freak out and throw stuff

i just decided.

i don't care what they say. 

{source}

#redlipstick

#literally

weeks 3-6ish :: time

[first off, random thought: there's nothing like some good live jazz music to get a day going right.]

i haven't been as faithful in reporting my time management as i was. mainly because of two reasons: 1. i started stinking at time management and 2. blogging about it would result in comparatively wasting my time.

BUUuuuut---i've been doing better the last week and a half!

and this is why:

sometimes i intentionally left my phone at home while i worked on my project

conversely, i left my laptop in the studio a couple times when i went home. got in bed in the 11 o'clock hour once or twice! i realized that my computer distracts me much more than my phone.

accepting that each day is new and some days will be good and others not so much

setting guidelines and rules for myself

deciding on three words that will describe my day, and always coming back to those, mentally repeating them over and over. this honestly helps so much. i'm not a huge proponent of writing on oneself, but i wanted to put them where i'd constantly see them.

so for a few days this week, mine were:

it took a few days, but i OWNED this to-do list, with the help of these words

also, here's an interesting article on the creativity of the wandering mind 

...as well as what successful people do for the first hour of their work day.

let me know what you think! lastly, you can check here for sporadic updates on my actual bfa project. :]

two months left and it will be amazing.

week two of intensively working on my project went great for the first three days. here's why:

-i've been turning my phone on silent during the days.
-i've been clocking in and out, logging my time and my breaks. (thanks to my brilliant dad for that tip)
-i've also been using the pomodoro technique, thanks to chris thornock's suggestion.
-i've been utilizing the swanky calendars i made and have written what i need to accomplish each day. then i have a prize for myself at the end. most of these prizes are small personal creative projects. for example, one of the prizes was making the typography for my photo for this post.

on thursday i hit kind of a funk, though. don't really know why. i worked anyway, but it wasn't as productive.

friday i was in a bigger funk; i just couldn't get myself to do much of anything. so i went to the timpanogos storytelling festival and figured at least that was a creative event where i could maybe stir up some creative juices for this coming week. turns out that it did, so much that i wrote about four posts on it. the rest of those will probably be up by the end of the week, if ya wanna glean some inspiration, too.

my prize for getting stuff done today is to read this article. you know, since i already treated myself to jamba and great harvest bread and running and yoga and guitar already today. :)

also....i'm sort of trying not to panic that it's suddenly september.

[these time posts regarding my bfa project and my new goal of mastering my time are all under this tag.]

on time

sooo back to time management (this is sort of a follow-up from this post). ok first of all, if you're too lazy pressed for time to read this, at least skip to the bottom of the post and check out the gem i found!

anyway, here's how i divided up the six steps from that first post on my stickie notes:

[right click and open in a new tab if you can't read them]

read number six again. that's where you come in! so you'll probably hear all about my adventures in time management; i hope that's okay.

i made myself some ideas and have been setting some boundaries. week one went okay, but i can definitely do better.

here's a list i bookedmarked forever ago, but just found it again. it has some pretty great tips; whatcha think?

Source: penandpaperflowers.blogspot.com via Kristin on Pinterest

also. i realize that i'm heavily distracted by technology. i found some interesting articles the other day:

i really like this one on "cutting the digital lifeline and finding serenity".
this is on FOMO, or the "fear of missing out", from which i most definitely suffer.

so, food for thought.

--

READ THIS PART: 

last but definitely not least, i've started to use "stay focusd", which is a chrome add-on that limits your time on websites you choose, and then blocks it from you if you're on there for more than the allotted time. it's witty and it's great! i've been using it for facebook, mostly. *cough*...just don't cheat and open up firefox or something when you wanna spend more time on the blocked sites. *cough*

what do you do to manage your time? any tips? 

sowing and reaping and all that jazz

this past sunday in church, two of the talks were on talents. i thought that was kind of cool. they said good stuff; i paid attention, took notes on my feelings and kinda nodded in approval at the end.

i went to sunday school where the lesson, though not planned with the previous meeting, was also on talents. perhaps it was because the talks primed me, but something in that lesson really resonated with me right away. maybe because it was because sunday school is a smaller class where we can really talk about application of such concepts.

my friend katherine was teaching, and she asked some good questions that we discussed, and two really stuck out to me: what are my talents? ...like, really? i think we all sort of know our talents but until we vocalize them to ourselves, i think a lot of them can go unnoticed. after all, many of the most valuable talents are silent ones. and, what makes it hard to recognize and develop more talents? man, i had fun thinking about this one. there were some phenomenal answers and it really made me think. i won't share the answers here, so that you can come up with your own. you and i can discuss them some other time if you'd like. or you can leave a comment. or whatever.

katherine was teaching out of the gospel principles manual and in there, it lists six steps to developing new talents.

1. discover (pray to learn about our talents)
2. willing (to spend time and effort to develop the talent we seek)
3. faith (faith that God will help us and faith in ourselves)
4. skills (learn necessary skills. can take a class, ask a friend, read a book, etc)
5. practice ("the mastery of a talent must be earned")
6. share ("it is by using our talents that they grow." matt 25:29)

[those principles and direct quotes came from the gospel principles manual]

after we discussed this, she handed out stickie notes and had us all take at least six of them. on each stickie, we wrote these steps and then how we'd apply them in accordance with a talent that we want to learn.

one of my favorite things katherine said was, "our weaknesses can put us in a position to develop a new talent."

after debating for a while about all the talents i want to cultivate, i decided on one that would help the rest: time management. 

as you can tell from here and here, i really struggle with it. in fact, i'm pretty terrible. so i decided i'll let you know my thoughts and such and become accountable to whoever reads this.

i'm out of the the time i have allotted to myself to write. so, i'll continue this when i have more time. (look! i'm doing it! time management and stuff!) 

til then, do you actively seek talents? what are some you're trying to cultivate? i'm honestly curious because 1. i want to know that i'm not alone in talent-seeking and 2. i want to add talents to my talents-to-gain list. :) it's interesting to see what others are working on.