Sunday update - the fragmented edition

Michelle April 3, 2016

**Important congratulations to Fox on the birth of her beautiful baby**

Daylight savings ended overnight and to celebrate I’ve done almost nothing all day to make the most of the extra hour :)

I started reading Wild Pork and Watercress by Barry Crump last night. I hadn't read any of his stories before. For those of you who might not know, Barry Crump is a celebrated author here in New Zealand; a bushman; a hunter; a good keen man. After three chapters I can tell you, he’s a damned fine writer.

The film adaption of this book has opened in cinemas this week to rave reviews for the cast and director Taika Waititi, so I’ll be able to see that soon and let you know how it turned out.

Projects update

Prep work (carpet removal, floor cleaning, wall sizing/under-sealing) before wallpapering guest bedroom.

Progress is progressing - so that’s good.

Stain retardant undercoat on sanded hutch base.

My work-days are so full at the moment. While my secondment is going well, I have legacy tasks from my previous job which are more than a small distraction. It’s been a month since I left my responsibilities at my old position and finally I’ve been replaced with someone to “hold the fort” while I’m on the project.

Phew - I was feeling quite stretched without enough time or energy to dedicate to completing project work because of the left-overs from the old one. While the coming days and weeks will be full-on and I’ll need every working minute, at least my concentration can be focused on the project at hand and not half on another job at the same time.

Associated links:

New planner

Michelle June 13, 2015

I bought a new Kikki K planner when I was in Melbourne last month. Today I spent a lovely afternoon creating the beginnings of new dividers for my planner.

I trimmed and glued, crop-o-diled (corner rounder) and washi'd, punched holes and thought about how I'll set my new planner up. Time flew and I had a wonderful, creative Saturday.

I choose Summery colours as the weather raged Wintery blasts outside. It's so much fun cutting and decorating for the sole purpose of making something lovely for myself. My next step in this process, now I have the dividers done is to figure out what my "day on a page" template might look like.

The objective is to keep my projects and promises (delcarations) top-of-mind so I chip away at them every day - I'm such a planner girl :)

Kanban for one

Michelle June 11, 2015

I've only recently become aware of Kanban boards. Simply, they are a three column status board for projects. Each column has a heading:

To do
Doing
Done

One of the easiest ways to set one up is with a white board and post-it notes - write the task on one of the post-it notes and moving it from one column to the next depending on the status of the task.

Sounds simple because it is simple.

What makes it work is that it's visible.

That sounds simple too, and it is, and it works.

Earlier this year, New Year in fact, I made a few declarations. I declared this year to be the YEAR OF THE SELFIE, and the YEAR OF MORNINGS and, not quite as loudly, the Year of Lunches. I blogged about my declarations; I wrote my declarations in my planner; I downloaded apps for taking daily selfies; downloaded Kindle books on the benefits of and techniques for rising early in the morning; I bookmarked a bunch of websites for making 'totable' lunches.

I took two selfies; woke up early once; and now my ex husband makes my lunch but that's not what I meant with declaring 2015 the Year of Lunches.

My poor old memory couldn't keep my declarations in the front of my brain where I could see them every day. The declarations were hidden from my view behind swipes and passcodes and tabbed planner pages. That lead me on a Google journey where I discovered Kanban boards.

I made one, stuck it to the back of my bedroom door, and set about moving my post its from to do to doing to done. It's working - not 100% of the declarations 100% of the time - but a hellova lot more than none!

My butt ugly really rather useful kanban board for one

Associated links

Kanban boards (Wikipedia)
Personal Kanban boards (smallfish.co.nz)
Kanban board examples (Flickr)