Saturday 14 June 2008

Organisational skills...... nul pwah

I have had an epiphany. A eureka moment of earth shattering proportions.

It has come to me in a blinding flash that if I continue to wait for a lull in order to crack on with new ideas and projects, that lull will never, EVER, arrive. Something else will always crop up to fill any anticipated period of time.

It matters not a jot that this 'something else' is entirely likely to consist of displacement activity, in which I have a PhD.

So. Here's the thing.

For the past few weeks, I have been valiantly trying to clear the decks workwise in order to open up a day or so of otherwise unallocated time, so that I can start on all my ideas for tiny toys and games.
However, the flaw in this otherwise damned fine plan, is that 'stuff' continually happens to fill in those precious 'free' days.

And here is where the epiphany comes in.

Instead of waiting and hoping for these mythical free days, I merely have to pre-allocate and earmark them as project days.

Simple huh?

Of course, I am not so naive as to think that I could ever have a whole, full day to devote to these exciting new ideas. That is just wildly misplaced optimism, a character trait which I have in spades.
No, I should be pragmatic and schedule maybe a morning, or an afternoon. In this way, if the scheduled period is hijacked by 'other stuff', it won't feel as much of a blow as if I had lost a whole day.

There is method in my madness.

So, for a trial period, ie next week, I will spend one half of each day, working on new things.
I've said it in my blog now, so that gives it both veracity and plausibility.
Also,having committed it to print, I will have my blog readers to answer to if I don't achieve this modest goal.

In fact, I have started already.

Ho yus.

I have spent 39 minutes organising the ideas folder on my laptop and transferring photos, documents, lists etc into neatly labelled new sub-folders. There are even sub-folders in the subfolders. And before anyone raises the spectre of displacement activity let me emphatically deny that unjustified charge, and assert that it is completely essential that I organise my thoughts, the better to plan and execute.

I may now set up a little spreadsheet, with coloured cells for blocks of time to be spent on the various projects. Then I can print it out and embellish it further with highlighter pens, and little smiley face stickers for when I successfully complete a specific task.

No problemo..............

I feel positively energised and enthused and eager to get on with it. I'll just have a cup of tea and a Viennese Whirl first..........

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