Pace

Blogging Prompt 5 of Shimelle's My Freedom class:

How do you prefer the pace of life? Do you wish things would speed up or slow down? Illustrate with something that has been on your mind or on your calendar or share your preference between working slowly or quickly on a crafting project.

Hmm, not too sure about this one. I decided to think about it over the weekend and then didn't really get around to it so I am making this up as I go along (as per usual!).
I think I quite like anticipation...although saying that I am known to be quite impatient!
I enjoy the build up to things (like holidays or seeing people after a long time) and I am a planner and a list-maker so I tend to have fun with getting ready for things. I would only want things to speed up if I was organised (and even then I would probably decide to have more time and do a better job of getting ready!).
I can also be a teeny weeny bit of a procrastinator (okay, so quite a big procrastinator - hence the name of this blog) which can cause problems because I sometimes leave things to the last minute.
Moving to New Zealand has been about slowing life down a bit and I think I've slowed it down enough.
I think I'm fairly happy with my attitude to time overall (apart from needing to work on the procrastination of course!).
I do know I don't want to wish my life away by focusing so much on the next big thing that I miss out on all the great little everyday things that can happen.
I started a gratitude diary back in February which has been quite enlightening. I try to write down 5 things at the end of every day which I am grateful for. I've recently been going back and looking at entries from 5 months ago and it's interesting to reflect on the daily things that would otherwise have been forgotten.

If anyone reading this is keen to slow down and appreciate the everyday I would definetly recommend starting some kind of daily gratitude log. It's also made me much more positive.

My focus for this week

I am back in Palmy after a long weekend away in Auckland for work. I didn't get much down-time at all so unfortunately got no further with the editing of my novel. I did manage to do some planning for this week though.

I am going to try and review my goals each week and decide which ones I need to focus on and how I am going to do this. I plan to do this each Sunday.

So for this week I will be focusing on WRITING and HEALTH & FITNESS.

For the WRITING side of things I want to try and manage 6 hours of editing on my novel this week. Wednesday is a public holiday so I will spend a couple of hours then and also Saturday and Sunday.

As for HEALTH & FITNESS I need to catch up on some sleep and rest after a busy weekend so plan to be in bed by 10.30pm each work night this week. I also want to eat 3 portions of veggies every day, do 3 curves workouts this week (hopefully today or tomorrow, Friday and Saturday) and go for 1 long walk (possibly the 7km Manawatu Striders walk on Tuesday, if not - a big walk with the dog on Wednesday).

I'm going to try and keep Wednesday free from any arrangments with other people. It will be nice to have a quiet day with Graeme, get some things done I want and then relax without any time constraints.

While I was away, Graeme got me the 'Eat that Frog!' anti-procrastination book from the library so I will also be taking some time to read that this week.

And it's my Mum's birthday today so I will be speaking her tonight and telling her how great she is!

And maybe...just maybe, I might go public with this blog this week and email a link to my closest friends so I can get a little support along the way...

Researching...

In typical Kate fashion I have been doing lots of reading up on goal setting.

I tend to spend lots of time doing this then run out of steam when it comes to the actions required! But I am feeling determined this time.

I came across an interesting series of articles in Next magazine written by a life coach. The issue I have has installment 4 of 12 but I was lucky enough to find the previous articles on the life coaches website. There are also some work sheets and things on there that might be useful.

I am also interested to read a book that the life coach recommends...mainly because of it's quirky sounding title: 'Eat that Frog: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done' by Brian Tracy. They have it at the library so will try and get my hands on that one. I, obviously, could do with some tips for stopping procrastination!

I'm off to Auckland with work tomorrow (Thursday) until Sunday. It's a new part of my job which I haven't experienced yet so I'm looking forward to that aspect but I'm not really happy about that length of time away from home at the moment. Having just got settled again at home after our big trip overseas and feeling really run down, working long days and being away from my bed and Graeme and the dog is going to be upsetting.

On the health side of things, I ended up at the doctor's on Monday lunchtime due to on-and-off chest pains I'd been having since Friday night. After an hour of being monitored I got to see a doctor and apparently I have acid reflux which really doesn't seem all that bad compared to the excruciating pain I was in. I've got some medication to take although I have been warned (by a friend) that the tablets can cause more problems then good. At this stage it's good because the pain has stopped but I shall monitor how I am feeling and make sure the pills don't do me any harm.

I haven't done much exercise this week and won't get started on that now until next week.

I do plan to take my NaNo manuscript with me to Auckland on the offchance I get some time to myself and can continue with my read through and editing. And I will be giving lots of thought to my goals and doing some more 'research' if I get the time.

And today I picked out images from Google Images that suit each of the catergories for my goals (2 examples above)...to help me visually link what I am saying to each of my goals.

Queen of procrastination

Being the queen of procrastination I have always had a difficult time sticking to new years resolutions and achieving my goals.

After some success last year...by achieving one of my long time ambitions - writing a novel - I decided if I can do that I should be able to achieve other goals as well.

Part of my novelling success was, in part, due to my broadcasting of what I was trying to achieve to as many people as possible. This was at the advice of Chris Baty who wrote 'No Plot, No Problem' and who is the creator of NaNoWriMo (National Novel writing Month). Being accountable for what I was setting out to achieve seemed to help me focus and carry on, even when the going got tough.

So I have decided to set up this blog to make myself accountable for my other goals in the hope and belief that I will achieve what I want to this year.

So that is why this blog is here. It will either become a tool of procrastination for avoiding other tasks or will become something I procrastinate about!

And yes, you could say I have procrastinated already this year as I am only just publishing my goals but I like to think I have been mulling them over to make them more meaningful and achievable ;-)