Motivational Monday - thoughts on increasing productivity

Good morning!  Looks like everyone is on track to getting projects done. And if you're not, are you OK with that?  Remember it's summer and if you don't sew in the summer, then you shouldn't be writing tasks in your Task Master.  You only write what you need/want to get done.  Don't push the task if you're not ready to do it. And more importantly, recognise that fact! Don't berate yourself for not getting anything done. We are our own worst enemy ALWAYS!!!

Here's something that I'm realising about myself. One is that I'm the most productive when I sew in the morning. Depending on the day, I like to get up early and sew for a couple of hours. Then I take the girls to the dog park, have breakfast, write the blog and back to sewing. And if I had my way, I'd sew all day.  If I have to leave the sewing for whatever reason and let's say, I get back to it later in the afternoon? I'm not that productive. I need to plan for that. 

If I get home from work early (start work early, leave work early!), I can get a lot done. Once I get in the zone, I'm committed. But if I get home at 6, have dinner, I have zero motivation to do any sewing. Figure out your work schedule and schedule your sewing accordingly. 

I got a fair amount accomplished over the weekend, but was hoping for more.  However I had classes to teach on both days and that interrupted my routine and so in the evening, not much got done. 

As I mentioned last week, I needed some system for those deadline projects.  After comments by YOU, I realised that I need something that I can shuffle.  Got several suggestions, but this is what I found. 

MICRO BINDERS

With refills

I had seen them on-line at Staples. They are MICRO - look at them on the cutting mat!  Perhaps a tad too small to be super practical, but big enough to write down a deadline and the name of the project.  Then I can shuffle the pages (it's a binder after all) to keep the deadlines in place and remove the page once the deadline is past.

The funny thing was that we couldn't find them in the store. I went to the binder section. Nothing. Asked one of the staff and he couldn't find them either. Perhaps it was in one of the boxes on top of the shelving that hadn't been unpacked yet. Nope - wasn't there either.  So another employee looked up the product on the store schematic (where all the SKUs are located) and VOILA - we found them in the notepad section.  I got a couple and I'll use them up - well that's a total of 500 deadlines - I may not need to buy anything else!  I hope not! I may not survive 500 deadlines!

In addition to my deadline stuff, I'm working on the Task Master list.  I'm working on the February project and making progress. Not fast, but making progress.  I hope to have a good portion of it done at the retreat.  Here's part of the project.

February project - trimmed so far

In addition, I posted some of the projects that I've completed in the last couple of weeks on the blog a couple of days ago. Just so you know that I'm in fact working on stuff!  I do have more stuff to post - just haven't taken a picture yet.

This is another project that I completed for our booth at Quilt Canada.  The pattern is by Jill Buckley. It's fiddly to make, but very cool in that Oh Canada (Our Home and Native Land) by Northcott.  I did ask Jill permission to use her pattern in our booth.

Jill Buckley pattern for a 3-D leaf

I did some cutting this morning on stuff to take to the retreat. I plan to get up and sew the entire day when I'm there - I don't want to have to stop and cut anything. Besides, if I only take what is cut, I can cram 10 projects (well maybe a couple more) into those two bags!

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!!