Just Create - Lacuna Edition

[silvercat17]

What are you working on? What have you finished? What do you need encouragment on? Are there any cool events or challenges happening that you want to hype? What do you just want to talk about?

Chores and other not-fun things count!

Remember to encourage other commenters and we have a discord where we can do work-alongs and stuff, linked in the sticky

Comments

[light_of_summer]

I made digital drawings for two more Drawtober challenge prompts, "Foxy" and "Window," though I still need to upload and post the latter.

I worked more on my apazine. (It's actually done, now, but that happened in the small hours of Tuesday the 22nd, local time—that is, in the new week, not last week.)

And I mailed the promised donation knitting to the identified collection point. I also started another try at the next piece of donation knitting, but the start is always the most difficult part of this pattern, for me, and I had to frog it. I might try it again, soon, but we'll see.

In this new week, I plan to inventory my stock of nutritional supplements and then place an order for what I'll need for the next six months. I also have my yearly mammogram screening appointment. I hope to successfully balance my checkbook and then promptly pay some bills. I want to do some drawing and/or photography. And I'll aim to try something new to get myself to make some progress on some household upkeep tasks.

[zenigotchas]

You've been busy! How did you manage to find time and balance for all of that? I'm genuinely curious to hear about your productivity process

I hope all is well on the medical front.

[light_of_summer]

Ah, it's kind of you to say that—it doesn't feel very balanced to me!

Let's see if I can tell you anything useful about my productivity process:

First, some caveats—I'm not in the workforce, and I live alone and am not dating anyone romantically, so my experience is likely to vary from a lot of people's. It is possible (though not wise) for me to ignore dishes and laundry and a certain amount of sleep, etc., in favor of writing or drawing.

That being said, things that help me be productive include:

1. Participating in an online 12-Step group for procrastinators, which provides me with a place to state my intentions and report my progress, and know that my efforts are being witnessed by people who can relate to struggling with challenges.

2. Participating in a weekly Zoom work-session support group for writers. This runs for two hours or so on Saturday nights, with five minutes taken for checking in at each of {start, midpoint, and end}, with the rest of the two hours being devoted to working on our individial writing projects.

3. In the past, I've done significant amounts of knitting during social events and at actual knitting groups. Once I get past my current pattern-start challenge, I expect to be able to knit during social Zooms, again, until I need to do another challenging bit of knitting.

4. When I am planning or creating or otherwise making notes, I often listen to background music that I know I like. When I'm writing anything, I generally choose music that is either instrumental or sung in a language I don't know. For art and handwork, background music with words that I understand is usually OK, too, or I sometimes choose to listen to a familiar audiobook or a low-emotional-stakes podcast, instead of music. Pleasant listening can also help me get through dishes and laundry and such. I use Bluetooth headphones if the task is noisy enough to interfere with the listening I want to do.

5. I have a monthly "project date" with a friend, in which we do some socializing and some mutual support for working on things we each need to do. And, occasionally, we'll collaborate on a project, or offer each other our help with particular projects that started out as individual ones.

Let me know if you have questions about any of that! (But please send me a direct message, rather than commenting, here, for questions about any of the more personal or touchy items I've mentioned, above.)

Re medical matters: I do have ongoing health issues that require significant management, but I'm doing OK, medically, all things considered. Thanks for your good wishes about that, and thanks for witnessing and commenting!