Monday, July 02, 2007

Continued Organization.....

So, I've described the immediate knitting projects (the red lace, blue Trekking and red Mountain Colors socks, plus the mystery stole) and the various fleeces to scour and card. I had great plans to work on the Sweater A Month KAL, but I have fallen far far behind the plan. (I'm not sure I've finished a single WIP since January, if you must know.) While bludgeoning my way through my foot tall stack of data entry at work, I mulled over my lack of productivity and how to improve it. Then I had a brilliant idea. Well, actually I remembered an idea that Joan Hamer had a number of years ago on the KnitList (back when it was still hosted at University of Minnesota). She also had difficulties managing multiple projects and making progress. So she assigned each project a day of the week and worked on a maximum of seven projects a time, each on its respective day. I like this plan, with some modifications....

I don't have the time to knit seven days a week, much as I would like to do so. However, I can manage to knit or do fibery things three or four days a week although it may just be for 15-20 minutes. At the moment, the projects I choose to work on are the red lace sock, the blue Trekking sock, the Mystery Stole, the Coopworth fleece and the Freedom Sweater (from Amazing Threads long long ago).

I won't assign days precisely since each week's schedule is a bit different depending upon what other tasks I must accomplish, but I can rotate through projects when I do get knitting/fiber days. The rotation of projects will be sock, stole, fleece and sweater. I'll work on the red lace sock when I have the ability to concentrate on it and the blue Trekking sock when I am tired and likely to make mistakes in lace. So the next day I have to work on such things, I'll pick up the chosen sock and get to work. The next knitting day after that, I'll work on the stole, etc. With regular attention to each of these projects, I should make marked progress. This should keep me from getting discouraged about projects never getting finished. And I might actually get the Freedom Sweater finished by this fall. I started it 8-10 years ago. It's only lacking a sleeve and a half. Even so, it's likely to become my new favorite sweater.

I really need to make a list of my projects in progress on the side of this blog. And maybe a list of projects for the future too. I've been meaning to re-organize things here for a while and spruce them up a bit. Perhaps the re-design will be what I'll ponder in my subconscious at work tomorrow.

1 comment:

Stefaneener said...

It's funny -- if I spent too much time in the blogosphere, I'd think I was the only SAHM with 4 kids who isn't merrily churning out finished knit objects in my perfectly clean house with my well-behaved homeschooled children, before we settle down with each other to eat a gourmet meal I grew myself, but I don't always have time to knit at ALL.

This was a good and helpful reminder. I think it's a fine idea.