21 for 2021: week 17 update

Week 17/2021: week of 26 April 2021

I  had a lovely day out with my sister and her friend at Mt Field National Park on Saturday, which was great because I could forget all about my to-do list and concentrate on  not rolling my injured ankle clambering over large rocks on the Tarn Shelf. Did I succeed? No, I did not. But I can still walk, so I don’t think I did too much damage.

I still have a tonne of photos to sort through, so here are just a couple of them.

21 for 2021 update

This week in the Change Journal I worked on chapter 5, Digital Detox.

I don’t know that I learned that much from the exercise other than that on a bad day, if I was on social media and email and watching TV as much as I was that day every day of the year, I’d spend the equivalent of 43 days a year doing that.

43 days!!!!

Actually, this is a bit misleading, because I don’t normally watch TV and I have been lately because I watch Masterchef with Kramstable, and I check the Twitter feed about the show on my phone at the same time, so a lot of the time I counted as being on social media was double counted as TV time as well. If I hadn’t been watching TV, I might not have been on the phone either.

 The idea of the chapter is to track your usage over the first four days of the week, to track your non-usage over the last three days and then work out how much time you’d save over a year by not going on the phone. I found that difficult, to actually track the times I thought about picking up my phone but didn’t do it, especially as I was out and away from the journal for most of the time so didn’t have any way to record near-misses. I sort of get what it was trying to do but it didn’t work for me. 

I know what my main triggers for wasting time on the phone are. They are being in between tasks, not being sure what I should be doing or not really having anything to do. I know that on days I have a lot to do and I just sit down and do it, I spend a lot less time on the phone. 

So I found this chapter more of a reinforcement of what I already knew, rather than something new.

Also, I completed 66 days of the habit of doing the pre-work routine (thing 20), which is part of chapter 7, so that thing is done. I’m also working through the journalling chapter (chapter 24).

I did some more work on my resume (thing 18)

Vegetable of the week

Thing 2 is to choose a different vegetable every week from the book In Praise of Veg and make a recipe from the book using that vegetable.

 This week’s dish was Carefree Cabbage Curry (page 456). I’m not a huge fan of cabbage. In fact, I reckon it’s up there with Brussels sprouts and we already know what I think of them. However, Alice says, “Often, when cabbage gets braised, it is shredded, grated or chopped in some way where you lose the beauty of its folds and undulations. Here, the rich golden marinade and equally shimmering gravy only serves to emphasise the grandeur of this brilliant Brassica.”

Wow! What a description. It’s a love letter to cabbage, right? Writing like that is almost enough to turn the most ardent cabbage hater. 

Almost.

For this dish, you cut cabbage into wedges, marinate it and then cook it in what is a very tasty curry sauce. (Note to self: you have run out of Kashmiri chilli.) It’s actually nice.

Marinating cabbage. It’s a thing.

There, I said it. There is a cabbage dish I liked.

I think having the cabbage as such a big chunk bulks it up a bit so you don’t feel like you’re missing out by not having any meat in it. I can imagine I’d make this again. 

I even had nigella seeds already

Regular projects

There are several things on my list that I have made a regular commitment to doing in the hope that this will be more likely to make me do them. I worked on these ones this week.

• Thing 5: Spend an hour a week working through my annoying undone things list. One hour on Saturday morning. I didn’t do this on Satirday as I was out but I did read a bit from one of the books that’s on the list during the week.
• Thing 8: Spend an hour a week working on Kramstable’s videos. I worked on this for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon.
• Thing 9: Write my mother’s life story. I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to my mum this week, but I got her to identify some people in some old photos
• Thing 17: Brainsparker gym*. I finished lesson 3 of Module 5.

21 for 2021 summary

• Things completed this week: 1 (20)
• Things completed to date: 2 (1, 20)
• Things I progressed: 7 (2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 17, 18)
• Things in progress I didn’t progress: 7 (6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16)
• Things not started: 5 (3, 12, 15, 19, 21)

Blast from the past

Following on from my 10-year review of my blog, here’s another one of my favourite posts from 2011. This one is from 11 November 2011: eleven, which is about how I spent 11/11/11. Sick on the couch at home, it turned out.

I took a photo every hour that day for the 11Eleven project, which seems to have now disappeared. I don’t know if the book ever happened but I’m pretty sure none of my photos would have made it in!

When did I listen and what did I learn this week?

I went to a webinar on age discrimination in the workplace, which I found very interesting. One of the panelists asked why we have this constant fixation on chronological age, and said that focusing on age to categorise older workers is deficient and limiting. I found Kay Patterson, the Age Discrimination Commissioner, a real inspiration at age 76. This is all going to be relevant to my work in the coming months so it was a useful and thought provoking session for me.

I was also interested to see Hobart Council’s Crowther Reinterpretation Project in Franklin Square. This project provides local artists with the opportunity to respond to the statue of William Crowther, a public figure in mid-19th century Hobart.

