Finishing strong in 2015

The end of the year normally approaches me with something approaching the speed of a bullet train and the solidity of a brick wall. The normal glitter-fuelled near hysteria of kids at the end of term, school pantos, carol services and more. Add that to the usual domestic chores labelled ‘getting ready for Christmas’ and it is easy to see why planning for my design business takes a bit of a back seat.

Last year I made the cardinal sin of committing myself to a big commission with a delivery date of the first week in January – no prizes for guessing what I spent my New Year holiday working on. I didn’t even dare drink too much for fearing of messing up the increases and having to rip it out.

But this year I am determined to be different. If not super organised than at least I aim to approach the end of the year with some business ends tied up and some firm plans in place to start the New Year out on a firm footing… and some calm, fun knitting for myself wouldn’t go amiss either.

I have been following along with Tara Swiger and her Holiday Sanity programme and I have to say that has really helped in terms of focussing my attention on tasks that need doing. Then I saw an amazing Instagram post from @BohoBerry, followed through to her blog and had a complete “Yes!” moment. her original blog post talks about setting goals to end the last quarter of your business or personal life in great shape but I thought it worked just as well as we enter the last few days of the year. Rather than disappear in a frazzle I thought it would be great to come up with 16 things that were achievable for me to do in the last days of 2015.

16 Things: Ready to start 2016

So, this morning I sat down with a strong coffee to make a list. Some of them may be a trifle vague and I admit that I did get a little de-railed towards the end with my sudden intention to Knit Yellow Socks. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing – we all need a little sunshine in our lives

Setting Goals

The combination of an energising family holiday and the annual 'back to school' enthusiasm for new routines and new habits has lead me to thinking and planning for the next few months.

I have always tended to focus on a monthly planning system - my Bullet Journal but invariably some tasks take longer than a month to achieve, or (all too often) they fail to progress at all leading to a vague sense of dissatisfaction.

There has been a lot of discussion recently about developing habits over 100 days rather than the more conventional 21 or 28 days and much has been written about why cognitively, this may prove to be more effective than traditional monthly goal setting Read here and here if you are interested more in this - it makes for fascinating reading.

Also, as I increasingly work with commissions and other folk within the fibre industry I am coming to realise that my work and knitting time needs to be planned much more in advance in order to avoid the dreaded deadline overwhelm.

With this in mind a bunch of my Ravelry group members have come together to form a chat thread over on my board. Some are using the 100 day approach and some are using monthly goals but all are offering friendly support and (gentle) accountability. There are no firm objectives and no pressure to achieve anything, it is just a helpful way for us all to stay on track and get some FOs off those needles over the coming months.

I get the feeling that I'm going to need an incentive to keep working on this:

Cosy Stripe blanket in Stylecraft Acrylic

 

Why not pop over and join us. We may even inspire you to set a few goals of your own - some of the group members have some great ideas. Likewise, if you have any tips or tricks for goal setting do please let me know. I'm always keen to hear what works for other people.

2015: Plotting and planning (Part II)

Following on from last weeks article on my bullet journal plans, my thoughts naturally turn to the projects that will require organisation and planning in 2015.

I am by nature a "jump in with both feet" kind of gal - and all to often my initial enthusiasm for a new shiny project wanes. With this in mind I am keeping the 2015 plans minimal but with an emphasis on expanding my creativity.

As a scientist by training I am analytical and methodical but the opportunities for creativity are distinctly lacking in my everday life. One of the things which I have so much enjoyed about growing my design and teaching business is that I can explore new ideas in creative and imaginative ways.

I love the idea of having a word for the year - something to give me focus and direction - and I have spent some time working on this and what I might choose. It might just be me but I find the idea of picking just 1 word quite daunting. What if things change? What if I move in a different direction? What if I get bored with that word?

With this in mind I have decided to have a word for each month. To me, this seems more achievable and it gives me the flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances. I will be posting my "Word of the Month" on the blog and also my various social media - please do feel free to join in if you'd like to.

2015: Plotting and Planning (Part I)

It is that time of year when my thoughts inevitably turn to the new year and things I would like to do differently - or not - as the case may be.

I started using a Bullet Journal back in April 2014 (check) and so far have got through 2 Moleskine notebooks. I have to admit to tapering off slightly in Oct/Nov this year and I did briefly dally with printable templates and electronic systems such as Any Do and Tick Tick.

 

Moleskine Journals, ready for 2015

 

Ultimately I came back to the simplicity of good old pen and paper. There is something very grounding about doing a monthly plan and reviewing the previous months entries. I am a chronic procrastinator and can happily put some, seemingly trivial, task off for months at a time. The act of reviewing previous entries and seeing all the unchecked boxes - and having to write the tasks out again is a powerful reminder to adopt the Nike principle and "Just Do It".

Fortunately for me, my DH splurged on a few Moleskine notebooks recently before going back to his digital system, so I have a two shiny new journals to pick from. I'm not quite at the end of Bullet Journal No.2 but I think it is only right than 2015 should start with a new journal, don't you?

The challenge of the "day per page" approach is that if I'm going to use the Bullet Journal I have to use it for everything - home life, domestic stuff, design work, patterns, ideas, pending projects, daily writings/gratitudes. Things can get crowded in there. I am pretty bad at the discipline of indexing too, so things can get messy..and then I can't find things... you get the picture.

Again, I think the principle of "Just Do It" applies here and I just have to remind myself as part of my weekly schedule to update my index as it really does make my life easier as the month progresses.

 

So, I have the journals ready. I just need to think about my goals for 2015 now.