For those tuning into this round my master goals list is here. The list of everyone participating in this round is here. AFTER ACTION REVIEW
Slow and steady week. I sat down and got all of the Amazon reviews done at once. Wednesday was particularly slow, but with some dedication I was able to get almost everything done that was supposed to get done that day as well. Tuesday's exercise was an extra lot of weeding, which made me not interested in going on a walk, so I counted it as half done. I did listen to some of the Masterclass. I've been treating myself to the Neil Gaiman class, one of the main reasons I signed up for Masterclass in the first place. I had been saving it for a special occasion and this is definitely the right time for the pick-me-up! The material hasn't been anything earthshaking in terms of writing, but the way it's presented is both soothing and beautiful. Lastly are the 2 days without me writing outlines. Mostly I simply didn't sit down to write. I've been playing a bit of Final Fantasy 7 and went to do that instead. If I'm on top of it I'll catch up this weekend. If I don't catch up by next check in then I'll forgive myself and start next week fresh. These are trying times and maybe I need the distraction of a fun game to get the creative juices flowing! Oh, and I had scheduled a reminder to myself to submit to a quarterly magazine, so I did that too! Far ahead of the plan for that one! MINIGOALS Progress on Masterclass Next step for basement project 1 Activism Activity 1 Scheduled Blog Post Finish current book Start horror book
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For those tuning into this round my master goals list is here. The list of everyone participating in this round is here. My anxiety was pretty high by the end of the week due to having high expectations and not succeeding in those results, particularly at work. Also getting pulled in many different directions while trying to get some new routine stuff off the ground, again at work. Saturday was supposed to be completely off time to relax, but I ended up getting everything done expect for the weeding anyways. I think that's a side effect of my anxiety being high. Sometimes it seems like the natural thing to take a break, but the brain only sees the end of the light as getting stuff done.
AFTER ACTION REVIEW Other than my anxiety being high I got a lot done including all of my minigoals. The basement project got the next step done, and if I keep at it will certainly be done by the end of the month. I read three books about writing and advertising. It felt like Goldilocks with the first book being not worthwhile, the second being ok, and the third being excellent and full of useful information. Next up is a physical TBR pile book. Lastly, some might notice that at home composting is yellow. I've been coming to a standstill on recycling research/actions. A lot of that has to do with the fact that I can't leave my house to take actions, so it's all research and there isn't a ton that has new information after researching twice a week for three months. (Short of me looking at recycling research papers or some of the more advanced work.) So I decided to research on composting, and that ended up with me purchasing a specific composing item that specializes in taking all food waste and degrading it into nothing. This seemed ideal since I don't have a place to put soil (I'm simply not a farmer, I've tried.) and it doesn't take any maintenance. I just put things in they disappear. The order will take a while to arrive, but it'll certainly get installed by May, so no rush. MINIGOALS First off is keep up with Masterclass listening and basement project work. I don't want to add it to the weekly schedule, but at least one session of each before the next checkin. Second, I'd like to get all of the Amazon reviews done this week. I haven't bought anything new from them lately, but I certainly have a backlog that I'm willing to workthrough. Lastly, keep up the reading momentum! For those tuning into this round my master goals list is here. The list of everyone participating in this round is here. Hello everyone, what are you doing to adapt to the many life changes that have been affecting us lately?
My goals are similar to last rounds with a couple canceled due to lack of interest, and others were canceled due to lack of ability to do them with the current circumstance. I decided to limit my predictions of what monthly goals 'should' be done this quarter since there's new life changing information every week, if not every day. I'm keeping it loose and giving myself as much flexibility as I can, while still getting things done! Over the break I played a lot of Animal Crossing and watched Tiger King with the SO. Both were fun in completely different ways. I also made major progress already on the weeding and other hometending fronts that I don't normally list here. (Such as my yearly washing of the windows half of which are already done for the year months earlier than usual.) AFTER ACTION REVIEW You'll notice that exercise is all green. I lowered my goal for quarantine to 4k a day which is the same as one long dog walk. I was trying for two walks a day, but going out an extra time per day was stressing me out, which is exactly what I don't need right now. So I listened to myself and changed it. I think getting out of the house and getting some exercise is important for both me and the puppers so I have been making it more of a priority than I sometimes do. Weeding and outlining are my monthly goals. I decided that I would pace them out by making them daily goals. For the weeding I'm being flexible, what gets done depends on the weather or what makes sense for me to do next. I took the chainsaw to some bushes yesterday until the chain became unseated. Tomorrow will be rain, so my 'weeding' might be fixing the chainsaw instead. That's ok, it's progress on that front which is the point! Posting FB posts is a lot easier and faster now that I have a backlog of about 100 pictures ready to post. I've considered posting/scheduling more of them, but I don't want to extend the goalpost just because I found a better way to do something. Particularly when it's not something I enjoy doing. Lastly I had put the CSA on here as a longer term goal that I've been considering for a while. But I looked in our freezer this weekend and there's finally enough room (I haven't been grocery shopping in over a month now) so I made the decision and put in an order for a local farm that has completely grass fed everything, and it's delivered! For now it's a one time order, but if we like what we get then do a monthly subscription. Veggie wise I know a local farm that's doing preorder with pickup close by (ok the farm is also close by, I could probably go straight there!) so I'm going to do that. We aren't the best at finding new recipes for untried veg, so going with mostly stuff we know and trying one new item a week is best, and less wasteful, for us. MINIGOALS First is finishing any of the books that I've been in the middle of for a while now. I've been enjoying all of them but have been playing more Animal Crossing or simply don't want to sit more when I'm doing so much sitting while working from home. Second is finishing editing a piece of flash fiction and send it out. It's due Friday and I already have a draft written. Considering how short the piece is this should be doable. Third is working on the basement projects. I have two what I would consider full projects brought upstairs to the crafting table to work on for now. I also have two half projects which are things that are either almost done, or don't have an item when completed. (For example I found a bag of old paperwork that needs to get gone through in the basement. That's not a crafting project, but it's something that should get done.) Lastly, I have two blog posts that I have outlined in my head but haven't written out yet which I'd like to work on soon. They've been in my queue for months now and they need to go! There is so much to see, hear, and explore when traveling. Each place has its own culture and history, which gets built into the towns and cities of the area. Yet through all of the differences between where I live and where I've been, there are still similarities. That's where my inspiration lies.