The first project is called “Truth Telling” by Allan Mansell, and it considers Crowther’s treatment of Aboriginal man William Lanne (King Billy) after Lanne’s death, including decapitating his body.

There will be four temporary artworks involving the stature over the rest of 2021. While I was aware of Aboriginal people’s bodies having been desecrated in the name of white people’s “science”, I didn’t know about William Lanne’s particular story, and I think this project is a good opportunity to, as the project description says, “acknowledge, question, provoke discussion or increase awareness about the story of Crowther and Lanne”. These are important stories that we need to learn about.

What was the best thing about this week?

The Tarn Shelf walk.

What I’m reading this week

• On Writing by Stephen King
• Dæmon Voices: On Stories and Storytelling by Philip Pullman
• Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit

Habit tracker

• Days I did my morning planning routine at work (Goal = 4): 4
• Days I did my post-work pack up routine(Goal = 4): 4
• Days I worked on my art (Goal = 2): 4
• Days I read a book (Goal = 7): 7
• Days I did yoga stretches (Goal = 7): 5
• Days I had a lunch break away from my desk (Goal = 4 work days): 4
• Days I went for a walk or did other physical activity in the afternoon (Goal = 7): 5
• Days I shut my computer down before 10.15 (Goal = 7): 7

21 for 2021: week 16

Week 16/2021: week of 19 April

This week I started Chapter 4 of the Change Journal, which is called the Circle Trick. This is a technique by Sigur∂ur Ármannsson,  which Tim Jaudszims, the Change Journal author, says he has modified a bit. It asks you to list your tasks chronologically in the order you have to do them if they have specific times they have to be done by, otherwise you can add them however you want. There’s a list of symbols you can use to tag that the tasks, a bit like the symbols that people use in bullet journals.

I didn’t know who Sigur∂ur is so I googled him. He is an Icelandic designer who seems to like fonts a lot. His website is font.is and a quick search of his blog archive finds a post from February 2009, where he talks about his way of recording tasks in a notebook to fit the way he uses the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology. He’d been using this system for years, he says, and decided it needed a name, so he called it Circle. Just out of interest, Ryder Carroll, the inventor of the Bullet Journal system, says he was working on his system in 2007 and launched it in 2013.

I’m not going to compare the two systems. They use different symbols to denote to-dos, degrees of importance, and various stages of completion or cancellation (and bullet journalling goes way (way) beyond a simple to-do list). But looking at it from the simplest perspective, I don’t suppose it matters what symbols you use. You might start out with one set and change them as you get familiar with the system, how it works and what you actually need to symbolise. There are no rules. 

I tried it for a week, as a slightly different system to the one I currently use.

I say my “system”. That is, perhaps, being a bit generous.

What I like about Circle is that Sigur∂ur uses it in conjunction with a to-do app, so he might write something on the list, but he might later decide to move it out of the notebook into the electronic system. That item gets marked as completed in his notebook so that he can only see things he has to still do there. Of course, this relies on you actually checking your to-do app.

I check mine regularly.

 Ahem.

 Starting out, I felt a bit sceptical of the system as it appears in the Change Journal but, having seen Sigur∂ur’s original post and putting a couple of things back that Tim had removed, I think it makes more sense to me now.

The idea of putting things in chronological order put me off but I don’t think I read it properly the first time because they only need to be listed chronologically if they have to be done at a specific time. Nevertheless, on Day 1, I tried to allocate times to the tasks I wanted to do. I had a seven hour work day and I listed eight tasks, some of which relied on other people getting back to me, one of which was a quick phone call, and others that were not particularly well-defined, breaking all the rules about specifying an actual task.

At the end of the day, I had completed four of my eight tasks, worked on three of them and not done one at all. Actually I had completed five. One of them was to watch some training videos but I didn’t say how much I wanted to do, so I watched two videos and got up to the next written exercise and called it done.

 The photo gives you an idea. This was the only day I allocated times to the tasks. I’d generally do that in my calendar if I needed to get something done at a certain time rather than on the to-do list.

Not my actual tasks

I liked seeing very clearly what I’d done, with a bunch of filled-in circles, and where I’d overcommitted myself with a bunch of open circles. I think this is a technique I could keep working with, or at least incorporate some of the ideas into the way I plan my day. I think it’s worth persevering with.

Regular projects

There are several things on my list that I have made a regular commitment to doing in the hope that this will be more likely to make me do them. I worked on these ones this week.

• Thing 5: Spend an hour a week working through my annoying undone things list. If you read last week’s post, you’ll know that I ordered a new external SSD to replace my apparently failing internal hard disk drive. It arrived on Tuesday and I set it up to be my computer’s main hard drive. Everything seems to be working fine and I’ve had no issues with it beachballing or freezing or being super slow. I really should have done this months ago instead of complaining about it.
• Thing 8: Spend an hour a week working on Kramstable’s videos. I spent an hour on Sunday afternoon working on this. It’s coming together well, I think.
• Thing 9: Write my mother’s life story. I went to see my Mum on Thursday as normal. She’d got held up at the doctor’s so we didn’t get as much time as we normally do.
• Thing 17: Brainsparker gym*. I worked on lesson 2 of module 5.

