organising the 100 things

A few days after I wrote my list of 100 things to do in 2013 I went back over it to work out exactly how and when I'm going to do all those things.

It occurred to me that I could look at the list in several different ways.

There were lots of things that related to improving my health, and lots about getting organised and staying on top of things. There were things I could group as (for lack of a better term) sorting my head out, others about keeping records of my life, exploring my world, creating, gardening, doing stuff with my family . . . and the categories go on.

Some of the things I want to do are one-off jobs. Do them and they are crossed off the list. Others are habits I want to get into over the year and others are multi-step projects.

So I spent a bit of time this week sorting the list. Because, despite outward appearances, I like things to be in order and logically sequenced. It doesn't mean I do them. It's most likely a procrastination tool that stops me getting things done. But that's another story.

Anyway, I thought that a lot of what I want to do could be worked into a resolution (or commitment) chart, which I first came across when I read Gretchen Rubin's book The Happiness Project.

I picked out a couple of things that I wanted to start doing every day (the "habits" from the list) and have made an all new chart for 2013 in an attempt to keep on top of things. The idea is that once I've started to make the first couple of things into habits that I actually do, I'll gradually add in some more things from the list so that by the end of the year I will have all the new habits I want to develop. Or at least some of them.

It's a bit more structured than what I'm used to, especially for my personal life. But I've felt very unsettled ever since we started the moving house journey back in July, and I feel like I need some structure so that I can get back some control over my life.

And, just so this isn't an entirely photo-free post, last night I started work on my One Little Word project. I cut, I stamped, I washi taped and I bradded (if that's an actual word). I also managed to drip my stamp cleaner fluid into one of my ink pads, which I don't think is particularly good for the ink pad.

Also, this is what happens when you give your six-year-old your phone.

weekly check-in #4

Here’s my progress against my commitments for last week:

Clear the bench top: 7/7

Drink enough water: 6/7

Go to bed before 11pm: 4/7

Be up and dressed by 7am (8am on weekends): 4/7

Where I’m falling down is bedtime and getting up on weekends (and my day off). I’m going to try and improve on that by turning off my computer by 10.30 pm so that I don’t get distracted and stay up too late, although this weekend I was caught up in scrapbooking rather than the virtual world.

I’m keeping the same commitments this week. My new one – as alluded to last Monday – is making sure my desk is tidy at the end of the day, and my dining table is cleared off before I go to bed, instead of being a dumping ground for all my paperwork.

My other new commitment is to cut down on my coffee consumption, so I won't be having any coffee after the one I have at 2.00 pm.

P365 - Day 171 the clean desk policy (um, what?)

This is the sight that greeted me when I walked into work this morning.

Just as I left it on Friday afternoon. 

Two projects in progress scattered around, a letter I was supposed to have started last week, left over papers from something I finished a couple of weeks ago.

It’s really a bit of a mess (you don’t say). It’s actually worse than in the picture because the mess extends on both sides to the edges of the desk (and the drawer unit on the left hand side). The only thing that’s constraining the mess on the right hand side is the partition.

A long time ago, in another job in another town, I participated in a program called the Personal Efficiency Program. (I know what you’re thinking . . . ) Some of that program has stuck in my mind, and one of its principles was that you only have on your desk whatever you’re working on at the time. You keep things you reference regularly in easy reach and the rest of the stuff should be out of the way, off your desk.

The idea always sounded good to me, but I’ve never managed to stick to doing it. I tend just to leave things where they are because chances are I’ll need them in the next day or so and if I put them away I might forget about them.

The PEP has lots of other tools so that you don’t forget things that aren’t immediately in front of you, but that’s all about time management.

I don’t have the luxury of a lot of off the desk storage, which is a bit of a limiting factor, but I do have those handy desktop step file holders so I can at least keep things in manilla folders, labelled and still visible. But even so, I still have trouble storing things in them. It’s just easier to dump them on the desk.

So the first thing I did this morning when I got in to work (after getting my coffee), was to put everything back into its folder, put the folders into the desk file and throw out all the stuff I didn’t need any more.

It felt good and I had a productive day.

Unfortunately by the end of the day, my desk looked similar to the way it looked this morning – although the things I put away that I hadn’t used today were still in their handy storage spot, so there wasn’t quite as much mess.

But it got me thinking that if I have a commitment at home to tidy my kitchen surfaces at the end of the day, so that I don’t feel so overwhelmed at the start of each day, maybe I should try the same thing at work.

It’s worth considering.

Weekly check-in #3

I didn't forget to do my weekly check-in last night. I just ran out of time to do it before I went to bed at 11.00.

So here's my progress against my commitments for last week:

Clear the bench top: 6/6 (Thursday didn't count - I wasn't home)
Drink enough water: 4/7
Go to bed before 11pm: 3/6 (Thursday didn't count, it was a special occasion)
Be up and dressed by 7am: 2/7

OK, so a bit more dedication is required here and, in hindsight, the 7am get up on an extended long weekend in the middle of winter probably wasn't the best plan.

