I was supposed to write another blog post for this week, but given how I’ve been feeling I figured having this out now would be better. From the previous sentence, obviously I’m a planner (or maybe controller is more apt, haha). Typing out a blog post by the seat of my pants qualifies as being “spontaneous” in my book. So spontaneous I’ll be today.

Last night I had the equivalent of about three hours’ sleep. I kept tossing and turning. My mind jumped from topic to topic, idea to idea, and all in a crazy randomness–from what to eat the next day to a worry about an upcoming meeting to the book I was rereading to get to sleep (it was City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare, btw) to the fluffy (or as I like to call them, “foofy”) doggies I saw in our compound a few hours earlier. I couldn’t shut my mind up, it refused to wind down. I woke up sleepy but focused, thank goodness, because I was able to work and handle chores that needed to be handled.

That’s when it hit me: I was so…no, TOO inundated with…stuff. Like, there is SO MUCH stuff I stuff myself with, mentally and emotionally. What with Facebook, Twitter, Feedly, YouTube, and everything else in between, I crowd my brain with so much stuff and overstimulate it that it kinda resembles…I don’t know. Something that runs amok but with its guts overflowing

(and now, as I’m typing this, a Facebook chat window just popped up)

While a lot of this “stuff” can be considered unnecessary clutter, a good chunk of it really falls under my interests and serves to inspire me. However, now it feels like TOO MUCH inspiration. TOO MANY awesome ideas. TOO EVERYTHING to the point that I feel overwhelmed and have degenerated into overthinking a lot of what I’m doing. Which in turn freezes me from actually MOVING and doing what I want to do.

Case in point: I have TONS of ideas from Pinterest on exercise and eating better, but as of today I’ve yet to actually start a regimen. *blush* I’m frozen in indecision. Then this afternoon I had the random thought of “Oh, frack this. Just grab your mp3 player and GO OUT, Lex.”

I need more moments like those for my controlling, unspontaneous self, lol.

And THEN for a looooong time now I’ve been reading all about productivity: bookmarking blog posts, making Evernote entries, reading and rereading blogs, checking out web apps, etc etc on being more productive and getting things done. In the meantime, I’ve been kept busy doing all these little things for work, but feeling like I’ve accomplished nothing. Then i realized it was also because none of what I was doing had any meaning to me. Or that I was too filled with stuff to filter out what I really wanted to do versus what I felt I had to do.

By that last statement, I don’t mean I won’t fold and sort the laundry just because I don’t want to do it. But a lot of my day-to-day writing work i was doing because I had to. Many of my assignments I couldn’t really change, but I could change how I felt about them. I could put meaning to them if I wanted to. Or I could choose to do something else entirely.

So I just went ahead and chose what I wanted to get done in a day. Following loosely the Get Things Done concept, I had my top three to-do’s up front and center on a digi-post-it on my desktop. I’ve done two of the three, but I’m giving myself a pass and letting go of the disappointment in not doing the third. Tomorrow is another day.

Also, I’m going to log off from the computer early tonight–I realized I spent WAY too much time online (comes with the job), but that I’m at fault for finding just as many online distractions from my online work, lol. There is a lot of things I want to do, and by letting myself get distracted I’m just giving in to the fear of doing it.

Finally, I need some daily quiet time. I realized that with working at home I’d gotten so used to working at any and all hours of the day–and night–that most of the time I crashed into bed exhausted. Or, like last night, I would toss and turn like a beached fish. So I’m giving myself an hour to center myself, quiet down, and empty my mind. I don’t really do meditation, but I do like to ground & center. I’d fallen out of doing that whenever I got stressed.

Aaaand if you’ve gotten this far, thank you! I know my being spontaneous also means not stressing at the organization of this post, haha. Instead, I’ll leave you with some awesome articles that I’d read that–despite all the information stuffing of my brain–I remembered that resonated in my heart. Enjoy

ETA: This newsletter of Ali Edwards’ just landed in my inbox and I think its message is totally perfect as well. The whole concept of subtraction appeals to my editor heart.

Peppermint’s finding where joy lives in her.
Lynnette’s 2012 Scrapbooking Resolutions.
Ali’s Working Through Creative Fear.
30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself.
100 Days with No Goals.

I do not have to be perfect to have something to offer. –Jenny Meyerson

(Source)

I’ll be fixing up some stuff around here, prepping myself to really focus on this blog for 2012! It’s all part of making this year AWESOME!

(Source)

I’m supposed to be wrapping gifts at the moment–I can’t believe Christmas is two weeks away! I haven’t been in a holiday mood for many years now. I often feel like I’m going through the motions of whatever holiday obligations I have in the last few years (with the exception of going to reunions and Christmas parties, lol). Instead, I was going over my list of projects I’ve been involved in this year and finalizing/fine-tuning what projects I’d like to do for next. I have to admit that it’s largely in part to this week’s topic on The Digishow. 