It’s so tiny!

Yay!

21 for 2021 summary

• Things completed this week: 0
• Things completed to date: 1 (1)
• Things I progressed: 6 (4, 5, 8, 9, 17, 20)
• Things in progress I didn’t progress: 9 (2, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18)
• Things not started: 5 (3, 12, 15, 19, 21)

Monday sunset

Blast from the past

Following on from my 10-year review of my blog, here’s another one of my favourite posts from 2011. This one is from 27 October 2011: The big 300, which is about reaching the 300-post milestone and still wondering what my blog is about.

When did I listen and what did I learn this week?

This week I went to two event organised by the City of Hobart’s Bush Adventures team. On Thursday I went to a session about playpus conservation in Hobart’s waterways and learned many things about the platypus. For example, they can climb up waterfalls and their bills are nothing like ducks’ bills. I also learned that the plural of platypus can never be platypi, as that is a Latin plural and the word “platypus” has its origins in Greek words for “flat foot”.

On Saturday, I went on a “fungi foray” with a small group led by mycologist Richard Robinson. And that is the first thing I learned, that a microbiologist who studies fungi is a mycologist. This was a lovely two-hour exploration of some of the fungi growing on the foothills of kunanyi. I think I mainly learned how much I don’t know about fungi—and how many of them there are all around us that we never notice.

I also saw some wicked spider webs.

What did I do for the Earth this week?

A key message from one of the speakers at the platypus session was that it is not enough to enjoy the environment, We have to actively take care of it and protect it. This is something to keep in mind for next weekend’s state government election.

Our beautiful Mountain, kunanyi

What I’m reading this week

• On Writing by Stephen King
• Dæmon Voices: On Stories and Storytelling by Philip Pullman

Habit tracker

• Days I did my morning planning routine at work (Goal = 5): 5
• Days I did my post-work pack up routine(Goal = 5): 3
• Days I worked on my art (Goal = 2): 2
• Days I read a book (Goal = 7): 7
• Days I did yoga stretches (Goal = 7): 6
• Days I had a lunch break away from my desk (Goal = 5 work days): 5
• Days I went for a walk or did other physical activity in the afternoon (Goal = 7): 2
• Days I shut my computer down before 10.15 (Goal = 7): 7

20 for 2020: week 21

Week 21: Week of 18 May
My 20 for 2020 list.

After I handed my uni assignment in last Sunday (thing 8) I felt completely drained and flat and certainly not inspired to start thinking about the rest of the work and the next assignment, which I think is due at the start of July. I hoped I’d feel a bit better about it later in the week and got the readings for the rest of the unit together so they’d be ready to work on.

As it turned out, my week was pretty disrupted with three medical appointments, including one on Friday that left me needing to take the rest of the day off work, so I really didn’t settle myself down to refocus on this work until the weekend and even then I only managed to get through one reading.

The good news from my GP earlier in the week though was that the lumps and scrapes on my hand are not, as I’d imagined, the result of some creepy crawly living under my bed that comes out at night to bite me when I’m sleeping, but a specific sort of hand eczema that can be caused by excessive hand washing, soap, the cold, stress . . . whatever normally causes me to get an eczema flare up. I’m relieved that it isn’t a mysterious nocturnal predator slowly poisoning my body bite by bite, but also secretly disappointed, because that would be a kind of cool story to go into my isolation journal.

Begone, itchy hands!

On the days I go out, I’ve been taking photos of things that show how the world has changed in the last couple of months. I think it will be interesting to look back on this in the future.

I’ve been trying to develop a more useful and regular mindfulness meditation practice, which I have been doing recently through a combination of different apps following a study I participated in last year through the Menzies Centre on mindfulness at work. About two months ago, I went back to the Insight Timer app, which I used to use every day and had built up a streak of over 500 days before I forgot one day and completely lost the habit. I was very disappointed in myself that one missed session was enough to kill a habit of almost two years. I have always struggled with the idea of focusing on my breath and, whenever I get distracted by a thought, bringing my focus back gently to my breath. So my daily three minutes “mindfulness” was mainly me struggling not to think. This week I started a new program that I’m using in conjunction with Insight Timer, which involves two 30-minute sessions every day. It’s a huge step up from slotting three minutes in sometime during the day when I think of it, and it’s not easy. It is frustrating and there are times I hate it.

The reasons for me doing this are long and varied and I don’t want to go too much into them, other than to say that developing a mindfulness practice is one element of my personal development plan that I completed in the second unit of my uni course and I hope that it will support me in dealing with some of the other things I identified in the plan. None of this is supported through the uni program. What I do with the personal development plan is entirely up to me, but I feel like now I’ve made the effort to put it together, I need to actually make it happen.

It’s too early to tell if the mindfulness program is going to benefit me and but I know that I need to commit to it and do it for several weeks to see any real effects.

So there’s that.

