Saturday, December 29, 2018

The Beginning

Pulling on my big girl undies... I ratted through my old unused scrapbooking supplies and found a little set of papers and stickers that would be perfect to start the personalisation of the most perfect diary/planning system in the world (no pressure there Suzanne 😕).  Unfortunately I also discovered the old unused scrapbooking stickers can lose their stick resulting in hundreds of little alphabet stickers raining down like glitter... and getting everywhere.  Nothing that couldn't be fixed with a generous application of gluestick and away I went.

The little dots down the right hand side read QUILT...


and these little word stickers were probably intended for some sort of mushy journaling but they also represented some of the things I love about quilting... so they got stuck on too!  Friends, dream... create!


Why I hope this whole experiment will work is that I know I achieve a lot more when I write a list of intended tasks... this was a list from June showing a variety of projects; quilting and clothes, with a bit of brainstorming, quilting designs and flow charts all in one.  I decided I quite liked how organic it was, and that it was a shame to throw these things away at the end of the month, and that I should embrace the creative nature of them, which obviously reflects something about me too.



So enters the new slightly formalised plan, starting with a monthly calendar sheet with space on the left to highlight key tasks and room on the calendar to identify steps to achieve those key tasks.  Stuck in with Washi tape, I have also left blank pages between the diary pages to allow for random additions.


Then I have a bit of a serious looking page of quilts to quilt.  Because these all have the same steps to finish... baste, quilt, bind etc... I decided to list these with the steps listed as tick boxes.


I have a page of WIPs...


Which then has a corresponding page with more details about that project (where it came from or what it was inspired by)... what is required to finish that project, and how far along I am at the start of the year.


... and any assorted planning paperwork also washi-ed into place.


I do have a page of new projects... although in my defense some of these were on my last list of WIPs which is now several years old... and I figured if these projects were still taking up space in my brain they deserve to be done.


Still to add is a page with an assortment of household cleaning tasks (like cleaning windows), and a clothes sewing page... and I'm sure I will add other pages as necessary.  I'm quite looking forward to 2019 starting so I can add my first month of tasks.  Looking down the track to December 2019 I am hoping that not only will I have a pile of finished quilts, I will also have a great visual reminder of those projects and how they evolved/changed and hopefully got finished!

5 comments:

Susan said...

Good luck with your system Suz! I tried a similar thing on Google docs but rarely referred to it. I must go back and see how many of those projects actually I finished.

Raewyn said...

What an awesome start - and a very inspiring one too..... the only thing that stops me doing something like this is the admission of how many projects I would have to put on my list - omg!!!! But maybe I should bite the bullet ! Like you I love the mind map type of brainstorming.

dq said...

I truly loved reading this post. I love that you shared so many of your "whys" and thoughts. I love that your organizer/planner is so YOU! Thanks for sharing!

Shelina (formerly known as Shasta) said...

That looks like a great way to keep track of your projects and progress. Good luck with it!

Marti said...

Good luck with your system. I used to keep a notebook and now I don't even know where it is. I hope I find it again someday so I can see the pictures again (taken before computers or digital cameras). I don't know why I stopped using it because it was really helpful to have swatches, notes and pattern all together.