On other years I drift aimlessly into the New Year, maybe buy a calendar and diary in the post Christmas sales, never really writing much in it but for the most part keeping things in order for the year.
Ironically this is only in my personal life, on a work front my diary, calendar, appointments and deadlines were always organised.
Last year, for the first time in my life, I kept a fully written diary for the entire year, granted there was a bit of a back dated catch up at the end of December as things had fallen off a bit mid November, but even so, there it was, an entire year recorded. Where I was and what I did every day. Yet I think I also missed more birthdays than ever as I didn't use it as a planning diary, more a journal. Birthdays and important dates were marked on the calendar in the kitchen, which proved useless as (and I know this from my diary) we were away from home for more than half the year last year. It wasn't uncommon to look at the calendar and realise it was two months behind, simply because we had hardly been home long enough to do a load of washing, repack and back out the door.
This year, has been a total wipe out so far. I was sick for the month of January, which dragged into recovering for February, and then drifted into March aimlessly and suddenly realising it's April and well and truly time to pull my socks up and get on with things. As my American friend would say, I've been having my own pity party, and it's time the party's over!
A touch of sunshine, improved health, and a fun extended St Patrick's weekend with friends all combined to boot me properly, and finally, into the New Year, and thus the diary is finally started.
What I learnt from last years was that I wanted to make more of an effort to acknowledge peoples birthdays, and that recording every days activities means inevitably there are days when the most thrilling thing to enter was that I got two loads of washing washed and dried. Then on days in a foreign country I'd have so much to record it wouldn't fit. So I settled on trying a blank journal for the year, and just recording the high (and probably the low) lights. I chose a moleskine sketch book so that I could also draw in it if I want to record something visually.
I've just roughly divided the pages up into months, but not pre-labelled them so the number of pages I want to use on a day or week is not preset. This of course meant I couldn't go through and mark up birthdays. So in the back I've created a number of lists (oh how I love a good list), Birthdays, Christmas, a crafting wish list and requests, dates and locations of concerts or shows we'd like to go to if around (we can rarely pre plan due to work travel, and tend to find out about a show the day after it was on), blogs and books to check out, a snail mail list and a list of goals for the year.
Then to make sure I'm doing more of what I want to and not accidentally letting the days at home drift by in a haze of washing, suitcases and TV I created a goal list for the week, as found on cornflower blue studio's blog here. I imagine the 'this week' part will become irrelevant most times, and rather it will just become a rotating list, swapping out the post its as things are done. A more in my face version than the 'to do' list in the diary.
 |
| Goal list following Corn Flower Blues instructions, diary Birthday and Christmas lists |
Choose 10 per week
- Bake Something
- Cook dinner from a recipe
- Knit
- Cross Stitch
- Paint
- Call mum
- Future business planning
- Computer free day
- TV free day
- Go somewhere new
- Organise something
- Finish Something
- Walk to Chinatown shop/cook
- Check birthday lists/plans
- Renovation plans/ideas
- Garden/flowers; plant/tend/visit
I kicked off the diary with a big brain dump of everything on my mental to do list, high priority, low priority, and the never going to happens, got to work on the urgent ones and will pick my way through the rest with the weekly goal list. A clear mind leaves space for creativity, and mine was full to the brim of guilt, over missed birthdays, unmade calls, ignored emails, and unfulfilled promises. Turned into a list it looks much easier to move on.
So my post it goal list for this week?- bake a walnut and cranberry bread loaf, blog, call a friend back home, cook something from Jamie's 30min meals, send April birthday cards.
Best get back to my desk, I feel the need to cross something off a list.
No comments:
Post a Comment