Making lists

Posted on February 20, 2009 by Suzanne

I have never been a very good listmaker.

Well, I can make the list, but I usually lose the list in about 5 minutes.

My list(s) tend to be virtual lists, which isn’t always a good thing, becuase I have a tendency to forget things in about 5 minutes.

I’ve reached my limit, though, and I’ve just made myself a list of things that are going on. My struggle is with how detailed to make the list. Currently, the list has 25 items on it. Some of those are pretty simple, one or 2 steps and the task will be done.

Others, though, could be expanded to lists of their own with about 25 things on each list.

I have to watch the temptation to add tasks to the list purely for the sake of being able to cross things off. Stuff like: take a shower. Eat breakfast. Brush teeth. Go to bed.

Lately, I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants, working on whatever happens to bring itself to my attention, or seems the most interesting or…

Sometimes I can hyper-focus on a project, but most of the time, my attention span is pretty short, and I need to work a little bit on a lot of things. I’m going to try, though, to see if I can stick to a list. A list that will have variety to keep Easily Distracted Girl happy, but yet help her get some tangible progress made on all of these different things that keep distracting her.

So here’s what I want to know from all of you: what are your tips for making/using your lists?? Technology? Paper and pencil? What goes on your lists? Do you have lots of lists? Or do you struggle like me with lists? Tell me about it!

Everybody who posts a response (before Sunday at 5PM) will be entered in a drawing to win a handmade fiber postcard. I’d show you a picture, but I haven’t made it yet. Well, it depends on who the winner is: if the winner is participating in the MQResource Aesop fable postcard swap, I’ll make you a NEW postcard. If you aren’t, you’ll get a postcard depicting an Aesop fable, because I can’t count and I made an extra one. I can’t show you the picture, yet, though, because I haven’t mailed them yet.

edited at 5PM Sunday: the drawing is closed, but if you still have list ideas, please post and let me know!

Easily Distracted Girl

Posted on January 25, 2009 by Suzanne

I think that might be the new name for my blog. “Adventures of Easily Distracted Girl.”

You should have seen me yesterday. My one goal was to clear a spot in my sewing room, for my sewing machine. It’s only been 8 months since we moved most of my sewing stuff out of the master bedroom and upstairs. It’s probably about time I was actually SEWING in that room. (instead of dragging things down to the master bedroom, where the sewing machine was still located.)

But first, I needed to put some laundry away.

Plus, I needed to help Mark with his haircut (he does most of it, I clean up the back of his neck).

Plus, he mentioned something about looking at new cars, so I had to go look up some things about the car we were talking about.

At some point, I managed to return to my room to re-discover the pile of clothing on the floor (that I was going hang up) and take care of it.

And eventually the rest of the sewing stuff that was piling up on the MBR floor got moved upstairs.

But first, I had to have Mark help me readjust the table. When I got my Bernina (4 years ago?) I got a sewing table with it, that the machine sits down in, so that it is flush with the table-top. Only, the shelf the Bernina sits on needed to be adjusted so that it was actually…flush…instead of sticking up about a 1/4 of an inch.

I’ve been cursing that out for 4 years, and of course it only took him about 20 minutes to fix. Why do I let stuff slide like that????

So. Here’s why I needed to spend time clearing a space:

Here’s a (blurry) picture looking at that room from the other direction:

I’ve just been piling and setting and stashing and pulling things out (and not putting away…).

The closet (in the top picture) has shelves on either side that you can’t see. Those are full of fabric. I still don’t know where everything’s going to go, but I did make a lot of progress today. Though, it doesn’t look like it, because the room is even more crowded now that the sewing machine table has been moved in.

Trust me. It’s better.

The hard part was the uncovering of things that I wanted to work on. This one just needs borders, that one just needs another block, this one needs to be started from scratch. I did not allow myself to be distracted, though, which was painful. Because as soon as I start working on something, I’ll just quit the organizing and go back to the mess-making.

But first, I need to do about a million other things.

TTFN-

Easily Distracted Girl