Your computer IS your diary

My computer has been running sloooowly for quite some time and I’ve known the cause too – way too many giant image files on the hard-drive. So over the last week or so I’ve started cleaning things out (although the pictures are still there…)

I’m a little shocked at what I’ve found lurking in My Documents and sub-folders from thumb drives. All the things I’ve tried that didn’t work, the lists I’d made three or five years ago, in other words my life in digital snapshots.  It’s been a good reminder of how much I’ve learned, and how many steps I’ve taken towards my goals. Especially the ones that didn’t work out – primarily because as I deleted the file I realized that I had tried hard enough and thoroughly enough to know that I didn’t care to pursue that particular avenue further. It was done.

Now I’ve reclaimed gigabytes, ready for new adventures and projects, and a “spring clean” feel to my desktop. When was the last time you really went through your personal files, the pictures, the projects, the favorites in your browser? You might be surprised at what you find and what you make room for.

Technorati Tags: authentic happiness, getting organized

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: Moving towards a perfect garden

I’m trying to be realistic with this one – there’s only so many projects that can fill up the available free time.  The goal of the no excuses project is  to stop putting off the possible, not how to become a superhero! While a garden is very important to me, it’s not a critical component of anything else.  So here’s the new plan:

1. Relatively quick and non-muddy tasks will happen in the evenings every day that they’re needed. This would be watering, fertilizing, slug bait, etc.
2. Leaving a block of time on the weekends for everything else: weeding, pruning, transplanting and the like.  I’m not going to even try to do more than two hours here and if it rains, it can skip a week without being a problem.

That’s it – nothing fancy or grand, just a basic plan to move things along.

Holding myself accountable

So here’s where I’m at:

• Photography – some research into improving the website and the like, but did not pick up the camera this week  – I need to work on that
• Losing weight – meals are going fairly well and some exercise has happened but not what I committed to myself

All in all it’s been kind of a mediocre week and I’m striving to be more mindful.

Next week: the goal of true love and where I’m getting in my own way – since I found myself making excuses not to address this topic next, it should be interesting…

Technorati Tags: getting organized, lessons from the garden

Approaching deadlines

There’s a big gap between where I want to be in two weeks for that first craft show and where I am right now – which has had me in a bit of dither all week.  Of course, that means that solder is refusing to melt and silver is not which leads to having to start those pieces all over again!  But… I got a reminder yesterday just to breathe deep and keep going. It was pouring rain off and on all day and when I happened to glance outside from the workroom windows I spotted something bright orange (at the right) so I ran out during a brief rain break and brought it in to the kitchen.  I think it’s the seedpod to a bearded iris but I’m not entirely sure.  It was definitely a reminder to slow down a little and a very cheerful surprise.

The critical things are getting done – I’m now set up to accept credit cards at the shows. I don’t know why that seems like a big deal to me but it does – maybe it feels like the difference between a hobby and a business.  Let’s hope I get a lot of practice using it!

I’ve also found a part-time online job that should help fill a few financial holes while everything else gets established. It’s pretty much  high-school pay but the advantage is that it’s completely flexible in terms of schedule so I can fit it in without shifting my priorities.  It would be nice if everything in life could fit together without these kinds of band-aids but it never seems to work out that way.

Even with impending deadlines for jewelry I’m taking today off to get my office and computer organized- too much clutter makes me nervous when I don’t know what’s in the piles (or in box) so some concentrated effort should leave me in a creative mood for the weekend. I’m hoping to be feeling ‘in the flow’ then.

Technorati Tags: getting organized, going with the flow, Health and Happiness, solopreneur, the way to happiness

The natural order of chaos is to organize

There are days when I feel like the Queen of Starting New Things. Particularly this last year as I’ve tried to find the right entrepreneurial threads to tug.  From blogging (now up to six) to jewelry to the brief bread enterprise and so on.  I’ve filled out online profiles for contract jobs that never materialized and researched how to be an information broker. There have been times when it felt like nothing could possibly rise to the surface because there was too much floating there already.  I don’t expect this to be the last time I feel that chaos has reign in my life, either.

But about a month ago I noticed things were changing – the chaos of all those possibilities had gradually begun to sift out into three main categories: photography, jewelry, and writing.  Sure, there are some subcategories there – blogging and writing a novel are two different beasts, but at least they’re on the same family tree. And better yet, I’m happy with this trifecta; it feels right and it feels stable.  All three areas have room to grow and require different conditions to flourish – meaning I don’t get bored and there is always something that is right to be doing wherever I am.

So if the first part sounds at all familiar, take a deep breath and just start experiencing.  Let the things that don’t feel like they are moving you forward to something go.  You don’t have to know what the something is, just that there is positive movement.  Then see what categories start to emerge, you may find some very interesting patterns!

Technorati Tags: getting organized, repeating patterns

Doing instead of thinking

It’s funny how a certain message can come at you from many different sources in a short span of time. It’s a synchronicity of sorts although I find that these messages are usually telling me something I’d rather not hear.  The phrase ‘thinking isn’t doing’ has come up in a phone conversation, a book I’m reading, and a few other places this week.  I’m trying to listen!  I’ve started using the task list in Google Mail, not as a permanent solution but as a way to keep track of the myriad things I need to get done this week and next.  It’s everything from jewelry design to digging up the irises so they’re definitely not stored in the same part of the brain.

