So you know where I am coming from, I like the idea of setting goals. I admire those who set them and accomplish them, but I am not naturally a fan. I often see setting goals as just another way to disappoint myself. So I struggle to find the best method for me to set and reach goals. This is a way which feels like a good fit. Let me explain.
I shared in a video ways to deal with UFOs, or UnFinished Objects, as quilters like to call them. Know what? My advice didn’t help me a bit. I thought it would work. That is how everybody says it should work. But it didn’t work for me…
See, somewhere along the way, these projects changed from being an inspiration, something to spur me to creativity, to being a debt I owed, with the collections agency harassing me every time I darkened the door.
Along the same theme from my post, “Leave Quilts, Not Fabric“, this year (#newyearnewyou, right), I tried something new. I took a page from Dave Ramsey about how to get rid of credit card debt.
First step – acknowledge the disaster. Get an honest, clear-eyed accounting of all you have. I took every, and I mean EVERY, UFO out of the hiding bins and tubs.
Before you go farther – This is a good place to sort out what you don’t love and pass it along to someone who will love it.
Second step – Assess what steps it will take to clean up said disaster. One at a time I named each project and listed all the actions needed to FINISH that project.
Step three – Count how much TIME it will take for each action. Above each task, I wrote how many hours I think it will take to complete each step. This gave me a project total.
Before we even start on Step four, I confess I actually felt a sense of hopefulness. Suddenly this looming mountain was divided into smaller, manageable chunks. “Hey”, I thought, “I might actually be able to do this!” Suddenly, like a wanderer lost in a cave, I turned a corner and saw light!
Step four – sum up and divide. I added together all the hours (385hours) and divided it by 52 weeks, which equals 7.4. To finish ALL the UFOs on my list would take, drum roll please… 7.4 hours per week. That’s it? Yep, that’s it. I can totally find 7.4 hours per week!
Step five – Pick a starting place. I have five projects which have deadlines. So those are first in line. After I finish those, I will start with the least number of hours first. I will tackle my 4s, 6s and 8s. The more you knock the smaller ones out of the way and the more successes you have, the more encouraged you will be to keep going and tackle the big ones.
Step six – make it pretty. Just for grins, and because I have a new Quilter’s Planner, I transferred the list to the Projects pages. (I kept the original list so I could track the hours for each task.) Then I added colors to show what was already done. Can’t wait to color the rest in!
I am very encouraged about this plan. We will see how it will go over this year. I anticipate I will need to make some tweaks but that is how I make a plan what works for me!
So what works for you?
Blessings,
Jenny Kae