The List: June 2011

[philaros]

The list:

• Refresh contacts with agencies (Aquent, Comsys, Volt).
• Make new contacts at MAQ Consulting and Creative Circle.
• Update financial worksheet with past year+ of data.
• Spend (at least) 4 hours per weekday on work.
• Revise marketing one-sheet version of resume with general focus (editing skills, desktop publishing, other). STARTED
• Set up basic web page with information on professional services.
• Read self-help books that'd probably have already helped with personal issues if I'd read them already. STARTED
• Pick up with learning Objective-C for iPhone programming.
• Get a nice print of that graphic for that friend. STARTED
• Put the sink pedestal back in place (need someone to help with this). DONE (July 2011)
• Clean out hallway and bedroom closets, get rid of junk.
• Hang up artwork that's still sitting in closet and new art from Christmas.
• Get rid of clothes I never wear (donate if okay, trash if old and ratty).
• Get rid of old computer books and disks that are no longer needed or useful.
• Get rid of old broken DVD player that's not worth spending money to fix.
• Dispose of burnt-out CF bulbs.
• Dispose of that broken laptop.
• Get rid of old broken garbage disposal.
• Buy more underwear.
• Decide upon and start new series of exercises. STARTED (thinking about cycling, stretching, probably sword strokes, need to start and figure out some kind of schedule)

Concerts, dance nights:

• Stripmall Architecture at the Crocodile, Thursday June 16
• TRUST (dance night) at the Baltic Room, Saturday June 18
• Sweatbox: Off the Deep End (dance night) at the Baltic Room, Thursday June 23 (?—last month it apparently didn't happen, not sure about this month)

My original idea with the list was specifically to not prioritize any items. I figured that if I did prioritize them, I would get hung up on avoiding things that I had to do first—the items related to finding work—and end up never getting anything done. Instead, I thought that if I just posted all the tasks I had to do, large or small, important or not, in one single list, then I'd feel free to just complete whichever items as I had time, and because I'd feel good about marking any items done, that would encourage me to carry forward with doing other items. In practice of course, it did not work that way at all, because in fact I knew the work-related items were important to do, and items such as getting rid of stuff I don't need could be done any time and thus were easy to put off, and so I did neither types of tasks. 

At this point, with just a month left to the first anniversary of setting down a list, I am feeling more determination to get stuff done and off the list. With work still uncertain and insufficient, I'm also feeling the pressure to deal with those items in order to try to get more work coming in. Hopefully I can actually tackle these tasks rather than give in to feeling overwhelmed and hiding from them. Both the self-help book I've started reading about overcoming depression and the other two books I have to read about time management offer coping strategies, so hopefully that will make a difference. 

I am trying hard to buckle down and do as many of the items as I can in the next few days, because next week I'm going to be doing four shifts for KEXP's Summer Membership Drive, and the week after that I'll be working at KEXP auditing the data entry as usual, so I know I'm unlikely to deal with most of the list items during that time. 

Items I'm taking off the list:

• "Get up by 9 am regularly"—It hasn't made much difference having this on the list. I have been doing fairly well lately with 9:30 am, and with my KEXP work coming up I actually have to shift my time to 8 am anyhow.
• "Look into drafting bylaws for Go Play NW"—Still something we should have, but it's just not going to happen before this year's event.