As well as doing my mindfulness practice in the mornings, I’ve been continuing to use the time after my morning walk to work through the Photoshop course (thing 7). It’s really exciting stuff and I need to actually break out of my bubble and start to do some of the things I’m learning.

I’m three lessons in to the second module and realised there is a lot of material I’ve been sitting there nodding at but not taking the time to sit down and practice. There almost seems to be a point right now in the course that is a really good time to actually do that before moving on. It’s almost like the instructor knows I haven’t been doing the work and wrapped up the video I watched on Saturday with a pretty clear instruction to stop consuming the content and start creating. (And if he didn’t, that is my brain putting that interpretation on it because it knows it’s time to do some work.)

Trampled dreams

I have this idea in my head that I need to get through the videos as fast as possible to finish the course and then go back and do the work later. But, of course, this isn’t like that. The videos build on the previous work, so if you haven’t done that, you’re going to get very lost and confused.

I do not need to finish watching the videos in any set time. There is no time limit, only the one my completionist brain insists on. But there’s no benefit in doing it this way. I need to work through the material and actually do it as I go and when I start to understand it, then I can move on to the next video. There’s no prize for getting through them all in record time. There’s no prize at all. And there definitely won’t be a prize for watching all the videos but not actually being able to use any of the techniques. I need to do the work. Now.

One thing I have learned from doing my uni course is that I actually do have time to sit down and do the work I want to do. I can organise my days to do this. Not having time is an excuse that really means I’m not prioritising things. I already knew this, by the way, but I have seen for a fact that I can sit down and focus on something. I also learned a bit more about procrastination this week and that ties in well with the Indistractable work (thing 13) that I still haven’t gone back to and finished . . .

I used my graphics tablet (thing 17) for all of 30 seconds this week before Photoshop crashed and I didn’t go back to it. 30 seconds is still progress, right?

And finally, following my raven reading theme, this week I read the book The Ravenmaster’s Boy by Mary Hoffman, a young adult historical fiction piece centred around the last days of Anne Boleyn.

Summary for the week

• Things completed this week: 0
• Things completed to date: 8 (1, 4, 5, 6, 10, 15, 16, 18)
• Things I progressed: 1 (7, 8, 14, 17)
• Things in progress I didn’t progress:  (3, 11, 13, 22)
• Things not started: 6  (2, 9, 12, 19, 20, 21)
• Days I stuck to my 15 minutes creative habit this week: 7
• Days I read a book: 7

 

20 for 2020: week 17

Week 17: week of 20 April

My 20 for 2020 list.

This was another slow week for my 20 for 2020 list. There are some things I won’t be able to do while we are in death virus lockdown, such as getting my sewing machine fixed (thing 2) and going to a fermenting class (thing 19). The Bored and Brilliant challenge (thing 12) really needs me to be home alone so that’s going to have to wait too.

I reviewed the wellbeing classes (thing 3) I want to complete from 2019 on Sunday and started to work on some of the journalling exercises. I’ve also been maintaining my nightly reading habit (thing 14).

This week’s reading

My uni course (thing 8) starts again on Monday, so that’s going to get resurrected very soon. I have no real excuse for not doing the work on Indistractable (thing 13) other than I just haven’t made time for it in my schedule. I’ve been working on editing some photos for another project now that I’ve completed my first project (thing 1) and that’s been taking up a lot of my time outside of work. Time I probably won’t have when uni starts up again, so I’ve been making the most of it.

This week was my first full week working outside of the office and I have to say I’m really getting used to this. I used to think that it was my job that was making me miserable and stressed but working in this different way has made me question whether it’s actually the job. I realised that when I go to work, my whole day revolves around work: either getting ready for work, getting to work, being at work, getting home from work or unwinding from work. With all of that in play, it wasn’t uncommon for work-related activities to take up 11 or 12 hours of my day. Add in seven hours for sleeping and a couple of hours for house and family stuff, there wasn’t a lot of time left over, and I never really felt like doing much in the afternoon/evening even if I did have some time because I was worn out after a day at work.

Wrest Point from a bus stop after a late appointment on Monday night

Fast forward to now where the amount of time I need to prepare for and recover from work has reduced. I get ready for work more quickly, I don’t need to travel to work and I finish work at either 2.30 or 3.30 because, not needing to travel, I can start at 8.00. Whereas in the old world, I’d not be home before 4.00 and sometimes closer to 6.00, and the last thing I’d feel like doing is going for a walk, now I finish work and I head out for a walk in the afternoon light to clear my head and close the door on work for the day. It really re-energises me and I actually feel like working on my own projects for a few hours when I get back.

Beautiful afternoon light

Not only did my whole day revolve around work, the environment was not good for me. I was always uncomfortable and anxious in an open plan office designed for maximum occupancy than maximum productivity. Maybe some people like it; maybe some people do the sort of work that is suited to that kinds of environment. I don’t and my work isn’t. Away from that space, I feel calmer and more relaxed, even though the work has ramped up quite a lot because of the death virus.

