Freestylin' a al Dooce.com

Flipping heck, people - where are all the blog posts?

Oh no, don't worry. I haven't written or posted them: they're not lost or anything. They're just not here because they don't exist.

See that calendar in the right hand bar? It gets a little grey square on each day I post something to thejamjar.com. Those grey squares are too few and too far apart. BTW I am actually ignoring the larger grey square, also to the right, where my Instagram photos (used to) show because well, grey square reasons.

So back to the calendar; when I see how few and far between those boxes are I think "that's so not good enough, Michelle. Come on, rattle your dags and post something for Glob's sacks!" (sacks? sakes, I meant sakes).

Hehe, Glob's Sacks - I like that.

Here's @jamjar & @dooce, judging each other and finding themselves glorious. #webstock

7 Likes, 2 Comments - Josh Kinal (@sealfur) on Instagram: "Here's @jamjar & @dooce, judging each other and finding themselves glorious. #webstock"

ANYWAY. I WAS OOPS, I was just on dooce.com reading Heather Armstrong's blog posts and she has written some very flipping fantastic articles in her 18 years online. Her writing feng shui is strong; I've always envied it. The article I just read though wasn't an article; it was just one of these: open the blog editing window and type. Or at least that's what it appeared to be. And it made me remember how much I used to do that and how much I really like doing that and how I think that the energy that is captured in such posts - if not so many nominations for the Nobel Blog Prize - makes up for all the grammatical and stylistic problems associated with just typing.

So here I am just typing.

I'm doing Camp NaNoWriMo and VEDA (Vlog Every Day in April) because of course I am. Why wouldn't I sign up for projects that I fail at every.single.year. It's not about succeeding (according to my inner-quitter) it's about having fun and I am doing that.

Camp NaNoWriMo is held in April whereas NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is held in November. The Camp is more flexible and we are sorted into cabins (writing groups). The flexibility comes with what and how much you want to write. The goal is to develop a habit of writing and also to free up your fingers to not be so precious in the draft stages. I've set myself a goal of writing 30,000 blogpost words as opposed to the customary 50,000 word novel. Oo and I just realised THIS IS GOING TO COUNT! *fist bump* YES!

VEDA happens in months that start with the letter A so the acronym works. Each day I make a vlog - which is a video log of one's life - and generally is a personal, talking to the camera thing. The object of the exercise is to develop a habit, "get over yourself" being in front of a camera and to develop the skills to make a good job of creating video.' There really isn't time for much more during the week because of work and kids and stuff.

Associated links

Resolve

I’m thinking about next year. I’m not wishing away this one even though there are lots of people on Twitter who think 2016 has been the worst year in a while; I'm just giving myself an excuse to plan and wrangle some ducklings into a line.

A new year always feels like a clean slate; a fresh start. 

This feeling isn't unusual but I always think that this new year will be different, which is stupid because it's just time marching on and, like horoscopes and Myer Briggs Personality Indicators, means absolutely nothing in IRL. I start thinking of check boxes that include exercising more, sleeping better, finally learning about web analytics for reals.

Inevitably by February the year ends up looking the same as every other year - working too hard, stressing out, spending too much money, achieving a fraction of my hopes and dreams I had in January #captainDisappointment.

Insert some quote like "if you always do what you've always done" or the definition of insanity or something //comment left here intentionally.

Photo by MT 23 used from Flickr under Creative Commons. 

Photo by MT 23 used from Flickr under Creative Commons. 

While I really do know I won't/can't change, I really do love this feeling of fresh new fields and adore over-planning for them. So I'm going to run with that.

Reading

I want to read more. That’s going to be a relatively easy goal right there because right now I’m not reading complete texts at all. Over the 12 months of 2017 if I read one book from start all the way to the finish, I will be stoked.

Moving

Wow I was so good at moving my body in the first half of 2016 so I know I can do it again. Each day after work I will lace up my walking shoes, hook the dog to her leash and walk the circuit that includes a really big hill. I do okay with repetitive tasks like this, I don’t need variety :) right up until I get bored and/or the “exercise” is proved successful, then I’ll stop.

Eating

This is more about planning meals than restricting food types or counting calories. Partly because I just love planning, and partly because I want to get a handle on grocery shopping which I hate. By planning my meals in advance, knowing what I have in the pantry (a successful project earlier in 2016), I can order what I need online and have it delivered while still buying leafy vegetables and fresh meats in person.  

Blogging

Of course keeping a blog going takes lots of work and energy - I know, it look effortless, doesn’t it? #wokeUpLikeThis - so why not start another one! Actually I’ve always had michellepark.me but I feel really energised to write there in 2017. I plan to do it as part of my day job and, if nothing else, it will be a catalogue of how we’re solving our problems with web content production in a university environment <= I know right? Everyone’s gonna want to read that!

Planning

Lord knows I love to plan. I also like to prove my plan works. It’s the ongoing execution that gets me in the distraction bucket. For a while I’ve been using a Midori Travellers notebook and LOVING it. Utilising a blend of task and bullet journalling, it works very well for me. Where it falls down is all the times I don’t use the Midori for work as I use Microsoft Outlook for scheduling day job stuff. So for 2017 I am going digital for appointments and syncing my work calendar to my personal Google one so I don't miss anything, while using the Midori for personal day-to-day tasks and my blog editorial calendar.

I’m pleased to see the following items are missing from my list for 2017 (if I had such a list). There are no references to:

  • weight loss
  • joining a gym
  • becoming a morning person
  • skincare regimes
  • promising to finish every(any)thing
  • taking lunch to work
  • NaNoWriMo/100 Days Project/VEDA/ et al project promises

Instead of trying to plug gaping holes in my adultness, I'm going to build my strengths and doing things I enjoy. I'm also not giving myself a hard time for never sticking to anything either, because apparently not sticking to anything is a “thing” now; they write books* about it rather than letting us keep believing it’s a personality disorder.

*Well one. They wrote one book. I started reading it but never finished it.

I do like planning though. That’s my jam #hipToTheLingo I like thinking about something, planning it out, executing it long enough to prove my planning was correct or tweeking the planning to achieve enough success before moving on to the next thing.

For a moment there I was going to try and bluff you into thinking that was "MVP mentality" but for my plans to bear MVP they need to produce a P(roduct) and well, we all know that doesn’t happen. So around here we don’t think of MVP meaning “minimal viable product” anymore: replace the product with planning and BOOM! 

Welcome to the Land that Projects Forgot (LPF).

Take me down to the Acronym City, where the GIG and the GAP.

Do you like looking forward and planning? How do you do that: daydreams in digital format or pretty planners and pens?