Productivity

What will it look like for me to feel caught up?  Prioritizing by answering that question.

Words to Live By

“Your destiny lies on the other side of your fear.”  Kris Vallotton

Saving String

What’s that?

Gretchen Rubin wrote:

“Try This at Home: Save string — which is a phrase from journalism that means, find ways to save your little bits of ideas. To read more about choreographer Twyla Tharp’s process, look in The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life. Woody Allen discusses his method saving string in this Wall Street Journal interview.” (from Gretchen Rubin.com, Saving String Idea)

For me, that means recording it in my Bullet Journal, or in Evernote, or in OneNote or in my Quiet Time Journal, depending upon the type of “string.”  Obviously, this is not the most organized method for saving string; I feel like I need a Master Plan for storing it in one place.  Yet, I am not always in the same location with access to the same medium at all times.  More thought needs to go into this, but at present, in the GTD vernacular, for the sake of “closing a loop,” I’m deciding to record as much as possible in my BuJo, then re-record in the other locations as needed.  Whew!  For now, that will work.  Like all workflow, it is a journey/process to figure out what works in each season.

Do you save string?  What collection method or methods do you employ?

~organizing for productivity, on the Indiana prairie

Long Time, No Write

Wow.

March is almost gone.

What can I say?  I have been reading a lot this month.

And I have been writing, every morning when I first get up.

Just not here.

So, I plan on that changing.  I have a few ideas in my mental queue (used that word earlier in an email — love how it looks!  It’s like an imposter word with all of those vowels and only one quasi-consonant.)  Better dump those into my Bullet Journal!

I will be visiting here more often in April — I promise.

Looking forward to seeing how it all plays out, but most of all to enjoying the journey.

~on tiptoes with expectancy, on the Indiana prairie

 

Project Check-in

That’s what I like about me:

How’s it going, you ask?  It’s going.  I am pausing more often than usual to reflect on what I like about myself in different situations in my daily reality.

So far the project looks like creating a list in my Bullet Journal.

Not sure of the additional dots as of yet.

Anyone out there have suggestions, ideas, things you have tried?

 

~leaning in, on the Indiana prairie

Time Alone

I finally did it.

I spoke up and said, “I need some time alone.”

Yes, I had to be “prompted” by pain, but I did speak up.

And I added plan a “personal day” monthly appointment to my Bullet Journal “to-do” list.

Dear hubby has been encouraging me to do this for years now.  I, however, trudged onward, feeling more and more like butter spread over too much bread. . .

. . . until I am more and more regularly feeling like there is no long butter on the knife.

Yep.  I am sitting in a coffee shop, where I have eaten a pricey salad and downed a half cup of really good coffee while surfing the internet, and am now blogging.  In the process I have discovered that I enjoy 86% cocoa dark chocolate the most when I allow it to warm and melt on my tongue, which means I have to slow down to eat it.

And I feel myself unknotting and becoming real again.

This is a treat for me and one that I have wanted for a long, long time.  I’m going to schedule another one by March 13th, too.

This “treat” idea has given me permission to move forward with some things that I have needed for a very long time.  Thanks very much, Gretchen Rubin.

If I were to meet Grechen Rubin, I would thank her and then mention to her how much we are the same and yet, how much we are different.  I have just finished reading “Better than Before” and highly recommend it.  You should know that I am an “Upholder,” so you might want to go to her site and take her quiz as a way of deciding whether or not the read is worth your time.  Of course, I absolutely think it is! (Look for the yellow box on the right hand side of the page, about a fourth of the way down the page.)

This book also prompted me to commit to writing for 30 minutes every day, which in my case means getting up earlier and doing it first thing, so that it won’t get erased from the day.  Yes, sometimes it will get erased, but my plan for that event (another of Rubin’s ideas) is to symbolically continue my habit, by putting whatever time I do have into the writing session.

So far, so good, 5 days into the habit.  Thanks again, Gretchen Rubin!

~enJOYING, near the Indiana Prairie

 

Christmas Bullet Journaling

Here’s a sneak peek of the beginnings of Christmassing-up my Bullet Journal. 

Bullet Journal

Do you find that sometimes your list or collection or mind map or notes are not “bullet journal ready”?

Most of my written lists are readily recorded in my beloved bullet journal, from mind to hand to paper.

However, one thing I do not record in my bullet journal  is our weekly shopping list — shopping for nine motivated me to make a spreadsheet of the items we usually buy with room to add other items.  I do keep a list of items that I think of for the shopping list when I am away from home in my bullet journal.

Another type of list or plan that I do not first record in my BuJo is the Holiday Meal Cooking Schedule  It is simpler for me to start with the finished product, the menu, and then work my way backward.  Below is the raw, rough draft for our most recent Thanksgiving feast.

on my beloved Bullet Journal

The transition to my new smaller Bullet Journal has been seamless. Despite a nagging concern that moving into a smaller size would create problems, I have not experienced any.

Current Bullet Journal, 3.5″ x 5.5″

First Bullet Journal, 5″ x 8″

 

 

 

 

 

 

On things unrecorded in my Bullet Journal

I think it’s a new record: all of my adult children who are living away from home responded to my question (sent via messaging apps) within 15 minutes!

The catalyst for this conversation was the one thing I specifically remember from the “Getting Things Done” book: the two minutes rule.  Honestly I might not even be remembering his rule correctly or if it is a rule or not.  What I do know is that if I think of something while I am moving from one space to another, if I am not in the middle of something else, and if it will take two minutes or less, I go ahead and do it then, rather than write it down.