No matter where you are there are tales of people falling in love, betraying each other, wars that were fought, and all of the human interactions in-between. Even though that group of people lived in a land 100s of miles away, across an ocean, and stayed therefore 100s of years to grow their own culture, we're still fundamentally human. Our emotions, the things that are at the forefront of the books that we write and the art that we create, are universal throughout. A piece of music made here could make someone on the other half of the world cry in sadness, or joy. The travel is all about seeing how different other people live and how differently they were influenced by their culture. The inspiration is the fact that despite the fact that they are so different they are also so much the same. We can connect with people at the same level through art no matter how far they are. And that's beautiful. I have a German Shepherd whom I give peanut butter as a treat. I have also seen a couple infographics online about checking for a newly added chemical, xylitol, that is in peanut butter. For a while I checked every jar we got, but none had it. Was this a regional change? A chemical addition for a particular country?
I've done the research so you don't have to! First, what is xylitol? It's a natural sweetener often found in chewing gum. It's find for human consumption and can lead to major issues if dogs ingest too much of it. Secondly, which common peanut butter's are safe? The usual US brands such as Jif, Skippy, Peter Pan, and Planters are completely fine. Third, which peanut butter's are dangerous? Many peanut butters that advertise themselves as having more protein, less sugar, and less fat. Many website list five peanut butter brands that have xylitol (most advertising to body builders), but since this became a hot topic many have removed the xylitol or removed the product completely. The only one I could confirm at this time is Nuts'n More. If you're worried that your dog has digested xylitol please go to this Animal Hospital page to determine the best course of action. If everything was perfect then everyone would be able to do everything that they said they were going to when they said it would get done. The world isn't perfect so there's always an be and flow from the different parts of our lives and how much time they take up.
This is the key, noticing when one part of one's life is taking up too many resources and scaling back in other areas. What is the best way to do that? Listening to yourself. Meditate for a couple minutes at the end of the day and ask yourself what's been taking most of your time and energy. Is there a way that you can have it take less energy or a way to make sure you have more energy to put towards it if it comes up again the day after? As someone who really thinks best through writing I also highly recommend journaling. Perhaps something more structured such as an after-action review, which I do every ROW80 checkin on my blog. I do it because it works. If there's been no progress on a goal for one or two checkins then something needs to change, I need to try something new. Perhaps I need to lessen the goal. Perhaps I need to focus on a different goal that's easier for me to do when under the circumstances that are in front of me. When you set your goals you can't predict what's going to be in the way, but you can predict that something else will be coming up. pace yourself to finish early, so that you have the space if you can't do much of any writing for a week or such. The key is to budget in a 20% buffer into your goal/plan to finish said goal. For example, your original goal is to read 52 books, or one book a week for a year. You can adjust the goal by 20%, or 10 books. Therefore your new goal is 42 books, which allows for a couple weeks where the goal doesn't get accomplished. Alternatively you could adjust the due date by 20%. In the first case the end date was the end of the year. 20% of that would be 72 days, which I would personally round to two months. Therefore the goal would be to finish 52 books by November 1st, and if you end up needing some extra time then you have it. Having this extra time built into goals can really help you stay on track, even when a major world changing event such as COVID-19 changes everything. Also remember it's ok to stop and reassess your goals at any time. Life is for living, not being stressed about not succeeding in self-imposed goals! (That's just as much for future me as for you!) Welcome to round 2 of round of words 2020! This time staring these goals: The weekly goals are almost completely the same.
