2025 Weekly Challenge, Week 30: More Writing (A Little)

This post is coming late in the week because I got majorly distracted and worked on a new project most of Monday and Tuesday.  Last week was a little chaotic, which wasn’t totally unexpected, as I knew it would be another busy week.  Incidentally, this one will be too, as it’s my friends’ daughters’ last chance to go to the barn before they go home for the school year.  So of course I’m taking them, even though it means another day lost!

Anyway without further ado, here is the rundown for last week:

Writing

I worked on my novel(s) again!  One day I worked on planning out my next novel (an idea I got recently and couldn’t shake), and another day I worked on research for my current novel.  I also blogged and posted to my author Instagram exactly once each last week, even though I’ve been planning some additional posts recently.  I’ll get to those soon… I hope.

Decluttering and Organization

No progress here.

Dolls

No progress here.

Taxes

No progress here.

Lessons Learned

Based on my progress (or lack thereof) of my goals, it seems like a pretty dismal week.  And the truth is, I struggled with focus some of those days.  But it was also a busier week than this rundown makes it look.

Last summer I read a book called Four Thousands Weeks, the message of which is primarily that we need to stop fixating on overall productivity and instead focus our efforts only on what really matters to us.  Last week was, at the heart of it, one of those weeks.  I struggled with focus and motivation for some of it, yes, but I also went to the barn, spent time with my horse — who is getting older — and with my friend’s daughters — who are growing up far too quickly.

So if you think about it that way, maybe I achieved more last week than what it looks like on paper.

2025 Weekly Challenge, Week 29: I Wrote!!!

Last week was a bit of a struggle for getting things done, but I had a lot of demands on my time so I’m not surprised.  I also was extremely unfocused, unmotivated, and struggling with energy levels all week.  I have some theories about that, which I might address in a future post.  But suffice it to say that this week should be a lot better.

That being said, here is the rundown of last week’s goals:

Writing

I worked on my novel last week.  This feels like a big deal because before that, I had a three-week streak of not writing.  I wrote a few hundred words on Thursday, and worked on research on Saturday.  And I worked on outlining a new story idea on Sunday, one I’m pretty fired up about (but will try not to work on just yet).

I also got a post up on my author IG last week.  I do want to work on some different posts for my IG though, something a little more fun and relatable.

Decluttering and Organization

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to work on any organization projects.

Dolls

I didn’t work on any dolls, but I was busy with doll museum stuff last week, mostly planning and recruiting.

Taxes

Unfortunately, I didn’t work on this either.

Lessons Learned

I’ve been tracking my motivation, energy, and focus, and last week was pretty much just a bad week for all of it — and I think I know the reason, but need to keep tracking it a little while longer before I talk about my suspicions too much.

I do think I’m on the right track with my new schedule.  I’ve built in time in the morning for Facebook and journaling, since I can’t seem to get going in the morning without spending some time on both.  We’ll see if that — and my reminders to help me switch gears when it’s time — help going forward.  I didn’t expect any of it to be successful last week, but this week should be more telling, even though it’ll be another busy one.

I have some other updates to post, and hopefully I will get to those this week as well.

2025 Weekly Challenge, Week 28: Not as Expected

I had been hoping last week would be more productive than last week, but it turned out to be a bit spotty.  Part of it was that we were housesitting starting on Thursday, which meant my week was only really Monday through Wednesday, since I lost most of Thursday to packing and heading over to the house.  It also meant that my weekend, which is usually when I catch up on the things I don’t get done during the week (often house projects), was taken up with other things.

We’ll be housesitting a lot this summer, but fortunately for right now we have some time at home — and I hope to use this time to develop a good routine.  So even though this week’s rundown is a little discouraging, I have some plans to make the coming weeks better.

Writing

I did not write at all this past week, which means it’s now been about three weeks since I wrote last.  With any luck that unproductivity streak will be broken this week.

I did also get a blog post and corresponding social media post up, but just one (of each).

Decluttering and Organization

I didn’t work on anything around the house — partly because, as I noted, we weren’t home over the weekend — but I did formulate some plans and buy a few shelves that I’m hoping to put up this week.  I’d say that counts, but tentatively, since I do have a habit of buying things and taking a long time to actually finish the project.

Dolls

No time to work on dolls last week, especially since I wasn’t at home for half the week.

