Last week was kind of a bust. I made no progress at all.
But I am making up for it this week, and I feel like all of the things I’ve been working on are falling into place. I’ll get to the specifics in a minute, but in general, the last few days have been really good.
So I’m starting to feel like it’s time to make some changes to this little reboot of mine.
The overall goal is the same: to get my creative life in some sort of order by the end of the year, so I can really start to move forward in 2019. And most of my specific goals are the same, too.
But it’s time to rethink that first goal on my list: Improve the quality of the art I’m consuming, in order to improve the quality of the art I’m creating. It’s still a good goal, and it needed to be here, but… I’ve done it. I’ve been doing it, fairly consistently. I can either keep saying “yep, still doing this” every week for the next two months, or I can officially check it off and add something new.
I’m gonna check it off.
And the goal I’m going to replace it with… it’s kind of a big one. (I’m not sure why I’m doing this to myself, taking the easiest one of the list and replacing it with the most difficult, but I’m feeling good about things in general right now, so why not?)
My new goal for the last few weeks of 2018: Clarify my long-term goals: in writing, photography, and in general.
If you’ve been following my reboot, you know that this has been nagging at me for a few weeks now. I’ve got vague long-term goals, and specific short- and medium-term goals, but I don’t feel like I know what I’m working toward, and so I can’t know if I those short-term goals are really moving me in the right direction. And while I’ve been thinking about it, that’s all I’ve been doing. I haven’t actually put any real work into it yet.
Right now, that’s fine—I know what I’m going to be doing for the next two months, and the work I’m doing in this reboot isn’t wasting my time—but I want to have some clear directions and plans in place going into the new year.
And if I don’t want it to be panicking about it over the holidays, it’s time to get to work.
Now. Let’s get to the specifics.
Find a way to structure my time in order to support my bigger goals (creative and otherwise).
I don’t know if it’s NaNoWriMo or what, but I’ve been doing really well with my time-management this week. I’m still easing back into a few routines after the disaster that was last week, but I’ve got a good foundation in place. I’m still tracking my focus, energy, and motivation through the day (I think one more week of that should be enough for now), and I’ve found a time-tracking method that seems to genuinely motivate me to improve, so the pieces are starting to fall together nicely.
Develop workflows for writing and photography. And blogging.
This is still a challenge for me; I’m not sure why.
Or… no. I do know why. It’s boring. I know that I need to do this, and that when I actually have this stuff sorted out, it’ll make everything else so much easier, but right now… ugh. I don’t even want to think about it.
I’ll try to get back to work on this over the next week.
Experiment with productivity and journalling systems, and find something that works for me.
More progress!
I’m still on the fence about some of it (I’ve still got some research to do, just to see if I can implement some of my ideas without making things too difficult, and it turns out I have unexpectedly strong opinions about some of the systems that are out there), but things are starting to come together, and it’s wonderful.
Finish the work on the office.
Still taking small steps here, but they’re small steps in the right direction. I don’t think I’ll be quite ready to give you the full tour by the end of the year like I’d hoped, but I will be able to give you a sneak-peek. I can’t wait!
So, yeah: it’s been a good week, and I’m really looking forward to the next few weeks. Things are about to get interesting.
Reghan Skerry 