That said, here’s a quick recap of what I’ve accomplished this year:

- Thanx Project: I’ve been doing this off and on, and am happy with the cards I’ve been able to scrap. It’s easy with a template. I’m going to continue this for 2012, but I’d like to be more regular about it. Maybe posting 10 cards a month would be fun The awesome thing with this project is I never had a set end-date for it. After all, we can’t ever run out of things to be grateful for, right?

- 2011 Faves: Inspired by Lynnette’s own series of faves, I’ve been surprised at myself at being able to keep up with it! I’m in the middle of documenting my December and have scrapped until October. I really enjoyed doing this this year and am thinking of how to take it to the next level. My layouts are posted in respective galleries but I haven’t updated this main one. Once I finish my November layout I can update it, methinks. 

- New52: Sadly, I stopped blogging about what I was doing maybe in February or March! But I kept up with it, and have missed only about three weeks! I kept thinking about how I was going to document them properly (aside from simply listing them down each week) and in the end just got overwhelmed with it. LOL I have no idea what I’m going to do with this list and have a vague idea of putting it together into a double-page layout. 

- A Week In The Life: SO happy that I got to participate in this and scrap the whole thing! It was difficult the last three days and I vowed to make my album simpler for next year. Yep, I think I’d like to do this again next year–it would be awesome to see how similar/different our lives are now, especially as we moved this year. 

- Project Scrap Stash: Tackling the very daunting task of finally organizing my digi supplies terrified me, but Kayla Lamareaux convinced me to do it, lol. I’m SO SO happy I finished it and it’s really made a difference when I am looking for specific items in my stash. Certainly it’s curbed my shopping, haha! However, right now I’m busy syncing/reconnecting my catalog to my stash folders because I moved to a laptop and Windows 7. It’s taking a while, partly because of how I imported my previews and partly because I’m just so overwhelmed with holiday stress, gah! I hope to finish this by end of the year. 

- Goodreads 2011 Reading Challenge: This is definitely one of my favorite accomplishments for the year! I hadn’t been reading regularly at all since…college? So I set myself up with the goal of reading 30 books. Well, in April I ended up doubling my declaration, and at this moment, I’ve finished 76 books (127%)! Not only did this goal get me back into reading and finding new books, but I’ve also found new manga titles to read as well and devoured a fair amount of volumes, lol! 

In an effort to streamline my life and so I have better focus, I’ve been busy mentally “paring down” what i don’t need and what I want. In a way I *am* happy that having an editor’s mindset allows me to be almost merciless in taking away what I don’t need, even when I’m in the iron grip of being sentimental In the meantime, I’m happy with what I’ve accomplished and look forward to a more productive 2012!  

What projects have you finished this year? 

Anyway, I thought I’d do another post tackling other misc things involving organizing my supplies. These came up during and after the process for me, so they may not have any real order.

First off, I talked a lot about my keyword process and how I took a peek at Kayla’s before developing my own. In case anyone needs it, here are my keywords (in Google Docs format). This is entirely based on my thought process and as a result, usually when I tag my previews I can pretty much predict which keywords to use.

Misc tagging: Collabs

I had the hardest time figuring out how to tag collab kits! Finally I decided on the following:

- I added a general “collabs” category, under which are keywords of various stores. I tag store collabs this way.

- For collabs with two to three designers, I would tag the preview with each designer.

- For any collab that doesn’t fall into those classifications (more than three designers, charity kits, mega collabs, etc) I simply tag them as “collab.” Simple and sweet

My purpose for tagging individual designers with collabs is that sometimes I remember only one designer and even the colors or theme of the kit.

Searching my stash: There are two main ways I search my stash–I simply click on the number to the right of each keyword and it pulls up everything I’ve tagged with that keyword. OR I can type out what I need in the text/metadata field above the thumbnails:

(click to enlarge)

What I’ve realized about myself & my stash as I did this:

- I have a LOT of alphas I’d forgotten about

- I have a LOT of date elements I’d forgotten about

- For some bizarre reason, I have a LOT of kits with the color combination of green, orange, and yellow (I like yellow. But green and orange? Hmmm). Lots of purples and neutrals too (but this I understand because I like purple and neutrals).

- I have a whole bunch of spring- and summer-themed kits. I even have loads of fall kits, and we don’t even HAVE fall over here! My stash of winter kits is laughable, obviously.

What happens next:

- As I scrap with my organized stash, I’ll be figuring out a new workflow (slight deviations from before, I expect) and will likely fine-tune my organizing in tandem with it.

- I’m considering organizing my photos through Kayla’s system as well (she has a separate section for photos). Maybe in a month or so, because–we’re moving! Again! LOL Packing has been hellish because I honestly cannot believe how much crap I’ve managed to accumulate in a year and a half, but then again, forced purging oftentimes for me is the best way I can stay organized.

If you want to learn more about Kayla’s organization system using Lightroom, visit her site here.  

