January 11 2018

My Year of Being FEARLESS

For the first time ever, I chose one word to guide me through the year. Never having done such a thing before, I wasn’t sure how it would work out. I am happy to report that it went very well. The word I chose to guide me through 2017 was FEARLESS.

In January, I chose to submit my first written contest entry. This was huge because I really hadn’t even been promoting my blog at that time and I rarely let anyone read my writing. I was fine with the idea of blogging because I know my posts weren’t being read by anyone and I saw no reason for that to change.

Enter February, where my idea of being fearless included not only blogging, but also committing to the purchase of a domain name and moving my Weebly blog that no one was reading to the WordPress platform. It was a huge commitment but I told myself a fearless person would do it in a heartbeat, so I did it. I also bought a blogging course so I could do it without embarrassing myself too badly.

As part of blogging and trying to do it well, I read that each blog post should have a graphic to go with it and grab the reader’s attention. I also read that it would be best to use graphics that you created or photos that you had taken. I take photos all the time, so no problem, right? So I heard a lot of bloggers were using PicMonkey to create graphics, or at the very least to add text to their photos. So I spent an entire Sunday playing around with it and taught myself the basics of using PicMonkey. I even used it to design myself some business cards and ordered them too while I was at it. If I was going to be fearless, I needed a business card, right? Continue reading

June 17 2017

3rd Update on Office Project

On Wednesday, 6/14, I spent a total of about 3-1/2 hours working in the office. I didn’t intend to work so long, but I had pulled up a video on NetFlix to watch that didn’t really require much actual watching, just listening. It was a two-hour video and I told myself I would just putz around a bit while I watched so I wouldn’t feel so guilty about not doing anything constructive. I started out by moving the boxes of paper that were so overfilled they had become piles. I decided to disconnect my desktop computer and pull out all the wires. I wiped everything down to get rid of the thick coating of dust that had accumulated. I found I had tons of things connected to my computer. A few were disconnected but never reconnected because I want to reevaluate whether I even use them. I figure I will reconnect them if and when I need them.

One thing led to another and before I knew it, I could see some real progress. As the saying goes, things had to get much worse before they could get better. I felt like I was making a huge mess when I moved things out of the way to wipe the desktop and get rid of all dust bunnies hiding everywhere. Apparently, I don’t have a dust allergy. I tried arranging things a little differently but discovered they wouldn’t work in the new places I thought I would put them, so things went mostly back the way they were but without the piles of paper and clutter. Here are the before and after photos.

Right side under hutch (Before)

 

Scanner area of desktop (Before)

Desktop (After)

Continue reading

Category: Fearless, Organizing, Planning | Comments Off on 3rd Update on Office Project
June 15 2017

2nd Update on Office Project

On Monday, 6/12/17, I put in another 3 hours of sorting and tough decision making to get a lot more accomplished in my office.

One problem I am coming up against is that until I am done going through everything, I really have no way of knowing how I want to store the things I keep.

I started by telling myself I was just going to clean out one easy drawer to put my bullet journal supplies in so they were easy to get to and off the top of the desk.

Top drawer on left file cabinet (Before)

Top drawer on left file cabinet (After)

After that, I decided I needed the other small drawer under this one for additional supplies, so I kept going.

Middle drawer on left file cabinet (Before)
Middle drawer on left file cabinet (After)

Now you might be asking yourself what I did with the weights and such from the top drawer, and that was one of those tricky things I mentioned. I put them on the bottom shelf I had already cleaned. In theory, I am telling myself I will use them more if I see them. They were after all, out of sight and thus out of mind. So here is what that looks like now.

Glass & Metal Shelf (After Phase 1)
Glass & Metal Shelf (After Phase 2)

By this time I was getting excited about the amount of progress I was making and I was enjoying listening to an audio book while I worked. So, I told myself I was just going to try to make a little bit of progress on the left side of my desk because the height of the piles was beginning to make me nervous and they really bothered me. Here is how it looked when I started, and while I made some progress, it will still need another pass or two before I am finished.

Left desktop (Before)

Things go a lot worse as I covered the entire desktop with various piles as I sorted. I wanted to stop a few times but I told myself just another inch of the pile, then I would stack it all back there neatly. It is difficult to know what to do with things once they are sorted because until I do something about the file cabinets and the china cabinet there is no place to put papers I am keeping. I persisted and peeled a few layers off this particular onion and finally got to what I considered to be an acceptable stopping point for the night. After pitching some and recycling some and putting a few things away where they belong, for now, it looks like this.

Left desktop (After)

Now, finally, I am getting somewhere! Now I wish I had tackled this back in January when the piles were smaller. I moved everything that was on that section of desktop and washed the surface and let it dry before putting everything back. Now, I can look and see real progress. It feels good. I have reached the point where I know it can happen and I know I won’t give up before it is finished. Do I have a long way to go before I am done? You betcha! But I can do it. I can see that now. I think my confidence in my ability to finish the project was buried deep under all those piles of paperwork and such on the desk. No worries, I found it. Stay tuned. Now I am wondering how quickly I can finish the whole office. End of June? Fourth of July? End of July maybe? We shall see.

March 31 2017

Fear of Finishing

I have only recently figured out that a good part of the reason I have yet to finish one of my novels is because if I finish the first draft, I will actually have to figure out how to edit the thing. Now one would think that knowing this is an issue would be a big part of overcoming the fear and doing something to fix the problem. Yes, I am willing and able to admit it IS a problem.

I felt marginally better after hearing the keynote speaker at a recent writer’s conference acknowledge that it is a common problem among writers. He said it was kind of like while you are writing the book, writing is your job, so when you finish it is like losing your job or being fired. Once you finish the book, you have to tackle a new job, that of being an editor. Hopefully, an editor who will finish revising the first draft into something worth reading. It is a huge commitment. Continue reading

February 9 2017

Take A Chance on Me…

Is there something you have been thinking about doing, but just haven’t quite been willing to take the leap of faith and just do it? Come on, be honest! You know, that one thing you haven’t had the nerve to even tell anyone else you are thinking about doing. Maybe there are lots of things like that for you.

For me it was taking my blogging more seriously and to the next level. I had been quietly reading up on it and researching what it would involve, even making lists just in case, someday, I got up the nerve to act on the idea. Don’t get me wrong, I have a perfectly good blog site already and I have been making a concerted effort to post to it more regularly and more often. Checking the dates on the side bar will prove that while I have had this particular blog, (which is not my first or even my second blog) for a long while, I have been somewhat less than committed to posting to it regularly. Lately I have been adding one or two posts a week to it. At one point, it occurred to me that I could easily add Amazon affiliate links to my blog because I often mention specific products and most of the time those can be found readily on Amazon.

Continue reading

Category: Blogging, Fearless, Writing | Comments Off on Take A Chance on Me…