Taxes

I still need to finish going through emails — a big job, since I am (if  you haven’t guessed) terrible at managing my inbox — but didn’t get to work on that this week, partly because I took my iPad with me to the house we were watching, instead of the computer where my emails are downloaded.  I did, however, work on updating my time entries in Toggl, which I think counts as a taxes catchup project since the main reason I track my time is for business reporting.

Lessons Learned

I still plan out my week in my calendar-based to-do app every Sunday evening.  It rarely all goes the way I planned — partly because I am terrible at making realistic predictions of how long things will take or how much time I need between tasks — but it helps me to know what my goals are for the week, and what scheduling difficulties I might have in achieving them.

One thing I noticed last week while working on this was that my plan for working on my novel first thing after coffee was not working out.  I should have known, honestly, as it takes my brain some time to get up and running in the mornings, but I saw a scheduling recommendation of doing something creative in the mornings, and of course my first thought was working on my novel.  But I think I need to schedule something else in that time.  I’ve never been good at tackling the hard things first, and trying to force myself to write first thing was just contributing to my focus issues as I avoided what I didn’t yet want to do.  And then, because the rest of the day was fully scheduled out, it made it difficult to find time to get back to my novel later in the day.

This, as much as my busyness, may have contributed to me not writing for the past three weeks, as I think it was around then that I started trying out this new schedule.

So I think I’m going to try the revolutionary approach of working with my habits, instead of trying to fight them.  That is, I’m going to start scheduling time in the mornings to check Facebook and email, journal, and take care of any administrative things before I do anything involving more focus.  I’m just going to expect to start my day with those things, instead of constantly expecting myself to be able to do something else and being disappointed when I fail.  Actually planning for it also helps as I’m able to set reminders to combat my time blindness and help me transition to another task.

We’ll see if the new approach helps this week, and if so, I hope to establish an effective routine until housesitting disrupts it again.

2025 Weekly Challenge, Weeks 26 and 27: Two Weeks of Chaos

Last week was so chaotic that I didn't get around to writing my post at all, although I tried to start one several times toward the end of the week.  At the beginning of the week we were still housesitting and dogsitting, and then the last four days of the week was spent running a table at Fan Expo Denver.  We have had a table for NaNoWriMo every year at Fan Expo Denver (formerly Denver Pop Culture Con, formerly Denver Comic Con), but of course this year NaNoWriMo shut down since we signed up for the table.  So this year we were promoting our own local organization, which we've decided to call Denver Novel Writing Month, or DenNoWriMo.

So that basically absorbed all of my time last week, and I got very little else done.  Rather than trying to do a catchup post and remember specifics since my last post two weeks ago, I'm going to mash both weeks together into one post and do my best to tally everything correctly.

Writing

The last two weeks were dismal for my writing goals.  Of course I wrote my blog post two weeks ago and posted to my author Instagram account, and last week I did get an IG post up that we were at the con.  Unfortunately, the last time I worked on my novel was June 24, two weeks ago tomorrow.

Decluttering and Organization

I did manage an organization project almost two weeks ago: I reorganized my china cabinet to accommodate some family stuff my mom gave me.  I've been planning to also reorganize the linen drawer in the cabinet to hold the genealogy things she also gave me, but between housesitting and Fan Expo, I didn't have a chance.  I'm hoping to tackle that this week.

Dolls

There were no opportunities to work on any dolls, but I did do something I haven't done in a while, and picked up a couple of doll lots from Facebook Marketplace.  I went through both of them immediately and completely inventoried one of them, which is worth mentioning because usually I'm really bad about doing that.  I need to inventory the smaller one still.

I want to get to work on doll projects soon, but I may first work on organizing.

Taxes

I didn't work at all on the catchup project, but I did inventory the larger lot I picked up, as I already mentioned.  This is a big deal because it means less to catch up on when I'm working on this year's taxes next spring.

Lessons Learned

I had a lot I was juggling the last two weeks, and I feel like my goals for the year were sidelined for a lot of it.  I need to remind myself that it's not necessarily a bad thing, as the things that got done instead — such as dogsitting (income!) and promoting DenNoWriMo — were also worthwhile.

I also think it's worth noting that we're now halfway through the year.  I'd like to go back and see how I did on my weekly goals the first six months of 2025, but if I do I'll make that a separate post.  It would be interesting to review, and maybe learn some things to help me tackle my goals during the rest of the year.

Later this week we'll be housesitting again, but since it'll be a shorter duration and that's the only major disruption, hopefully it will be a more productive week.  I'm hoping to get back to work on my goals, and be able to establish a bit more of a routine.