The combination of not being in that environment and having more time away from work has meant that I am feeling more comfortable than I can ever remember feeling. I haven’t been getting headaches or a sore neck, even though I haven’t been doing my physio exercises (sorry, Tom), I’m sleeping better and I haven’t been running out of rooms in tears because I can’t take it any more. I delete the emails I get that tell me that I’m probably experiencing something between mild anxiety and full-blown panic right now. No, that’s how I felt before this happened. While I would never say I love my work, it seems clear that wasn’t the actual job that was making me unhappy; it was how I had to do it.

More beautiful afternoon light

Of course, as I said last week, I am so very lucky to be in a position where I still have a job and can do it at home, when so many don’t and can’t. Many people are on that spectrum between mild anxiety and full-blown panic. Unlike others, I don’t have to put myself in situations where I might be exposed to the death virus and nobody I know has contracted it. The circumstances that have made this way of working possible are not something I would ever wish to happen. I also recognise that things could change for me in a heartbeat, any day. But this is the situation that we’re in, and I can’t change it. I can only make the best of it and I’m grateful that I’m able to do that right now, in this moment.

Summary for the week

• Things completed this week: 0
• Things completed to date: 8 (1, 4, 5, 6, 10, 15, 16, 18)
• Things I progressed: 2 (3, 14)
• Things in progress I didn’t progress: 6 (7, 8, 11, 13, 17, 22)
• Things not started: 6  (2, 9, 12, 19, 20, 21)
• Days I stuck to my 15 minutes creative habit: 7
• Days I read a book: 7

20 for 2020: week 15

Week 15: Week of 6 April

My 20 for 2020 list.

I’ve lost count of the number of weeks since we have been in the world of covid-19, where no one is supposed to go out unless they are going to work or school, getting essential supplies or medical treatment, or exercising. People aren’t allowed to gather in groups of more than two unless they are family who live together, shops are closed and streets are a lot more empty than usual. I’ve been in this kind of transition state, where I would prefer to be working from home but haven’t had the technology to do so every day and have needed to keep going to my office two or three days a week. The one day in, one day out has been making me feel quite unsettled, like I’m not really in one place or the other, though I have also been grateful for the change of scenery and the chance to ride my bike on roads that are a lot quieter than normal.

Centrepoint, Monday 12.30pm

(When I said I wanted to practise riding to work when there were fewer cars around, I didn’t mean I wanted there to be a pandemic that shut the world down and stopped most people going to work. A few rides on weekends and leaving for work earlier would have been quite sufficient, really.)

Wellington Court

Anyway, I got the technology update on my laptop that means I can work at home most of the time from now on, so my trips into town for work are going to be a lot less frequent. I think this will help me to feel a bit more settled working from home and to get into more of a routine. Now that I can use my work laptop at home, I’ve set it up on a different desk from my normal computer so I’m hoping that will keep me away from the distractions that my Mac likes to offer up when I’m trying to work.

Easter message from the government

I’m also going to start putting into practices some of the things I’ve been learning from Indistractible (thing 13) to try and stay as productive as possible in what is turning out to be a very unusual year.

I got the first set of course material for the next unit of my uni course (thing 8) this week. This is a unit called “Managing Outwards in a Networked Government” and I’m sure they weren’t thinking of remote networks and everyone working from home because of a global pandemic when they came up with that title. It’s going to be interesting to see how this unit goes in the current climate, when the way government does business could change dramatically over the next six months.

I still haven’t sorted out what I want to focus on this month from my monthly review (thing 22) and I’ve been making lists and mind maps and trying to make things link together . . . everything except making a start on anything. I feel like I need to do everything and that I am frittering my days away on make-work rather than actual work. I think I’m falling into the trap of trying to have everything planned out, when I don’t need to. I just need to know the next thing I need to do. And I’m also falling into the trap of feeling like I have to use the extra time I have at home, which isn’t really that much more than normal because I don’t go out much anyway, to do something and learn something and be useful, when what I really need to do is take the opportunity to look after myself, to rest and to not get sick.

At the same time though, there are things I want to be doing and that I can do. My world hasn’t turned so far upside down yet that I can absolve myself of all responsibilities. I have a little time to be doing things I want to do. Striking a balance between being and doing will be important in the coming weeks.

I continued to work on my photo project (thing 1) for 15 minutes every morning. On Friday, which was a public holiday, I decided I wanted to finish it once and for all. I had a few little things to tidy up that I thought would take maybe a couple of hours.

Ha.

I kept finding little things that weren’t quite right or that I had overlooked. Then I came up with a new idea to include that meant I had to edit some more photos. And then I found that the format of the quotation marks was different in some captions to others . . . By the end of the day, there was only one thing left that was bugging me and I didn’t know how to fix it, so I left it.

Leave it, go out for a walk

I did some more work with it on Saturday but it was late at night by the time I finished. I thought I was ready to have it printed but I decided to have one last look in the morning when I wasn’t as tired and I’m glad I did because there was a huge typo in there! Then when I got to preview the ready-to-print product I decided I didn’t like how some of the pictures looked, so I went back to change them. But I finally said enough was enough and uploaded it and sent it to print.

