There’s a lingering belief that I am unable to:
- keep on top of the basics
- make decisions
- stick to decisions I make
- Finish
There’s some confusion. I:
- am afraid to feel good and to feel bad (pffff)
- freeze under pressure
- require accountability?
- am bored?
- am over stimulated?
A lack of acceptance. If I am honest I:
- like to research, monitor, analyse, make lists, stick to and also ignore routine
- enjoy working and activity more than ‘leisure’
- love to write and I love Instagram
- love talking about feelings and what it is like being a human
A lack of preparation:
- Unclear goals
- Trying to do too many things at once
- Wear myself out…
My emotions are tied up with a lot of objects and activities which puts me off tackling them. I can’t always tell when I am not feeling right from my feelings. It usually comes out in my behaviour first. Often its things like:
- Confusion – Which tram stop was it? Do you have the tickets? I just dropped/broke/forgot that thing.
- Doubt – I’m not sure if I should go to yoga today. Am I too tired? Will it make me feel better? Yes. No. Yes. No.
- Overwhelm – Staring. Craving ‘a break’. Distracting myself continuously with my phone/music/podcasts/appointments etc. (Fortunately I do not drink much or ever do drugs because if I did this would all be a much bigger problem...)
This is what I am hoping to counter: OMG I am really excited about this oh no it’s probably super lame I am ashamed I won’t do it after all.
More than anything I want to feel interested, engaged and to learn. I thrive with projects that are process and repetition led, with a clear beginning and end. This can be anything from my laundry routine, to tackling large information handling projects at work, to producing a series of related artworks. I want to embrace this method and try bringing it into more areas of my life to see how it feels.
Core values
These are the things I want to keep in mind during my Experiments:
- It’s an experiment!
- Information is beautiful
- Be curious
- Record
- Analyze
- Stimulating! (and not always in a fun way!)
- Learning
- Rewarding
- Finish!
- Acknowledge achievements
- Done does not always mean 100%
I also want to:
- Feeling my feelings
- Express them in writing
- Talk them over
I have some tools I will use to help me along the way:
- [Instagram] for photos
- Writing for this blog (obvs.)
- The Task List (see below)
- [Morning pages]
- [Bujo]
- Accountability group (my small, private WhatsApp group)
The Grand Plan
The grand plan is 3 fold. I am pretty good at procrastinating on one project with another so I am going to have a couple of things happening at once. For variety.
Plan A is to prioritize the basics
- Step 1 – define what are the basics (duh).
- Step 2 – decide how to monitor them ([bujo]?)
Plan 2 is The Experiments
The Experiments are like projects:
- Planning – what am I doing and how will I do it? This will result in an epic Task List
- Execution – following the detailed Task List. (Using a colour code? I think so.)
- Punch List – for all the things on the Task List that cannot be completed immediately due to lack of funds/assistance/etc. Punching Days may be required.
- Reward – tailored to suit the Experiment. (Quite excited about this and it’s the kind of thing I usually convince myself not to bother with.)
- Transitions – this is for the spidery things that overlap in a bunch of different areas of life and will be more complicated. For example, picture framing affects every room, plus some de-cluttering and budget is required. A room can’t really be considered ‘finished’ if the pictures on the wall look like crap which means I may need to make an Exception which is always annoying. Transitions will likely become their own experiments and I am curious how much stuff like this there will be.
Operation Ideas
Experiments may include:
- Spring clean
- Glass class
- Etsy shop
- Photo purge
- Sewing school
- Tiny tapestries
- Dating for dummies
- Dutch immersion
- Driving (drama)
- Swimming lessons
- Meetups to meet up
- Artist network
- Painting project
- Knitting nights
- Collage challenge
- Colouring book creativity
- Clean Sheet Upgrade
The Rules of Engagement:
- Stop by 9pm
- No deadlines
- There are no rigid rules (ha!)
- Sequential
- Specific (v. important in order to be able to Finish)
- Plan A and Plan 2 run concurrently, however Plan A is always Plan A. Vegetables, keeping to appointments and a clean loo comes first.
Plan III is The Holidays
This is a break week, a shake it up or rest week and it’s no more than a week and a week is 7 days starting from any day and there can be gaps. 7 times is more important than 7 days in a row. Holidays occur after an Experiment concludes. I’ll also consider a Bank Holiday of one day if that suits. Or a long 3 Day Weekend. Again; no rules. When I decide which Holiday it is, I stick to it.
Current ideas are:
- Reading week
- Exercise camp
- Movie nights
- Art attack
- Walking week
- Social butterfly
- A week of treats
- Binge watch
- Shopping spree
Already some of these appeal more than others. The Experiment has already begun!
Kim
Co-founder, The Clean Sheet