Organisation – a good place to revisit

What I produce has a tendency to get out of hand because so many balls are in the air at the same time – that’s obviously one of the reasons I am attracted to the juggler image.  The consequence of this is that elements slip through the cracks of progress.  Designs lurk in their digital files for years, ideas are not noted and thus fade into lost memories, and work can float in limbo at an interim stage.

Now that I am attempting to keep track of my workings through this blog I must likewise look at means to organise my time.  Over the past year or so I have stitched many silk pieces, but have not finished them all.  I know why this has happened: I am working on a very large quilt which is taking months of work, and sometimes I want a break in order to finish something quickly (or at least less slowly!).  But as soon as the small piece is complete as far as stitching goes, I return to the big quilt.  Meantime the divan in my sewing room is accumulating too many layers of pendings.  I can feel the need for a timetable and discipline.

In my salaried career I responded well to an element of self-imposed discipline.  I prefer to work with lists with priorities and short-term deadlines, thus separating the balls which I’m juggling.  It means relaxed concentration on whatever I have to hand because I know at the back of my mind that I’ve accounted for everything else.  Sometimes of course life gets in the way, or the system needs revisiting – or, as I feel now, the whole edifice needs a good sort-out.