planning

February? Ok, sure.

I’ve been seeing a lot of jokes on Facebook lately about how long January felt. I don’t usually find January that long. It’s February that gets me.

But I’m determined that that’s not going to be the case this year.

Usually, I find it February somehow takes forever and I end up dumped into barge without feeling like I did anything during the month before.

January actually felt pretty good. I had just a few specific projects to do – which always helps. The timing of those projects was dictated by somebody else but I was glad that I recognized that the scale and scope of those projects meant that I wouldn’t be able to take on anything else.

I need to practice that a bit more for myself, I think.

There’s no reason why I can’t choose my number of projects, choose their scope, and choose their timing.

I just need to convince my ADHD brain that those decisions makes sense.

Let’s see how that goes.

Oh! Here’s my blog

Well, it looks like I got out of the habit of writing in here again.

I’ve been doing a lot of writing in other places, but kind of lost track of the fact that I like to write in here.

So here are a few scattered thoughts that I’m putting down in one place to get myself started.

1) Yesterday, I spent a lot of the day writing and I really enjoyed being in that focussed headspace. I need to create more room in my schedule for more focussed time like that. I want to do a lot more writing.

Despite the fact that I know that the more I write, the easier is to write, I always forget that when I’m trying to get started.

And I am going to put that re-realization into practice and put more posts on my professional blog.

2) On to something else, I attended a rehearsal last night for a show that I’m in on Thursday and it was really exciting to be around a different group of creative people.

A lot of these performers are comedians, and it was interesting to see their take on the same issues that storytellers face and to hear their vocabulary around how to re-shape something to make it closer to what you want.

It just reminds me of how much I enjoy getting different types of creative people together to work on things or to give each other information. It’s something I’m planning to do a lot more throughout 2025 and beyond.

3) I’ve also been feeling drawn to making more zines lately and I’m going to actually put that practice into action starting today.

By the end of the day, I’m going to have a series of ideas sketched out for my first zine of this year

Sticking with a plan?

I often have trouble sticking with plans I made for getting my work done.

Either I underestimate the work involved, I forget about travel time, or I make some similar error and get on my own nerves.

Oh, and sometimes I plan for a regular day just when I have a bunch of unusual days coming up in a row.

Yesterday, I made a place for an ordinary day today but I had to pick up my car, go to the supermarket, and head to an appointment by 9:30.

That’s not an ordinary day so I couldn’t use my plan for an ordinary start.

Luckily, I have gotten past the point where I think that means I have failed. And I have stopped abandoning the whole plan when one thing goes wrong.

I still have a little trouble deciding how to change the original plan to match my reality though.

I guess these things just take time. 😉

Pacing myself

So, after thinking my way through how to have fun in the meantime while I’m working on longer projects, I ended up getting way more done yesterday than I would have predicted.

Several of the yard work projects I thought would take a long time actually could be completed fairly quickly even though I was working on them in bits and pieces and taking plenty of breaks.

I did lots of reading and thinking and relaxing yesterday in between short work sessions tidying up the yard and the house and I felt really good about it.

BUT

Once again, I forgot that today comes after yesterday.

After an intense day of doing AllOfTheThings yesterday, I needed to take a closer look at today’s schedule and take things a bit easier.

I didn’t do that.

And despite waking up a bit tired and achy, I really thought I would be able to just dive into my work this morning.

My brain utterly refused to dive in.

So, instead, I have been drinking tea, reading my book, puttering around organizing things, and just generally taking it as easy as I can without giving it too much thought.

And that’s working out just fine. 🙂

I really have to learn to remember that yesterday comes right before today and that today comes right before tomorrow.

That would be very useful to have top-of-mind.

All Thinky…Again!

I have had some really terrific conversations this week about all kinds of great things – storytelling, business, volunteer work, finances. I feel really excited and hopeful about the possibilities on all fronts.

But this is where the tricky part comes in…

My brain wants to do all of it at once.

In fact, if I try to approach it any other way my brain gets really cranky about it and sometimes refuses to do anything at all.

So, I’m all thinky again over here.

What does my brain need in order to feel safe doing just one thing at a time?

What pattern of activity can I create in order to convince my brain that progress is being made?

How can I *see* that progress AND not try doing all of the things at the same time?

So, yeah, like I said: I’m all thinky…again.