Done is done. Perfectionism, begone!

I watched a video on how to set up my graphics tablet (thing 17). I imagine that is going to take a bit of getting used to, to use a pen instead of a mouse. One suggestion was to use it exclusively instead of the mouse until you get used to it, which makes sense, but picking it up and putting it down all the time sounds like it would be a bit annoying. But I guess the more I use it, the easier it will be.

Let’s find out how this works

I also did some work on my dodgy home studio (thing 11), which involve attempting to get wrinkles out of the backdrops, which wasn’t successful. I’ve googled some other ideas to try for that.

Sunday kombucha brewing

Bedtime reading (thing 14) seems to have become a thing for me. I didn’t like it before but I seem to have got more used to it now and am quite enjoying it. I guess it’s become part of that evening routine that I’m struggling to develop.

Sunday afternoon

Summary for the week

• Things completed this week: 1 (1)
• Things completed to date: 8 (1, 4, 5, 6, 10, 15, 16, 18)
• Things I progressed: 4 (8, 11, 14, 17)
• Things in progress I didn’t progress: 4 (3, 7, 13, 22)
• Things not started: 6 (2, 9, 12, 19, 20, 21)
• Days I stuck to my 15 minutes creative habit: 7
• Days I read a book for at least 15 minutes: 7

20 for 2020: week 10

Week of 2 March

My 20 for 2020 list.

Fallen

On Monday, I started my alcohol-free month (thing 5). I did it in March last year as part of 19 for 2019 and decided to repeat it this year. A few weeks ago I came across The Alcohol Experiment by Annie Grace, which is subtitled “30 days to take control, cut down or give up for good”. I thought “30 day alcohol experiment” sounded better than “no alcohol for a month” so I decided to follow the program in the book for the coming month. Last year I did my month. It was easy, but I gradually slipped back into my old ways, which is not something I wanted to do, and was always a risk after reaching a goal without a clear plan on what I wanted to do afterwards. It means that I still stay up too late, I don’t get enough sleep and I am tired a lot.

The program outlined in this book shows you a new way of thinking about alcohol and “asks you to look a little close about why we drink, what we get out of it and whether it’s really the alcohol that’s giving us what we want”.

There have been some interesting things to think about and challenges to some of my beliefs, so it’s a lot to take in. I think the most important thing that I have learned is that it isn’t a lack of willpower that makes me reach for another wine when I really should have started packing up and getting ready for bed, and that treating myself with compassion for my past “failures” is going to be very important. I’m not very good at that.

The “lack of willpower is not the problem” theory also features in the book Indistractable (thing 13) and Nir Eyal suggests a similar compassionate approach towards yourself when you make a mistake.

I reviewed what I’ve done so far in the book and where I’m up to. I started to feel a bit overwhelmed about some the ideas because I know that they aren’t going to work for me. Scheduling time to reply to emails (chapter 15), for example, might not work in an organisation that relies on email for a lot of its “immediate” interactions. I do this a lot precisely because I don’t want to disturb people by going to talk to the face to face, but actually talking to them would probably save a lot of time when I get into those back and forth email conversations. So, okay, let’s not say never. I will give this a try.

I’m not sure about the stuff on work interruptions (chapter 14). I always thought that putting on headphones meant that you didn’t want to be disturbed but in my workplace, noise canceling headphones are essential to get any work done, not just the work you need to concentrate on because the noise is unrelenting, so people feel quite at liberty to come and talk to me. I think the only way to be truly uninterruptible is to go and work someplace else when you really need to focus. For me, it’s not just the noise, it’s the constant movement in my peripheral vision that keeps me constantly on edge and unable to concentrate, so I don’t even think putting a “do not disturb” sign on my computer would help that. I read somewhere that it’s like your lizard brain constantly scanning the environment for signs that something out there is about to attack you, so you’re always in this semi-alert state, ready to fight or flee if you have to.

I’ve picked a few things out to try rather than go full-on and implement everything at once. I think one important thing to be sure to have is a clear work space around me (chapter 19), which means no phone within reach and only the things I am working on in front of me. I’m very good at clearing the spaces off but not so good at keeping them clear. I let stuff pile up and then I spend ages clearing it off again instead of putting things where they belong in the first place.

Wet chickens are wet

Earlier in the year I made a STOP-START-KEEP list, which I hope is pretty self-explanatory. As I discover things I’m doing that aren’t serving me, they go into the STOP section, things I’m doing now that are working well are in the KEEP section and things I want to start doing, well you get the idea. I’m going to add a TRY column to this list for things I might want to start but are more of an experiment than a thing I definitely want to do.

I stuck some more photos from my 2019 photojournal into the book (thing 4) and trimmed all of the ones I printed last week ready to go in the book. I worked on my photo project (thing 1) and completed the last three modules of my uni course (thing 8). I watched a webinar from the wellbeing course (thing 3), which relates the journalling that I need to complete from last year to call this thing done for the year.

