline driven. My weakness is losing momentum during the slow periods when there is no immediate deadline or it is far enough away to feel that way. That’s when the excuses really take hold.

Realistically things are getting to the point where I can’t keep track of them mentally – do this once a week and that every other week.  I’m thinking it’s about time for a chart with some gold stars to help make this happen!

Holding Myself Accountable

• Gardening – sticking with the new plan; it seems to be going well
• Photography – basically good; no new pictures this week but high marks on marketing
• Exercise – not so good; clearly I need to reinforce the priority
• Romance – making progress; time to make some changes to old habits and ways of doing things
• Treasure hunting – plans to go out next weekend  so on target for now

Technorati Tags: excuses

The No Excuses Project: The jewelry career

Maybe you are also one of the people that needs multiple interests going to be happy.  Jewelry design is my second career passion joining photography. I could wish investment banking were a passion instead of ‘artistic’ pursuits but maybe that will come in due time.  For now figuring out how to juggle everything without letting the excuses get the upper hand is critical.

Excuses I’ve used here are legion:

• I’ll do it tomorrow (when the garage will be less dark and cold)
• I don’t know what to do (how do you market something no one has seen before?)
• It will take a long time (compliments do not pay the mortgage)
• I don’t have the right equipment (actually this can be true, the secret is drawing the line between need and want)
• I don’t have any experience (I didn’t go to school for this…)
• I’ll lose interest before it’s profitable (ok, it hasn’t happened yet but surely there’s a limit to the designs I can come up with)
• It’s too big (there’s the making and the marketing and the selling and so on)
• It’s not my nature (how come teenagers can pay for college with just glass beads?)

Have you noticed that the more important the goal the more excuses it generates?  It takes work and patience to peel back the layers.

Next week: getting jewelry made, no matter what

Holding Myself Accountable

An interesting week overall – here’s the summary:

Losing weight: ok, not as much exercise but a doctor visit that revealed low iron levels; sometimes it’s not the excuse that keeps you down.

Photography: Really taking action!  an exhibit call, a new gallery proposal, and a charity event

Gardening: I like the new plan – vegetable garden is turned over, everything is fertilized and Spring is here.

True Love: I’m a little stuck – still working on my thought process and planning to do some re-reading for inspiration and the next step.

Treasure Hunting: I’ve got the tide tables for the whole year printed out and highlighted for weekends with low tides – it’s an at a glance plan for the weekend.

Technorati Tags: achieving dreams, common excuses

The No Excuses Project: Finding time for hobbies

It’s harder than you might think to figure out how to carve out some time from what’s available when there are already so many competing ‘more important’ goals.  But balance is the number one goal and all things stem from that.

I spent some time really thinking about this one -how to fit in treasure hunting which by it’s very nature is out doors and not that close to home.  I’ve looked into local clubs but quite frankly what’s available nearby doesn’t excite me that much (mostly fossils and yellow agates.)  So here’s my plan:

1) set aside $50 a month towards a fund for gem hunting trips (turquoise in Arizona, tourmaline in California, etc.)

2) explore some historic mining areas nearby to see what’s accessible and on public land – at least plan some hikes around that to see what’s there.

3) Layout the tide tables against the weekends so that if the weather is tolerable and the tides are favorable I can grab the metal detector and go – at least once every two months.

It’s a plan which is more than I had before and I think with something like a hobby that’s what it takes.

Next week: the jewelry making side of my career

Holding myself accountable

• Photography – far fewer excuses! Taking more pictures, better pictures and pursuing more opportunities to profit from them.
• Losing weight – well, there’s way too much chocolate and cookies within reaching distance at work and I keep reaching for it.  Otherwise basically okay although it’s probably time to step it up a notch.
• The garden – the plan here is also working well – not feeling guilty for not getting to everything that needs doing all at once.
• Romance – I think my thinking is beginning to shift although I can’t really describe how; continuing to work on how I think about things, before I rethink what to ‘do’ about it.

Technorati Tags: excuses, time management

The No Excuses Project: Making time for treasure hunting

Hobbies are important – basically having something in your life that you judge by how much you enjoy doing it and not where it takes you. But for those of us with pressing goals they can be the first thing that goes by the wayside.  The excuses just help it stay there because most everyone still wants to see improvement in themselves – play a better round of golf, knit a more complicated pattern or hunt down an even rarer stamp.

My hobby is treasure hunting- metal detecting and gem hunting in the wild (as in still in the ground)  I’m not very good at it (an excuse to avoid practicing) but I have a blast because the potential is always there – despite the lack of Spanish galleons or pirates in my part of the world.  Treasure hunting falls into that limitless category of things I mean to get to – but the fact that the metal detector is still on it’s original set of AA batteries  doesn’t make me happy.