The monthly goals are reordered to be in the order I expect to complete them. The hope is that more green will encourage more green on the chart! I did change the upcycling projects to general basement projects. I found the previous title to be quite limiting. Yet, there are a lot of crafting materials in the basement that need to get used, so a project that uses any of them and doesn't involve buying something new is a win. This will also help make this goal more reasonable in this time of quarantining, when I really shouldn't be asking people for spare materials. For the out of 13 section I took off Google Map Reviews. For one I've already doubled the amount I intended for the year. For two I'm not going anywhere new with the quarantine in place. I might add it back in for round 3, we'll see. I also took out the Wiki updates. I did a few but found them to be unfulfilling. I think I was hoping to find pages that needed work throughout my natural use of the internet, but that didn't happen. Instead it felt like an unrewarding chore that wasn't helping anyone. So I took it off and it won't be coming back. To the right of that is a little counter for which kinds of books I read this round. I read a lot of books last round, more than I've done in many years actually, but few were in the categories that I intended. (I mean, I was having fun with it which is totally fine. But now some more visibility/accountability!) I've gotten much better about not finishing books I don't like, so I think it shouldn't be too hard to at least try reading three from each of those categories. Lastly the new monthly goals. Because of how the world is right now I've left May and June open to allow for change. April is about home tending, since I know most of it will be at home, and prepping for writing in November. A number of the previous month goals have been postponed for the foreseeable future. We'll see how everything works out, they might end up back on this list later. For those tuning into this round my master goals list is here. The list of everyone participating in this round is here. END OF THE ROUND REVIEW
I like a lot of my new daily goals, but by the end of the three months I was really missing having more intense short term comparable goals. Still, the theme was to align with myself and how I feel about these new habits and that has been accomplished. The other part of this was to take a cooling off period of up to a year to unfocus, and look at the bigger picture, to see what opportunities I would like to pursue next. This has also been up to a good start. There are absolutely items that I thought I would be more interested in, that didn't work out that way once I was able to focus on them. And some others that I enjoyed but either wasn't able to focus on, or didn't have the correct resources to do yet. As such, I'll be taking some of these goals off for the next quarter, and I'll be limiting the monthly goals to three per month, since that's what seems to be reasonably achievable. MINIGOALS Mostly I need the time off! Probably it'll end up with me playing a lot of Animal Crossing and maybe crafting, or reading those books I've had out of the library for weeks now. I'm playing it by ear, and listening to what feels right! I've done NaNo for nine years now and have that many finished novel first drafts. That being said it's been extremely hard to take these drafts and turn them into final drafts.
For a long time I thought that it was because I had no idea how to edit, or because I was simply inexperienced with editing and therefore couldn't do it quickly or for a piece this big. But after doing NaNo 2018 where I had a completely outline and character studies for my two main characters and sketches of the main rooms that the story took place in, well it flew. The whole writing process was smoother and overall more enjoyable. Furthermore the editing felt like a breeze and was actually enjoyable, because I could see how to take what I had and make it into what I wanted. I didn't do a proper after action plan analysis of that though. I didn't think, "Oh I should make sure to have a fully fleshed out story before NaNo." I often fluctuate between pantser and plotter and that year just happened to be a plotting year, no worries. But then 2019 rolled around with my mild outline, no character studies, and no location sketches. I wrote hard for the first week, getting at least 2k every day knowing to keep the momentum up. Then I hit the wall, hard. While that wall is often a part of week two blues it was also majorly influence by the fact that my outline said, "write 10k about a journey through a fantasy setting until she finds the magic eaters." What was I supposed to do with that, past self!? Eventually I talked it out with many writer friends and my SO, and I realized what I wanted to do with that section. But it's going to take a lot of work to thread that into the sections I already wrote. That all being said, my new approach is my 2018 approach. I'm going to have a full outline for NaNo 2020 with an index card for each scene. I'll be writing it for Camp April this year, in less than a week! It's exciting to have a new creative project to work on and that this outline will help make my future writing and editing endeavors that much more fun! For those tuning into this round my master goals list is here. The list of everyone participating in this round is here. AFTER ACTION REVIEW:
The rest of the week was focused on a report out for a major project for work. The report out went well, but it was definitely stressful. As such, when I got home on Friday I started to play Animal Crossing and didn't stop playing until a couple hours ago! It was exactly the low brain power no stress game I needed this weekend. Today I was feeling more up to other tasks. So I did laundry, loaded/started the dishwasher, then vacuumed the whole house twice before cleaning the vacuum itself. I also cleaned the air filter fan for good measure. The air quality in this house will be so good after this! Once I got around to starting my computer for the first time this weekend I ended up finishing up a lot of the rest of my online tasks. Last notes; I've been enjoying the Masterclass I'm currently listening to by R L Stine, though I'm not sure if I'll finish it in time or not. (This one I'm sure I'll finish eventually!) No new books got finished this week, but I'm well ahead of the goal on this one so I'm not at all worried about it. I also just started the third book in a series I quite like, so I'm sure that'll get done in the next few days too. MINIGOALS: Finish out what I can, and mentally prepare to forgive myself for not finishing the rest. My job is essential so I'm still working a full 40 hours, though some is from home. Thus I'm not sure what time I'll have to dedicate to finishing these goals. My main focus is not burning myself out, and after that to do what I can when I can. |
Project Progress
100 Squats per Day
21%
Read 52 Books
100%
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