Sunday, January 24, 2010

Compartmentalizing



I'm exhausted already!

Is it just me, or is this year going by way too fast? I'm just getting around to putting some of my plans for this year in place. The trip backed me up and threw me out of muse mode.

But I realized I've gotten in the habit of setting long range goals. When I posted that I usually write around 900 words per 45 min sprint, one of our loop members said, "well, then two sprints a day and you've met your goal". That was like a wake up call.

I've been thinking in terms of the upcoming March conference, or the first of February, but not 'Today's goal is...'. For those of you who have ever used a Day-Timer, organizer, Day-Runner, or any other organizer in a book, I just want to give you a heads up. I invented it. Not really, it looks like Day-Timer did in 1947, but I didn't know about it so I can say just like plots turn up on new ground, I created my own version of it, in my little parallel universe.

Mine was kind of a personal bible to my life, work, and contacts. I bought a ring bound address book, inserted pages, a calendar and some tabs. When I need to record information about friends, I turned to F for my page labeled Friends. I for the Insurance page. or S for Songs to learn. It was such a help, I can't imagine why I got away from it. Probably after I ditched working 80 hour weeks, I figured I could handle managing my day in my head.

Wrong! I've always had a pen in my hand. I work by lists. Oh, I look over stuff on the list but I'm much more likely to complete 75% of it than if I haven't written it down. So, I'm back to that process.

I have so much that has to be coordinated in the next few months, a writing challenge, crawfish season, taxes, the mail job insurance class, and starting up computer classes again. And believe me I'm not a plotter, not in writing, and not organizing my life.

This is the style I chose. It's Flavia ( I have to have a pretty inspirational style) and I chose two page per day. See the right page is a journal page. I'm going to use that to do a minimum of 400 words per day. I know that if I write 400, I'll write more. Then I can coordinate classes, work, word counts, and appointments on the left.



How do you stay organized?

3 comments:

Bill Kirton said...

This is a scary posting (although I loved the photo). The scariness comes from the fact that you're so organised. I know it helps me to have deadlines and projects but I don't think I've ever been as systematic about achieving them as you are. I also keep a diary - a page a day - and I'm embarrassed by the unadulterated crap I put in it. I think I live very much in the moment, which means that, when I open the diary to write it, that's it. I should simply write 'I'm sitting with my diary open'. Instead, I have to think back over what I've done that day and usually find it can be summed up by that quaint British expression 'Bugger all'.

Anonymous said...

See, that's the problem. I TRY to get organized more than most, but I'm afraid I've been living by that quaint British expression too much lately. Especially when it concerns diet and exercise, lol. Now I have no choice.

NOT organizing isn't getting it done. Maybe I'm just meant to be a total slouch.

Bill Kirton said...

Welcome to the club.