You might not think there would be that many excuses for something that’s not attached to a major goal. I still managed to find a few that I’ve used to avoid pursuing this hobby:

• I’m too tired (maybe I’d better save it for a day when I feel great and have nothing better to do)
• Doing this will stop me from  doing more important things
• The timing isn’t right (the tide is high, it’s raining, etc.)
• I’ll lose interest before it’s profitable (it could be years before I graduate from pennies and coat buttons)
• I don’t have any experience (I don’t know the secret places to hunt)
• It will take a long time (it’s usually at least a full day commitment)

Next week: how I plan to create some balance in my life and fit in some treasure hunting.

Holding myself accountable

A quick look at how things are going so far:

Gardening – the new schedule seems to be working; got the dahlias planted and started to clear the vegetable garden

Romance – working on owning my previous choices as having been the right ones for me at the time – nothing to apologize for, even to myself.

Photography – doing much better at just having some fun and trying new things and most importantly taking more pictures

Exercise – getting more in; but still need to do better.

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, balance, common excuses

The No Excuses Project: Making room for romance

So how am I going to going to solve this one? I’m not entirely sure. Leaving it at ‘I have no idea’ is just another excuse so I’ll keep pressing on. The experts say when you’re stuck on how to proceed to look to something you solved successfully in the past and try the same process.

I’ve read books and tried online dating without liking the results – glad it works for some but it felt too forced for me (and trust me, feeling trapped does not project well!)

It’s a stretch, but I think the mental shift I underwent between working for a non-profit and making barely enough to pay rent and making ‘good’ money in high-tech isn’t that different from what’s required here. My skills didn’t really change – I didn’t go back to school, I looked the same, and wasn’t appreciably different in any way. The difference was in my attitude about myself and how I projected that in resumes and the like. And if you think romance and business are really that far apart try writing an online profile sometime. It’s all about stressing the good points.

It’s easy to say I’ll just change my attitude; doing it is something different. If you’ve ever tried to force a mental shift you know how hard it is. So I’ve laid it out for myself in small pieces -based on what I know I did before when I didn’t have a plan ahead of time. Will that solve everything? Probably not – it should shift enough that the next steps will become more clear. Then I’ll write the book that makes it all sound self-evident and obvious!

I’m not just leaving it at mental effort though – my other action item is simply to find more events around my other goals that will get me out of my usual haunts and mixing with new people at least once every two weeks – something other than home, work, and the train.

Next week: Treasure hunting – the hobby

Holding myself accountable

I’d say I’m holding my own on gardening, photography, and exercise – the last improved over the weekend with the threat of more drastic action.

Technorati Tags: excuses, self-perception

The No Excuses Project: the goal of true love

I wanted to save this topic for last – I would really like to avoid talking about it all together. That’s how deep the excuses run! But if I’m going to be honest with myself, and by extension with you, then it’s time.

First off, I’m not whining about being single – it has it’s good points. I’ve said and still believe, that I would prefer not to be single going forward as I think I’ve explored its many aspects fairly well. I know that in many ways I’ve subconsciously marked myself as unavailable because of how I’m thinking – which is where the excuses come in. With anything involving other people I can’t, and don’t want to, control someone else or influence them through manipulation, e.g. “The Rules”. This is about making sure my attitude and my actions aren’t stopping me without worrying about a guaranteed outcome.

Here are the excuses I know I’ve used in this area – actually, I think the list of the ones I haven’t used would be shorter:

• I don’t know what to do (where should I be hanging out? etc.)
• My perception is skewed (maybe I’m not being realistic…)
• It will require too much risk
• The past still has hold of me (I don’t let go of disappointments easily)
• It has never happened before
• I have too many other projects (relationships take time and I don
• ‘t seem to have any…)
• The timing isn’t right)
• I’m too old (and stuck in my ways)
• I’m too ___ (independant,set in my ways, overweight, tall, brainy, geeky…etc.)
• I’ll compromise because I’m not confident enough to fully commit (I don’t trust myself to turn away from a relationship that is mostly good but not really good enough)

That’s the bulk of them – next week I’ll address what I plan to do to stop using them against myself.

Holding myself accountable

So how is everything else going?

Photography – things are going well. The emphasis on picking up my camera more often is making me feel more creative and I’m producing better stuff

Gardening – Mother Nature has given me a reprieve with rain. The benefit to me is that the plan removes the guilt for not doing more.

Losing weight – just ok – I’m doing fairly well with food (except for the 8 mini Hershey’s I scarfed down at work…) but exercise is still lagging at about 50% of the goal.  If I can’t get that in the groove this week I’ll revisit the plan.

Technorati Tags: excuses, relationships

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