Getting organised

When I posted last week about what I wanted to focus on this year I discussed a little bit about wanting to get more organised.

I started trying to do this a few months ago when it dawned on me how many irons I had in the fire, I was feeling overwhelmed so I found I was putting things off not knowing what to prioritise.

So after lots of trail and error I think I have found a system that works for the moment.

I have made myself a weekly planner sheet I fill in each week and I split my time into 3 things:

1 Span’s Studio – this includes blogging/admin and orders/making things for my shop.

2 Uni – just excersises from the workbook as I try to do a little drawing practise in my sketchbook most evenings before bed.

3 Work for magazines, this can be article writing as well as my freelance ad manager job for Make and Craft.

As I feel a lot dizzier in the mornings and evenings what I do is assign one of these things to each afternoon. Depending on how I am that day or what it is depends on how much time I can spend on it. If I am too ill to do anything I just move the job to the next assigned day. I try to give myself plenty of time to do anything with a deadline such as orders. I find if I am honest with people they are quite understanding.

On the day that I assign Span’s Studio I schedule my blogs and plan what blog posts I want to write for that month, I do it all my planning in pencil so I can change my mind as I go, I find that once I have an idea of what I want to do though I am more inclined to do it.

I have made my own weekly planners in word as I wanted to put my blog posts into it as well, plus I write my assigned job for each day then I write a small to do list to choose from for each job I may not get all the jobs on the to do list done so I choose according to how dizzy I am that day.  For the blog planning I use these great blog planner worksheets I found on this blog.

I make sure my weekends and early evenings are free for crafts, sketching and journaling. Or resting what ever I need to do I find being flexible is essential when you have a fluctuating condition. Just having an idea of what needs doing and when I want to do it is enough for me to get me doing it and not putting it off, unsure of what to do that day. I try to be kind to myself always and if I feel too unwell to do work I will allow myself to rest or do something that brings me joy. I will also make things for my shop during free craft time as, well, it’s what I enjoy doing so I don’t really see it as work.

If a day comes where I feel well enough to move of the sofa and do something else I proitise that as it doesnt happen often and I want to take full advantage I feel very lucky to be able to work around my illness and do things I enjoy.

So how about you? Do you plan everything or do you prefer to go with the flow? This process seems to be working for me at the moment, I would love to hear what you do to stay on track.