Despite my concern that I’d end up with a productivity hangover, last week turned out to be relatively busy and productive. I struggle not to be too hard on myself, though, because while I did get a lot done, I tend to overschedule myself and then feel bad for not being able to accomplish all of it. But honestly, last week I did good.
Writing
I made a decent comeback in my goal to write most days. I worked on my novel four out of seven days last week, maintaining a six-day streak. I only let it slide when I was working a lot on other projects over the weekend. I also posted once to my author Insta.
To review (because this was months ago and probably forgotten by now), my goals for 2025 were to write at least 80% of the days and to post to my author IG at least once a week. I’ve struggled with the near-daily writing goal, unfortunately, and am currently sitting at only 42%. I’ve had more success with posting to IG once a week, but I’d like to actually expand that and do more.
Decluttering and Organization
I worked a lot on the patio and garden this past weekend. We’re currently working on the smaller flower bed, with the goal of getting everything planted within the next couple weeks. This is the flower bed that’s right next to the patio, which we’ve been cleaning up and setting it up to be a space we can use. I intend to use the garden as a backdrop for doll photos, and to sit out on the patio to work sometimes.
Once the patio and small flower bed are done, I want to focus on organizing my sale stuff and getting ready for the next sale, a small sale at the museum in about a month. After that, my next priority is to clean up and organize my doll spaces, including organizing the projects I currently have in progress so that I can get back to working on them.
Dolls
I didn’t work on any dolls last week, but I did work a lot on planning for the museum’s Fall Show in early September. Like last year, I’ve scheduled a couple of doll programs and a workshop. It was a lot of work at the last minute, but I’m pleased with the programming!
On Thursday I also toured the hotel that is hosting our Fall Show along with several other people from the committee, and returned on Friday to get pictures for the Fall Show packet. The pictures turned out great!
And I suppose also on the subject of pictures, I took some time around midweek to get some good doll pictures. I was feeling in a bit of a slump at that time of the week, so it was good to get pictures and feel like I was doing something productive, even if it was something fun.
Taxes
I didn’t get anything done on this last week, but plan to get caught up this week
Lessons Learned
I went through a slump midweek last week and was very hard on myself for not getting enough done, so it’s kind of a surprise to look back and see how productive and busy the week actually was. It’s a reminder that 1) a sluggish day does not mean I’m unproductive the rest of the time, and 2) I’m too hard on myself with my expectations. I know these things, but it’s good to remind myself of them occasionally to balance out how hard I am on myself.
This week is going to be a rough one. I am working long days outside of the house today and tomorrow, and while it’s the kind of job that gives me plenty of time to work on other things, it’s also mentally fatiguing to be up early and “always on” for so much of the day two days in a row. So I’m planning Wednesday as a recovery day, and I’ll get to work on other things starting on Thursday. This does mean I have fewer days available for things that require me to be at home (organizing, working on dolls, etc.). I know this and yet the challenge will be remembering that and not being hard on myself when I inevitably don’t get as much of those things done this week!