Okay, okay, I promise, this’ll be my last Week in the Life post for the project! As a sort of summary of doing the project I thought I’d also share the process I went through to get my album.

First off, here’s my completed album (again) in slideshow:

Week in the Life 2011

And this was my workflow:

WITL Documentation:  Spent the week taking photos and documenting thoughts and events. I used Ali’s PDF printouts and thought I would use my OhLife account, but turns out I quite liked scribbling things down instead of typing it. At night before sleep when Mark and I talk a lot, I type a quick note on my phone and record it on the paper sheets the next morning.

The PDF sheets are always on top of my desk. I clipped them together using a tiny alligator clip and every so often I would scribble down thoughts or events as they happened. I especially loved how Ali had boxes that indicate thoughts I had, conversations, things to be grateful for (since it is my theme for the whole project), and favorite moments. It helped to organize my thoughts as I had them. It also helped me figure out how to put together my journaling.

During the day, since I spend the majority of my time in front of the computer, I took a lot of screenshots using Paint! I made a folder on my desktop and stick the shots in there. I had shots of work I was doing, sites I was visiting, tweets, etc. Majority of the time I was at home by myself so aside from just doing the same chores, what varied was my work and the places I visited online.

The next day, I would download my photos from my camera to the folder I created on my desktop (where my screenshots are).

WITL Album Preparation: Products to use: I’d determined beforehand which kits and other materials I would use. And I’m just a wee bit OCD in that I figured out which fonts I wanted to use as well (about three fonts, tops) and the color to use.

Product list & links

Papers (some blended) and elements from:

Kismet by Creashens

Everyday Flair by Creashens

Everyday by SSD designers (scroll down the post)

10080 Minutes by Traci Reed

Dog-eared by Traci Reed and Meghan Mullens

Painted Words by Designs by Lili (retired)

You Mini Line stacks by Ali Edwards

You Wordart by Ali Edwards

Templates from:

Scallop template from Template Toolbox 3 by Gina Miller

Bracket template from Birchwood: Clipped by Zinnias & Swallowtails

Misc:

Fonts: Clarendon Lt Light, District Thin, Marydale, LaCarte Pen

B&W action used: Florabella B/W Vanilla

Photo-editing: I use Lightroom 2 SOLELY to edit photos, not to organize them. My computer harddrive is so small that most of my stash and photos are on an EHD, so I don’t bother. I LOVE Lightroom–it makes photo editing SO freaking easy! It is photo editing for lazy people. Anyway, I started collections/folders for each day and edited the photos there (at this point I’d already chosen which ones I wanted) and exported the edits back to their original folders on my harddrive. I scrap using Windows Explorer open so to have everything there works for me.

WITL Album Scrapping

a. For each spread, I ended up using a mix of the 10080 Minutes Slip-Ins and the Templates of Traci Reed. I resized everything to 11.5 inches all around, so I could have a border of my kraft paper background.

b. First, I’d determine how much journaling I had, where to put it, and then choose papers and journal mats to use.

c. Then I’d figure out where to put the photos and which photos to use and clip them to the canvas.

d. Then I’d add little bits and details, such as the date, day, weather, what I ate, etc. I’d cluster elements in some spaces.

e. Lastly I’d fill in the journaling–I followed Ali’s organization in her PDF printout so I had spaces for “grateful for,” “overheard,” and “notable events.”

What Worked

- Editing photos as soon as I could, so it didn’t seem overwhelming to me

- Determining beforehand what materials to use. I ended up putting EVERYTHING in one go-to folder for easier access (since I scrap using Windows Explorer) during the process. I did end up not using some products and adding some, but it was very minimal.

- Determining my “pre-formats:” this meant what fonts to use (I didn’t want to use too many), color of my journaling, measurements of background papers, B&W photo action to use, etc. I wanted everything more or less uniform in the overall look.

- Ali’s documentation sheets–they provided a structure for my journaling and random thoughts I had during the day

- Scrapping as soon as the documentation process was over! While everything was still fresh and my enthusiasm high, I did an average of a spread a day. I did falter mid-way for my last three days, but I think I would’ve procrastinated for much longer if I hadn’t done this earlier.

- Making time to scrap this–I also had CT assignments, work assignments, offline obligations, so while I ended up doing less aimless Internet surfing, I got to finish this album. YAY!

What Could’ve Worked Better

- It took a lot of time (too much!) to figure out where to put my photos and journaling in the templates I used! I think next time I should just put all photos in one page and all journaling in another. Not as visually appealing, but mid-way through the project I was so freaked at how much time it was taking and I didn’t scrap for three or four days!

- I was dealing with HUGE layered files with all the papers and photos I was clipping unto templates. Definitely need to upgrade my PC to handle the load.

- using Paint for my screenshots–I needed more hi-res ones and I neglected to check the resolution of the ones I was getting. Next time I should just save screenshots on Photoshop.