Summary for the week

• Things completed this week: 0
• Things completed to date: 5 (6, 10, 15, 16, 18)
• Things I progressed: 7 (1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 13, 14)
• Things in progress I didn’t progress:  3 (7, 11, 22)
• Things not started: 7 (2, 9, 12, 17, 19, 20, 21)
• Days I stuck to my 15 minutes creative habit this week: 7.
• Days I scheduled (and did) 50 or 25 minute blocks of time to work on my projects: None.
• Days I read on the bus on the way to work (or another time for at least 15 minutes): 6.

 

19 for 2019: week 19 update

Week of 4 May

I don’t have a lot to update this week. I went to work, had a training course and went to a wedding (yay!).

I had a nice day walking around Launceston on Friday (more than 33,000 steps for the record) before I was struck down with a cold that has put me out of action since then (not yay!).

I took some nice photos though. You can find more of the photos on my photoblog.

I watched the first half of the next assignment for the photo course (thing 1) and did a bit of work on one of the assignments in Lightroom (thing 19) but I haven’t finished it.

That’s about it!

Status for week 19

• Things completed this week: 0
• Things completed: 8 (3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15)
• Things I progressed: 2 (1, 19)
• Things in progress I didn’t progress:  5: (2, 6, 11, 16, 18)
• Things not started: 4 (4, 10, 14, 17)

19 for 2019: week 14 update

Week of 1 April

After my massive week of achievements in week 13, I wasn’t anywhere near as productive in week 14 with my 19 for 2019 list. In fact, I can count the things I progressed on one hand. One finger, even.

Status for week 14

• Things completed this week: 0
• Things completed: 8 (3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15)
• Things I progressed: 1 (6)
• Things in progress I didn’t progress:  6 (1, 2, 11, 16, 18, 19)
• Things not started: 4 (4, 10, 14, 17)

Not to worry, I have the whole year to finish the 11 unfinished things and I can’t expect to do everything at once.

Besides, I’ve been busy with the Bored and Brilliant challenge. Well, I’m not sure if that’s actually an excuse. After all, the point of that challenge is to get me off my phone to give me more time to come up with creative ideas and get things done. I’ve not been on my phone as much as I had been before I started the challenge, but I’m not sure I’ve done anything super productive with the time.

It did make me think maybe I could add some bonus things to my 19 for 2019 list for significant things I do over the year. That would give me a nice picture at the end of the year of some of the big things I did.

So what did I do instead of my list?

Well, I wrote three blog posts about Bored and Brilliant, I went for a whole day without taking any photos and I deleted Instagram (and Tweetbot) off my phone.

Now you see it . . . now you don’t

I visited the Plants of Tasmania Nursery with my sister.

Plants of Tasmania Nursery at Ridgeway

I went to a local living festival in our area.

Smoky Creole goodness from Honey Child’s Creole Corner

I went to a union stop-work meeting

Public sector unions stop-work meeting at City Hall

and I got my poor old teddy bear repaired.

He got his leg stitched up and some extra stuffing but I left his nose because that’s his ageing personality

Plenty of things to do!

12 of 12 April 2015

Today was the Derwent Valley Autumn Festival, which is one of the biggest events held in the Valley each year.

The weather forecast wasn’t sensational, but there wasn’t any rain or wind forecast, so we had everything crossed that it would be a nice day. It was a chilly 7 degrees in the morning when we woke up, and by the time Juniordwarf and I arrived at the festival just before 10.00 it was 11 degrees. I wished I’d worn some more layers, as the day’s top was only 15. At least it didn’t rain!

1 of 12 – Pre-show selfies

Juniordwarf and I were scheduled to do a half-hour slot on our community radio station’s outside broadcast from the festival at 10.00 but, due to circumstances beyond our control, we ended up doing the whole hour until 11.00 – which is Juniordwarf’s normal timeslot on the radio, but today he’d been looking forward to getting off early and looking round the festival, so he was a bit irritable during the second half hour.

2 of 12 – On air (thanks to one of our lovely volunteers for taking the photo)

He’d been eyeing off this climbing maze from where we’d been sitting, so that was the first place he went to.

3 of 12 – Kid heaven

$5 to play for as long as you like, though I’m not sure it means you get to abandon your child there while you go and explore the rest of the festival. Thankfully I had another responsible adult (Juniordwarf’s grandmother) with me, so I could run off and do a couple of things I needed to get done while he was having fun.

4 of 12 – This looked like fun

There was heaps of stuff to do and see and eat and drink.

We bought chocolate wheel tickets.

5 of 12 – Lions Chocolate Wheel

We won nothing.

We checked out the local railway society’s display.

6 of 12 – Derwent Valley Railway

Juniordwarf lined up very patiently for a long time to go on this attraction. I know it’s heaps of fun for the kids, but it always seems weird to hand your child over to a complete stranger who then seals them inside an oversized beach ball!

