Finding the Sweet Spot

Work-life balance means that you have managed to find that sweet spot where you're pushing yourself at work, and then taking time off to recharge.
― Johannes Larsson

Take a break from the stresses of life and use that time to rediscover the important things that matter to you most. We all deserve an anti-stress day to recharge our batteries.
― Dee Waldeck

The sweet spot is about shifting the small gears, the ones that rotate relatively easily. And because all the gears are interlocking, when we tweak a small gear, large gears start to move—effortlessly—as well.
― Christine Carter

Sweet spot can mean many different things to different people. In sports it can mean the maximum result for the minimum effort. In business it can mean finding that one thing you do best that will earn you the most profit. In geology it can be the perfect spot to drill for oil.

For me, the sweet spot is all about time, finding a balance to get all the things done I want to accomplish. I used to think I needed to carve out big blocks to get things done, which is probably why it didn’t work. Got a poem due for the poetry group? A sewing project that needs finishing? Some editing work to do? Well, you’d better make sure you have a clear day for it.

The problem with that is, even when I clear a block of time to do something, that doesn’t guarantee it gets done. And even when it does, that’s all I get done. Case in point this week.

Monday, I spent the day working on some embroidery. That was pretty much all that I did. And at the end of the day I looked back at what I’d done and it didn’t seem like much progress for the amount of time I spent working on it. I spent another day working on a poem. I neglected the several other things that needed doing, and at the end of the day all I had to show for it was a single poem, one that still needs work.

But yesterday I tried something different. I crocheted a few rows on the afghan I’m working on. I worked on the wordage report of this blog post. I read a couple of chapters of a book. I did some stitchery. I did some more reading. I finished the wordage report. And at the end of the day I looked back and I was pretty happy with what I accomplished.

I didn’t finish the afghan, or the book, or even this blog post. But by doing a little bit of all of them I made progress on each of them. And I even had time to check out a local craft sale.

Maybe I didn’t have some great epiphany, but it did occur to me that I’ve been going about things the wrong way. Maybe the answer for me is little blocks instead of big ones.

I think I started to subconsciously realize this when I ditched the “marketing Monday” and “techno Tuesday.” Instead of spending an entire day at those things (and not getting anything accomplished) I decided to spread them out over the week.

The other benefit of working in shorter blocks of time is that I’ll get more variety to my day. I won’t get burned out on a project, like I often do when I go to town on a craft.

Now I’m not saying this will work for everything. NaNoWriMo, for instance, will require bigger blocks of time. And when I go on a cleaning/organizing binge, that’s one of those things that’s best done all at once and as quickly as possible before I run out of steam. But for I think it will work for day to day things, and I’ll be left with that sense of satisfaction at the end of the day.

One step closer to getting back on track.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

Had a few extra words, in the form of an extra poem, but that was all. My over all word count was up though, but all that means is I was a little wordier on my blog posts.

NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts – 1,435+727+271+731=3,164
Poetry – 125 (included in blog post) + 215

Total words: 3,379

Goals For Next Week:
Try and add in some extra words to that total.

EDITING:
21 pages
Slowing down a little, but any progress is good progress, right?

Goal For Next Week:
Keep working on Magickal Mayhem.

MARKETING:
*sigh* No Marketing. Once again it just doesn’t seem to be a priority with me.

Goal For Next Week:
Submit two flash stories and one poem.

TECH & TRAINING:
Yikes! No Tech or Training. I don’t know what the heck I was doing with all my time, but it certainly wasn’t learning anything new.

Goal For Next Week:
Learn something new.

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
Explored the French Cinquain form and, seeing as it’s a somewhat short form, wrote three separate poems using three separate rhyme schemes as examples.

The monthly gathering of my poetry group was Wednesday – this month’s poetry prompt was “message in a bottle.” My poem was longer than I expected, and I rather like it, but when reading it out loud I kept expecting it to rhyme and it was (to me) a bit jarring when it didn’t. So I’ll need to fix that. Meanwhile, to make up for the poem not being quite finished, I printed it on parchment and got some glass bottles from the dollar store to put them in – messages in bottles, as it were.

Goal For Next Week:
Fix bottle poem and find a new form to share.

CRAFTING:
I took a day for stitching and now have four out of six pansies finished on the pillowcase. Slow going or what? There’s a border above and below the pansies and I have no idea what colours I’m going to use on that, and I’m going to have to figure out how to restamp a couple of sections of just that border where the first application was too faint to see.

I did not get the sewing machine set up and working again, so I did not get my skirt and blouse finished, although I did find another dress to cannibalize for another skirt. I did finally pull out my crocheting so I have it handy to work on in the evenings while watching T.V. and I came up with the brilliant idea that I could knit/crochet a couple of sweaters to also go with the skirt I’m working on so I can get some use out of it over the winter as well.

And then I down-loaded the instructions for a “huswife,” which is a small sewing kit that you can roll up and take with you – kind of like a needlebook, but I think it would be even handier. And I printed off instructions for a thread-catcher, which seems easy enough, just time consuming. So many projects, so little time!

Goal For Next Week:
Keep working on the pillowcase. Work on the cancer afghan. Get the sewing machine working and finish my skirt and blouse.

WHAT I’M READING:
Still haven’t updated my Goodreads account – the longer I put it off, the worse it’ll be but I just can’t seem to bring myself to do it. Maybe I should start by making a list of the books I’ve read since my last update, although it’s been so long for most of them that I’ll have to guess at the dates.

I went back to reading The Lost Girl Found. by Maisey Yates, but truthfully I didn’t spend a lot of time reading last week because I’m only about a third of the way through it. I’m enjoying it though.

Goal For Next Week:
Suck it up and update my Goodreads account!

GOAL REVIEW:

While I didn’t get any extra words in, except for that one poem, I still felt I did pretty good on my goals last week. I’m still a bit of an all or nothing kind of gal – spend a whole day working on my stitchery, spent another whole day working on my poetry – so I need to work on that a bit.

No tech or training, but also not as much time wasted on mindless games. Still haven’t tackled the shredding, but I was in the office to do my editing.

Gardening-wise, I should really take a picture to show how pathetic my garden is. I picked cucumbers off the fence (my neighbor told me too) and the green beans on our side of the same fence. I also picked my green beans, but there wasn't nearly as many of them.

I have a plan to make the spare bedroom more craft friendly. It won’t be a complete craft room, not with the bed for guests in it, and it’s going to be a long, convoluted project worthy of a blog post in itself some day when (if) I finish it. Don’t hold your breath waiting for it. :-D

Happy writing.