Time budget redux

How quickly can I slide into a yawning maw of time wasters and frittering? How quickly can clutter blindness sneak up on me? How fast can the first quarter of the year pass by?

You wouldn't think that these are the burning questions of my life, but at least I can give answers - or the same answer to all three - "like greased lightning".

It's not that I haven't had accomplishments. I've completed our business plan and sent it to three kind mentors to get feedback - which has been incredibly, dazzlingly useful. As it turns out, I guess I haven't completed our business plan.

I'm more than half way through the layout, and almost entirely done with the writing of our first big title, and we are spending time every weekend taking gorgeous photos for it.

I've written a short crafting e-book that now only needs illustrating. (Only! That will be 150 photos too, I expect). I've completed a sample of a doll for a very nice project for my friend in Australia. I've planned out the sequence of my articles for Natural Life Magazine's website. I've made a start on my conference presentation for NEUC in August. I've even completed our tax return, so we know what we owe.

Working model of a flip doll.

At this point, in the middle of the swirl, nothing is actually finished. Despite several full-car trips to the recycler, my house is a disaster, and I suspect even Jayn is getting tired of take out. But the realization that this is not really very productive for three months of supposedly full time effort disturbs my serenity most of all.

Three months ago I left my job at Michaels for the purpose of concentrating on my own work.It was a bold leap of faith in our big idea. At the time I also left behind my time budget. Without it, I realize I've been more adrift that I want to admit, more startled by urgent, sudden deadlines, and most certainly more easily distracted by the fun, frittering stuff of social media. Instead of planning ahead and scheduling month by month activities (other than a couple of unchanging routine deadlines), I've been starting each day overwhelmed with too many choices, and askew priorities.

So since the last time budget did help a lot, although not without imperfections, I have made a new time budget, allocating percentages of my time around my priorities, prioritizing based on the Eisenhower/Stephen Covey Urgent/Important Matrix. Unlike the last time budget which was a monthly projection (one of the things that made it too easy to excuse myself from sometimes), I have allocated my time on a weekly time table, with the awareness that some activities have to be daily.

My diverse daily activities (30%) will take up 4.75 hours per day, not in a single chunk, since this includes cooking which happens several times, household duties (varies), business marketing including research, and 45 minutes for email and Facebook fun. (Stop laughing, this is serious - I'm going to set a timer).

Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I will be doing all out (a whopping 45% for the top priority) my new business venture, the task list for which has already been created using WorkFlowy. Tuesdays I will be screenwriting (10%) for most of the day, and getting in some other doll art/crafting (5%) for different purposes in the evening. Thursday I will be working on other writing (10%), at the moment my Upcycled clothing book. This leaves the weekend for the photography (mostly part of that 45%) - a family activity - and anything else that should come up business wise, like new commissions. (BTW - Don't do the whacky math. I have worked it through and I'm happy - some work days are longer than others.)

I'm so lucky that almost all this happens in the same room as Jayn's favorite activities. She's been pretty keen to help with the making and crafting of different things. Also this is a guide. There will never be a time when I say we can't go on an outing with our friends because today is a work day, as it was when I was actually working out of the house.

So, today is Tuesday. I've been doing this writing instead of screenwriting for a while. Where's that timer?

Linked

Just found out that Iggy Jingles was linked by Amy at Green Mangoes blog with some very kind words. It's a nice unschooling blog, filled with useful ideas and attractive brevity. Unfortunately it's too late to leave a comment on the particular post, but not too late to feel very complimented.

Natural Life Article Footnotes - wallpaper samples

My latest article is up at the website, written in response to a reader dilemma.

More information about ATC's can be found at the Wikipedia entry, which also includes links.

I like the clarity of the origami box instructions here - lots of pictures and a link to a video - although I must say the banner ad at the top has a very sensitive roll over button. Wiki-how also has photo step by step instructions.

Here's another video with links to more differently shaped boxes. The narrator has a very gentle, almost soporifically peaceful tone to his voice. BTW, especially for wallpaper which is so thick, I definitely recommend a bone folder rather than relying on your fingernail.

Changes in work life

Just so you know, I have resigned from Michaels, at least for the time being.

Not because I was unhappy there - oh no! I love it there. I love the people, both the staff and customers. I love the actual work. My spirits rose whenever I went in to work. I really, truly enjoyed it. I was happy.

But it was in my head. Going in to work even one day a week was keeping my head there seven days a week. I get emotionally involved in my work, I always have. It was distracting me from my writing and other work. Plus, with James increasing hours at his work and other commitments, Sunday turns out to be the only day that we can actually spend time together focusing on our new business plan.

I'm so very grateful for my time there. I hope to have a new and different relationship with Michaels in the near future. And I still have this dream of holding a book signing there in the future.

Writing business plans is time consuming, and the financial predictions are tough. There are services that publish industry reports with lots of numbers - but they are very expensive between $500 to upwards of $4K. They must be in major libraries though, right? I'm collecting bids from vendors too. That is fun. Then there's the design, prototype manufacturing, writing of content, and graphic design. It's going to be tremendous fun, and we are doing it together.

I'm even more happy.

Where did the time go?