7 of 12 – Juniordwarf getting blown up inside a beach ball

8 of 12 – Who knew rolling around in over-sized beach balls could be so much fun!

9 of 12 – Lots of people

One of the new features of the festival this year was the Taste of the Valley, where local producers talked about their produce. We were treated to a lesson in making beef stock and sauce by the fabulous Ashley from Two Metre Tall.

10 of 12 – Our favourite mad scientist brewer makes beef stock

I thought the raspberries had finished for the season and was pleasantly surprised to find lots of them at Westerway Raspberry Farm’s stall (probably should have taken the picture before I started eating them).

11 of 12 – Raspberries

We bought soap from the lovely Veronica from Veronica Foale Essentials and her able assistant Kim, who was SUPER HELPFUL!

12 of 12 Soap by Veronica

Unfortunately I missed out on seeing the snakes this year. They are usually a highlight for me, but we didn’t get there before they packed up.

Just before we started getting ready to leave, Juniordwarf wanted to take the camera for a while. So as a special bonus, here’s 12 of 12 from the festival from Juniordwarf’s perspective (slightly cropped but otherwise as he saw it).

It was interesting to see the things that caught his eye. I think I should let him do this more often!

1 of 12 – That looks pretty good.

2 of 12 – Cute car

3 of 12-  Jane from Two Metre Tall in action

4 of 12 – Pat from Tynwald Estate with some of their Wessex Saddleback ham.

5 of 12 – Jam from Westerway Raspberry Farm

6 of 12 – A random festival goer enjoying a Forester Ale from Two Metre Tall

7 of 12 – Veronica and her able assistant Kim and a lot of yummy soap

8 of 12 – Big Red Box

9 of 12 – A very large dog (he cut its nose off)

10 of 12 – Some coats.

11 of 12 – Wandering players

12 of 12 – One of the four entertainment stages

 

 

Tassievore Eat Local Challenge Week 1 – Food Forager

I’ve been busy walking this week, so I haven’t given the Tassievore Eat Local Challenge my full attention.

I wrote a post about getting started last week,  and have been doing what I can for Week 1’s challenge, which has been to “seek out Tasmanian food and drinks . . . whether an old apple tree on the side of the road, a bottle of wine you haven’t tried before, or a recipe that has tweaked your interest”.

Funnily enough, the apple trees on the side of the road that I noticed last Sunday got pruned to within an inch of their lives during the week. Something about power lines, I believe . . .

Foraging at my house is primarily the search for eggs.

The oldest chicken decided long ago that the laying box wasn’t for her and has taken to laying in a spot in some bushes that we’ve nicknamed The Egg Butty. This comes from something Juniordwarf used to do when he was very small, and it kind of stuck. She’s had more than one Egg Butty over the years, but this is the current go-to spot.

Egg Butty

The new chickens are gradually getting used to laying and are figuring out where to do it. One of them has even found the laying box.

Laying box

The other one has decided it’s better to lay in the very back of the chook house, between the two perches, right in the chook shit from the night. She invariably knocks the perches off and we have to perform contortionist acts to get the egg and set the perches back up.

Not the laying box

Foraging in my own back yard.

One of the new chickens

I also got 2 strawberries off my plant this week. I think that’s about 10 now. None of the other plants have fruited, so 6 plants for $10, and 10 strawberries = $1 per strawberry. Bargain! At least they aren’t fumigated with methyl bromide.

Gourmet strawberries

And by happy accident I discovered a self-seeded oregano plant in amongst my pennyroyal in one of the most shady parts of the yard. How it got there is anyone’s guess, but I’m not complaining.

Feral oregano

Because I managed to kill my raspberry plants, I didn’t get any raspberries this year. So as a consolation, I’ve been drinking the raspberry cider from Two Metre Tall. It’s very good.

My main source of raspberries this year – note deliberately out of focus cider so you can read the sign in the background (ahem)

I had a couple of ideas of new places to go foraging, but other things got in the way and I didn’t make it.

I did pick up some Tasmanian produce from Eumarrah in Hobart, and I really like the new labelling that Hill St Grocer has for its fruit and vegetables.

Apples at Eumarrah

Garlic at Eumarrah

Hill St’s produce labelling

This morning we went to our local market, the Big River Growers Market, which has some wonderful people with fantastic produce (and also excellent laksa).

Big River Growers Market

Laksa!

And we were walking past a new business that has recently opened, so decided to have a look in there and picked up a few different vegetables as well.

Spud Hut

So we ended up getting a pretty good haul for the weekend.

Weekend’s haul

And dinner tonight was accompanied by one of my favourite wines (which I foraged for in my fridge because I needed wine for the dinner recipe . . .)

Derwent Estate Chardonnay

Week 2’s challenge is to “grow your own”.

I used to be a gardening fanatic, but since we’ve been in this house – in fact probably since we had Juniordwarf – my commitment to the garden has declined and I haven’t grown anything (successfully) for several years.

Perhaps this is the time to fix that.

Stay tuned.