Another place this hit home was in  reading on writing – being a better and more complete story teller. I find myself feeling like I should be good at that before I start drafting my book project (it’s a delaying tactic that I recognize) but there’s only one way to improve writing skills and that’s by using them.  Luckily there are all kinds of places to put that into practice. Thinking is certainly part of the process but doing is the only way to get there.  I’ve realized that I don’t tend to describe my surroundings very much when I write and yet surely that’s a huge part of the picture, even in non-fiction writing. Of course now I’m self-conscious about it and think that if I do it now, it will seem forced! I’ll sneak some in next week:-)

On the business front I have a meeting with a gallery next week so have been busy figuring out new beach glass jewelry designs.  I have to say it’s an incredible amount of fun to slide frosty pieces of glass around the kitchen table late at night.  They’re like fat puzzle pieces; eventually a few settle out to be the perfect match and arrange themselves into a design.  While I was doing this it started to seem like brown is the underdog glass color  – most people don’t even bother picking it up on the beach.  I’m finding myself feeling like it needs a champion and keep looking for ways to make it the ‘it’ color.  I may just have found it by pairing with clear pink quartz – the one that is the color of strawberry juice.

I’m so glad to be back home and trying to get back into my routine. Although I haven’t yet found the perfect place for my Dad’s alien suspenders (I bought them for him in Roswell.) They were the topic of our last conversation and he was thrilled with how much attention they drew!  His death feels like an elevator door closing; it’s change that requires some adjusting but it also feels okay – you can only hold that elevator door for so long before alarms start going off.

It’s more of the same for the coming week – making jewelry, writing, marketing and tying up loose ends.

Technorati Tags: getting organized, Health and Happiness, solopreneur, synchronicity, taking action, the way to happiness, thinking isn't doing

Out of practice

I spent the weekend and most of Monday rounding up the things I need to go gem hunting in Oregon (sunstones). I am appalled at how long it takes me to find and assemble what I need for what is essentially a weekend camping trip.  I know what I have but is it in the basement or the garage?  Upstairs or downstairs? Should the snake bite kit (which I will NEVER need, knock on wood) go in my daypack or gear bag? This would go much faster if it hadn’t been almost a full year since I last had this stuff out.  I’m resolving to get out on a few more short adventures this year so maybe it will only take half a day to prep.

I finished up reading Julia Child’s My Life in France this week. It was an impulse buy while standing in line at Barnes & Noble; I dislike being an accurately judged marketing target by succumbing to those carefully placed browsing tables, but it had been on my reading list so I took as a sign and bought it.  I’m still trying to decide if I like the book, and/or JC.  It may be that we simply have no point of connection other than an appreciation of cats.  She barely mentioned her time in the Secret Service which I was curious about and dwelled more intently on a variety of sauces and culinary challenges. While generally I love to read rich descriptions of foreign food, I don’t think my soul is French.

A large part of my heart is pure treasure hunter – my sister and I tried gold panning for the first time as adults this weekend and are planning a trip to Florida on the off chance that we’ll be lucky enough to find some Spanish gold that’s made it’s way from the ocean floor to the beach.  It doesn’t really matter if we don’t the hunt is fun part. I guess this is my form of gambling (card games bore me) so I don’t think I’ll ever turn it into a career although I may be able to make jewelry from gem hunting or some such.  Still, it’s something I love and I need to get it more in balance with the other aspect of ‘career’ I have going on.  I’m hoping my No Excuses project has a quick and immediate impact on how I spend my time

Technorati Tags: adventure, balance, getting organized, Health and Happiness, signs, small pleasures, solopreneur, the way to happiness

Letting go of what isn’t working

I was checking out other blogs this weekend and found myself relating with some chagrin to the latest post on Zen Habits, Productivity tips for people that hate GTD.  The chagrin was due to having recently re-added my tattered copy of Getting Things Done to my to-do pile because not much of it stuck from the last time I tried to follow it.  So this article got me to thinking about all the times we use precious hours trying to get something to work for us that simply isn’t a good fit.  Morning pages don’t work for me either (see Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.)  I know they work for others, but after three months all I got was notebooks full of nothing.  I think maybe the obvious non-working things are easier to stop doing, but how often have you seen an author address the need for more time by saying “just get up a half hour earlier in the morning” as if theirs is the only advice/exercise/task you are trying to follow.  Pretty soon you’re getting up two hours earlier, and not seeing results because you are now critically deprived of sleep, which you probably were already if you’re like the majority of the population. Maybe it’s time to pursue only the things that add the most value.

As a reminder of what’s important, I have an ideal day schedule posted on the wall behind my desk.  This is simply how I would love to spend an ordinary, everyday kind of day.  What surprised me when I put my thoughts to paper is that without keeping track, everything added up to between 23 and 25 hours a day – guess my subconscious was trying to tell me something;-)

My ideal day looks like:

• 1.5 hours meditation and visualization
• 2 hours physical activity
• 2.5 hours cooking & dining
• 2 hours with family and friends
• 6 or 7 seven hours working
• 1 hour chores
• 8 hours sleep

My real day doesn’t look like this – yet. But living a life where this schedule is a normal day represents success to me, not how much gets done. I have to ask myself if GTD or other things in that to-do pile are aiding or detracting from living this ideal day? And much as I hate to admit it the answer is detracting. I think I’ll stick with the parts that stuck with me from the first time I tried it (I have a bill paying folder and a basket for stuff I need to deal with) and leave it at that.  A new pasta recipe and an after-dinner walk are going to do more to move me towards my real goals.

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, getting organized, getting things done, ideal day, letting go, routine, time management