I'm sitting here waiting for some delicious pizza to arrive, watching our recording of "Bringing Up Baby" and reflecting on how my usual holiday organization utterly escaped me this year.

Just to be completely clear we are midway between Christmas and New Year. I finally decided I was finished decorating our tree yesterday, with way fewer ornaments than usually (although I really like it this year - almost all the decorations were hand made by me) and that is just about all I've managed to put up.

Usually I make cards, make gifts, make gingerbread and set a beautiful table. Not this year. I have dispatched no cards, sent no hampers, and the gifts this year were mostly purchased. Plus the one thing I thought I had ordered on a website to get sent off apparently didn't go through. Annoying.

However, I did get a Secret Santa gift sent off in time, I hope, and my immediate family received nice presents. We made our traditional crock pot stew, and have been slurping up bowls of it ever since.

We received the average number cards - 17 by snail mail, and a couple of nice email greetings. I enjoy seeing photos of friends' kids as they grow up over years, although one of James' ham radio buddies sent a photo just of himself on his card, which seemed a little unusual.

Most years past I have sent out 73 handmade cards, including internationally. It occurs to me that my list is too long! Plus so few people reciprocate the next year. I can picture some folks looking at them and saying, "Here's another card from those Coburns again. Who are they?"

Maybe that's why it felt so overwhelming to attempt this year. For those people who like getting my cards, I'm sorry, and I plan to return to sending them next year - at least to those who sent them to us this year. And in the meanwhile, I have thank you cards to make and send.

Besides we've been very busy. I'm preparing a comprehensive business plan for a meeting that we have scheduled part way through January. I'm preparing a proposal for a major installation for the same meeting. I'm designing several projects for my ScraPerfect Design Team, that will be part of a promotion at CHA at the end of January with a bunch of craft vendor partners. More details of those will be on my Iggy Jingles blog.

James is busy working hard, not just at LAFS, but also on his coursework for his degree. He should be finished by February.

I hope everyone's holidays are wonderful.

Uptown Village Market

The Gallery 9 is kindly giving me an exemption to sell my dolls here at this juried affair. No mass market imports here - all local artisans with handmade wares. My art dolls are all one of a kind! See you there. 

COME SEE ME AT:

Uptown Village Market on December 2^nd and 3^rd.  

The Uptown Village Market is THE newest place for all of your LOCAL AND HANDMADE Shopping Needs.  This 2 days event will host over 60 artists and creators of well-crafted goods to show and sell their work. Expect a myriad unique, high quality, and, above all, HANDCRAFTED.  Don’t miss it!!!

Visit http://www.uptownvillagemarket.com/ for details.

EXPO ARTS CENTER

4321 Atlantic Ave
Long Beach, CA 90807

Hours:

Fri 5 pm - 10 pm

Sat 10 am - 4 pm

Writing Round Up

Still found time to get out to LACMA for

the awesome Tim Burton exhibit.

I can tell you one thing. I am way too busy for writer's block!

That's the good thing about having several projects pots on the stove. If one starts to cool off, there's another one simmering ready to be stirred.

Here's what I'm working on at the moment:

I'm doing editing/polishing rewrites on my family fantasy script, "Mermaid Lake". The title rather says it all. I think of this as my live action with CGI "Disney" type movie. I'm loving the characters and the eco-conscious story line, but it's heart is about friendship and family.

I'm doing character histories (because they help me) and story outlines for my fractured fairy tale "Spinning Wheel". I'm  noticing a sudden influx of the genre in film and tv (especially), so I may have missed it this time around. Oh well; genres cycle. But this is a really epic treatment of Sleeping Beauty - think filming in New Zealand or Eastern Europe. It's not just an olden days homage to Tolkein and Grimm, it's also a love song to textile art - with CGFX. The production designer and costume designer will have a ball! But I'm a ways off yet - the middle is still hazy, although I know how it starts and how it ends.

I'm working up my next article for Natural Life - answering some of those hairy reader questions. I climbed around in my over full storage unit until I found some packs of old slides, and I have a stack of holiday cards and even a wallpaper sample book. Stay tuned on the Natural Life website where I hope I can include more photos than would fit in the print mag.

I'm hoping to revive a reality show idea that I'd really pushed to the back burner...if my producer buddy who is very busy with his latest release can take a glance at it. I think it would be a good fit for OWN. It's a contempory take on restoring the kitchen the heart of the home, but it's individualized for each family - no one size fits all solutions here.

My refashioned/upcycled old clothes book project is so cold, it's got a lid on it. Cold but definitely not forgotten.

But I don't get to spend a lot of time just writing screenplays, articles and books. My time budget - which needs revision now that I have cut back on my hours at my lovely Michaels (oh you didn't know that? That's another story) - still has me doing my education publication project most of the time. James and I have high hopes that this will be huge, and help so many parents and kids with what seems to be a scary and challenging process. Home schoolers welcome too! I'm not quite ready to reveal it, but I think it will be very cool.

Jayn participates in the big project when she wants to. We are enjoying sitting on opposite sides of the work table these days, so we can grin for pure joy at each other. Most of her time is taken up with World of Warcraft, which she now adores. She's full of ideas that she wants to sent to Blizzard for new classes of creature. Her contentment overflows. It's lovely.