So I'm keeping the same commitments this week and not adding any new ones yet. I hope I'll do better.

the star chart (and weekly check-in #2)

Let’s talk about resolutions.

Well, actually, since this is my blog (and my weekly check-in) I’m going to talk about my resolutions.

Or, more accurately, my commitments. I decided to call my resolutions ‘commitments’, because to me ‘resolution’ conjures up something you come up with for New Year and, more often than not, fail to keep. I know – the two words are most likely interchangeable and I’m just playing with semantics here, but if I’m going to be more likely to stick to a commitment than a resolution, then I’m using that word.

But first, a recap of what I’m talking about.

In January I wrote about resolutions in the context of The Happiness Project. Basically what Gretchen Rubin did in an attempt to make progress towards reaching her goals was to make resolutions related to those goals that were ‘concrete and measurable’. She then made up a chart to record those resolutions and included space for each day, where she would tick the box if she’d fulfilled the resolution and cross it if she hadn’t. (The Happiness Project, page 8.)

The idea behind this is that if you put the chart somewhere you can see it, you’ll be reminded of what you’ve set out to do, and if you record your progress, this provides a degree of accountability and encourages you to keep going.

For her Happiness Project, Ms Rubin selected a different subject for each month (such as ‘work’, ‘money’, ‘friendships’) and then set herself specific, realistic tasks related to those subjects, which at the end of each day she could assess whether or not she had done.

Each month she added the new month’s resolution’s to the previous ones, so that by the 12^th month, her intention was to be keeping all of her resolutions every day.

So, having explained all that, it's back to me.

A couple of weeks ago I posted how my first commitment was going to be to make sure my kitchen benchtop was clean every evening and that all the washing up was done and put away. 

It’s a fairly simple task, but it’s something that, by the time we’d done everything else we had to do once we got home – especially on the days when we pretty much got home and went straight into dinner – I was often in a state where I couldn’t be bothered to finish. I’d do the washing up and leave it in the drainer, I’d leave things on the bench that I wasn’t sure when I’d be needing next and I’d leave the stove to be cleaned until I next needed to use it.

The result was being greeted by an untidy kitchen first thing in the morning, which set me up for being in, well, an untidy mood for the rest of the day.

So I decided to start to make a bit more of an effort, and to make sure that I did, I made my own version of Ms Rubin’s resolution chart. It looks a lot like Juniordwarf’s star chart for the little tasks we were having trouble getting him to do, and is going to need some resizing pretty soon, once the number of commitments gets much bigger.

Yep it's probably a little bit childish, but there is a certain satisfaction in doing something I said I'd do, and seeing my chart fill up with stamps. Juniordwarf is quite amused by it all too. But if it works, then I'm not complaining.

Last week was my first full week trying to fulfil this commitment, and this week was my second. My first weekly check-in was here, and I committed to coming back every Sunday night and reporting on my progress, in an attempt to hold myself accountable. By that I mean I hope I’m less likely to give up if I’ve made a public commitment to doing this stuff (even if only one person reads it).

Ok, I can’t put it off any longer . . . time to report.

Kitchen bench: 7/7 stars.

Bed by 11pm: 3/6 stars (I can’t count tonight, since I haven’t gone to bed yet).

Drink enough water: 7/7 stars.

Next week’s new commitments

This is going to be tough. The commitment is to get up and dressed by 7 am every day.

Not difficult on a work day because I get up well before then. But on weekends and on my day with Juniordwarf, I tend to lounge around for a long time before I get dressed, I don’t actually do anything during that time and I waste a lot of the day. I’m hoping that the act of getting myself ready for the day will move my mind into an action frame of mind, rather than a sloth one.

Also, if I have to get up earlier, this might help me stick to the 11 pm bed time, which I did well at the start of the week, but lost it at the end of the week.

Maybe I should make it 8 am on a Sunday though.

Weekly Check-in #1

Remember my post a couple of weeks ago in which I made a commitment to myself to wash up and clear off my kitchen bench every night?

Well, it's not much good making that sort of commitment unless I have a way to keep myself honest, so I made myself a version of a star chart to keep track of whether I've actually been doing what I said I would.

And to keep myself more honest, because I made a public commitment to doing this, I've decided to have a weekly check-in post every Sunday night so I can celebrate my success (or admit my not-quite-success).

So, where am I up to?

Week 1: 5/5 possible stars. A good start.
Week 2: 4/7 possible stars. I didn't quite get there.

Next week's commitments
1. The kitchen task remains.
2. I will be in bed by 11.00 every night.

The reason for making this commitment is that I simply am not getting enough sleep. I'm run down and sick all the time and I need to rest. So I'll see if this makes a difference.

I'll be back next Sunday night to report on my progress.