December 27   The List 2015

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Posting around here has stalled because of a particular post I’m writing. If you can’t go through, go around, yeah? So instead, here is the list of 2013 Resolutions that I’m going to be working off in 2015 (and 2015 started Dec 2014…)

Here’s the list I wrote in 2013:

  1. Learn to focus on the positive not the negative
  2. Lose 5-8kg
  3. Develop daily regimen
  4. Commence PhD
  5. Be regimented/routine for studying from home
  6. Get back into running
  7. Publish at least 3 12Ps
  8. Publish 2 novels and anthology
  9. Apply for every arts grant eligible for
  10. Do TSW Arts Project
  11. Grow TPP 20% on 2012
  12. Win at LSS 2013
  13. Read 20 books for fun
  14. Blog every day
  15. Get house to enjoyable living state
  16. Start greening backyard
  17. Cook more
  18. Reduce yarn stash
    1. Create my own sock of the month club
    2. Challenge myself as a knitter
    3. Knit a new jumper
  19. Reduce fabric stash
  20. Learn to use a sewing machine
  21. Reduce TBR queue
  22. Spend more time with those I love
  23. Get GTD to cruise control

 

I’m going to put 20 on hold to a Someday Maybe list.

Number 10 we did in 2013. And 7 and 8 I think we’ve kinda done in the last 2 years – I have the final Twelve Planet to deliver in 2015 and the bonus Thirteenth.

I’m actually kinda done with number 9. I’ve applied for a bunch of grants and I’m at a point where I believe that arts grants panels don’t want to fund SF/crime and I don’t think applications are a good use of my time, to be honest. I learned a lot in the process – we got incorporated and got our accounts audited. I have an accountant now who does our books and taxes each fin year. And we have budgets and marketing plans now for new books. But justifying why TPP is a press worthy of investing in? And writing 10 page reports on this and being told in the feedback at the end of the round that we needed to further justify that we are a press publishing titles of “literary worth” (direct quote)? It’s soul destroying.

2013 we did in fact grow sales by 20% – 28.12% actually. (Most of that came from ebooks – because backers of Kaleidoscope mostly backed at the ebook level, which was our strategy for that project. Larger print sales for Kaleidoscope came into the following year’s figures where print books sales outstripped ebooks, back to where our normal figures are.). The last several years our sales have grown around the 20-30% mark so setting that as a goal for 2015 seems quite reasonable.

So here’s how my to do list looks for 2015 aka New Years Resolutions.

  1. Focus on the positive not the negative
  2. Lose 5 kg
  3. Develop daily regimen
  4. Progress PhD
  5. Develop a weekly work/study routine
  6. Get back into running
  7. Practice yoga daily
  8. Deliver the final Twelve Planets! Woot!
  9. Deliver 2015 publishing schedule and develop 2016 schedule
  10. Run a successful crowdfunding campaign
  11. Grow TPP 20% on 2014
  12. Win at LSS 2015
  13. Blog every day
  14. Get house to enjoyable living state
  15. Complete backyard project
  16. Cook more
  17. Reduce yarn stash
    1. Create my own sock of the month club
    2. Challenge myself as a knitter
    3. Knit a new jumper
  18. Reduce fabric stash
  19. Reduce TBR queue
  20. Spend more time with those I love
  21. Get GTD to cruise control
  22. Reduce my tea stash!

These aren’t really auditable. How will I know if I’ve met them or not? Some I’ve rolled into each other and I’ve already started. With mt TBR queue, I have taken pics of the first wave (aka the post Wall of Shame Part 1) and am working on reading through all my nongenre books in the TBR first. This way I am demarcating work and leisure time. Once upon a time I used to read SF novels for fun. I want to get back to that place. So far, I’m back to reading a novel a week and I’m pretty happy with that. If I read 50 books in the next year I would be pleased with that. I’m also hoping I will knock out books I’m not enjoying so that I weed out the queue as well as work through it.

I’ve set up a section in OmniFocus for my sewing and my knitting projects. I might be more nerdy about the GTD side of that elsewhere but here I’ll say that I’m tracking what I actually finish and I’m only allowing a certain number of project to be “active” and worked on at anyone time. I’m also trying to finish off WIPs before starting new ones. If I can keep control of buying new yarn and fabrics in the year ahead and continue to stay the course on WIPs, I should meet the reduce stash goals, which will also meet the unstated “finish things I’ve started” one. I’ll post finished pieces as I go and do some kind of reconciling post at the end of 2015. Same goes for the house and the garden projects. These as well as a couple of others, fold into 20, Get GTD to cruise control. And some others require buy in from both me and C – eg the lose weight goal, we already follow the 12WBT program but I need to buy in properly to eating the meals each day. And the running goal will fold into that and the 12wbt whilst also picking up something I genuinely love at the same time.

The goals above are some of the things I want to do and are an attempt to capture something to tick off for a feeling or direction about the kind of life I want to live. They aren’t all, I guess, is what I mean. And they don’t fully capture it either. For example, reducing my stash is really about feeling like I am an active crafter who crafts with purpose and finishes projects. Reducing my TBR is about saying I’m not a book collector but a reader and finding a way to bring being a reader back into my daily life practice.

I’m going to think about what these goals really represent and what they should have been written as over the year and tinker with them for 2016. But they will do, for now.

hoek and coffee
Today’s drink: La Pastora, Natural Catuai by Five Senses

Today’s total word count: 1599

Year Total running word tally from (Nov 24): 15 998

Progress on: Relaxing end of year down time (knitting Hoek shawl and watching Entourage Box Set)



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2 Comments

  • By Ju on 28 December 2014 at 9:49 am

    Nice list! I still find that lists that are entirely auditable are too inflexible for what I need – there’s planning and plotting and I value that highly but also, I want to allow for adventures and the unexpected (good and bad). I think your list has a good mix of that actually.

  • By Champagne and Socks » Episode 3: Dream in Color Shrug on 24 February 2015 at 12:12 pm

    […] blog posts from 2014 about New Years resolutions and craft organisation: The List 2015 Planning And Meltdown Panic Freakout Craft Space Organised An Unexpected […]

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