November plan

I have identified 5 areas where I want to get stuff done during PeGeStuDoMo (Personal Getting Stuff Done Month):

a. A non-fiction book I've been working on for just over a year -- slated to be an e-book I just need to finish and publish it on Smashwords (basic version) and Lulu (deluxe? edition).

b. Unfinished documents -- I've identified 3 documents that need to be finished; one tied to a 43 things goal and two tied to (potential) apps that Hubby may work on.

c. Craft projects -- one specific item, one specific tutorial, and some Etsy maintenance fall into this area.

d. Preparation and planning -- here the goals are a little more shady; to identify (and write?) 4-5 tutorials and to write 6-8 articles for Frugal Victoria. I have a few ideas for each but they are not well-formed yet.

e. Other -- for lack of a better term, these are other web-based goals; replacing all the short reviews on my Victoria Guide that were leftover from the upgrade, and writing two specific reviews that will take some careful thought.

Can I do all of that inside a month? Unlikely, but I can give it my best shot. I got a couple of books out of the library to help with inspiration and motivation and I have a good supply of coffee and tea in the house.

Goals for the coming months...

Year-end/beginning seems to be an appropriate time to revisit my list of goals at 43things. As of this morning I am "doing" 19 things as you can see from the list above. Some are more do-able than others; the first four in the list are partly done or near done already... I just have to buckle down and finish them. Others are a little more vague and/or difficult but give me something concrete to consider when I am looking for a challenge.

Oh, and way down there at number 16 and 17 are the most challenging of all -- losing weight and getting fit. My "fit by 40" goal is going to be really tricky as I am pretty sure I can't do nearly enough in the next six months. We'll see.

What are you all doing this year?

Of Aches and Aging

I ache today. I am tired and achey but it's a "good ache" ... I think.

I've been going to the gym lately; I finally sucked it up last month and forked over the cash for a membership on campus. (It's dirt cheap -- especially compared to health clubs or even rec centres -- it works out to about two bucks a week.) I've been going a couple of times a week with a co-worker, doing about 20 minutes of cardio plus 20 minutes of weight training in the weeeeee hours of the morning (i.e. before 8 a.m.) I've also been walking (semi-regular "walkies" around the Ring Road with another coworker, plus walking elsewhere and, yes, I do count my wanderings with camera-in-hand). Since I finally replaced my VHS Kripalu Yoga "Gentle" program with the DVD version, I have also managed to work in a session or two of yoga.

The strangest revelation to me out of this recent round of fitness is that despite not being a "morning person" it seems that morning really is the best time for me to exercise.

So why all this now? A couple of years ago, I made myself the goal of being "fit by forty" but now that I am staring down my 39th birthday, that long term goal seems pretty short-term... and I am far from fit. Sure, I got derailed last year with the whole ankle-breaking nonsense, but I still maintain that the regular walking I had been doing prior to the accident helped me to heal as well as I have, and recognizing that made me more eager to embrace the idea of regular exercise for the rest of my body, lest anything else get broken (touch wood).

So, I will continue to make every effort to work all the parts of my body that don't get worked while I sit at my desk, and we'll see if I am any less achey a year from now.

A year's progress on the Big List

I mentioned in the last post, our Big List o' Unfinished Projects. The idea was that we were supposed to work on projects from the list before starting other things... that didn't exactly happen but we did make some progress. I got more done than hubby but only because he had a ridiculously busy year work-wise and his projects were much bigger both in scope and time required. Oh, and I did get stuff done in between rounds of self-pity while I was laid up with my busted ankle.

What did I get done?

• I learned about Drupal; enough to launch and contribute to several websites (frugalvictoria.com, innerharbour.com, 951.cupe.ca, and thosedewolfes.com) and enough to help hubby with a book-to-be on Drupal, plus a beginners guide which, with a little more tweaking, will get posted online.
• I posted stock photos and created a calendar on lulu and crafts on etsy and I worked on my CuppaJoe Cozy site and our CafePress store. Unfortunately, I don't think I did enough with any of these items -- while I did list a lot of items on etsy, I have yet to make a sale and while I listed only 22 out of my goal of 100 stock images on lulu, I made two sales. I sold a few more cozies online but when I did try to get them into a store, that failed spectacularly. Our biggest sale from CafePress was when we bought a bunch of our own stuff but we have made other sales.
  
• I also finished the commissioned Doctor Who scarf and I prepared my Coffee Haiku minibook; I bound the first 13 of 40 (I have the rest ready to bind, I just have to "get to it"), sold some at the Libraries craft fair, and have some listed online.

The other projects -- about half of them -- remain unfinished. Over the year I decided to abandon a few projects but I also added or adjusted some others, so I figure it still works out to "about half." I will continue to work on the projects as they are listed and have pledged to help hubby with his projects, at least as far as my abilities allow.

My biggest goal for 2008 is to get my creative stuff out there -- both online and in local stores and/or galleries. This is not something I am good at (self-promotion) so it is going to take a lot of work.... but it is something I really need to do at this point... if for no other reason than to get the stock out of our house before we move.

Oh, that's the other goal this year: moving into a house of our own (buh-bye strata), but compared to self-promotion, that one seems like a cake walk. ;)

The Year of Finishing Projects

So, hubby and I have designated 2007 as our year to put to rest as many of our half-finished or half-baked projects as possible. We wrote out a combined list, including some goals -- the aim is to put 2 hrs per night or 16 hrs per week each toward our various tasks.

This isn't as horrible as it seems because most of the projects are creative endeavours in one guise or another. The toughest part for me is to see a project to the finish line. Already, I keep glancing at other items on the list, thinking "ooh, shiny!" and I have to fight myself from adding other new ideas to the list ... but I chose to start with the calendar project I indended to do last summer... and as a result I am doing two at once.

One calendar will be my photos of Victoria, which I will promote through my Unnoficial Guide -- which is also on the list to be upgraded!! -- and the other will be my photos of rabbits on campus -- I got so much good feedback on the one I did as a gift for my Aunt that I thought it prudent to make another.

Over the past 5 evenings I have searched through about 18 months of raw photos (i.e. hundreds if not thousands of images) to pull out those shots I feel are calendar worthy. I have printed out contact sheets and now I will try to weed those down to 12 images for each calendar (possibly 13 if I choose a different image for the cover). Then I will have to edit those to the specifications required by the print-on-demand company I am hoping to use (Lulu.com) before uploading them. Phew. If I plow ahead, I think I might be at that stage in another week. If I am realistic, I might be looking at two weeks.

Other projects on the horizon include an overdue Christmas gift (knitting), a commissioned item (more knitting), lots of web upgrades, redesigns, and maybe an abandonment or two, some manuscripts and a self-published, limited run book of haiku. That's off the top of my head... the list is huge, and broken down into several sections including "mad skillz" which is stuff we need to learn to accomplish some of our goals!!!

I'll keep you up to date as I can... it will be interesting look back next January and see what we managed to complete.
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