36th ROW80 Check-In

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 4 2012
The writing challenge that knows you have a life

I'm doing things quite differently this round.  Since I joined mid Round 2 this year I have been using a blog-within-a-blog format for these check-in posts with updates stacked atop previous updates and commentary added under each goals section including a string of Ns and Ys for the five time investment goals.  This got quite unwieldy by mid round.

So now I've created a Google Doc Spreadsheet to keep track of the Ns and Ys and have set up a ROW80 page to feature the goals sans commentary.  These check-in posts will now contain only the commentary relating to the previous half week, a screenshot of the relevant lines on the spreadsheet and link to the spreadsheet and goals page.

View the spreadsheet Google Doc directly
View the goals list

I have to confess that after my marvelous accumulation of Ys in the last weeks of Round 3 I let it all slide after the final check-in.  Except for MOVE (ie exercise) and DAYDREAM STORYWORLD which seem to have become habitual I had pretty much all Ns for those two weeks until yesterday.  There would have been some scattered Ys for READ CRAFT if I'd been keeping track but they would have all been accidental due to landing on qualifying articles online by following inks in my fb and twitter newsfeeds, email and blog readers.  I never cracked open a single one of the books.

And the only writing has been blog posts and emails and 2do lists.

What I DID do though might mitigate the sound of that:

• a lot of catch-up housework
• three rearrangements of my desk corner in my office/craft room trying to eliminate productivity impediments.  I think I've almost got it.
• sorting of boxes and bags still unpacked from our move last December and my spring stay at mom's
• work on major crochet project for Xmas including calculating est time involved and establishing goals
• some prep for NaNo
• participation in Bloggiesta which focused on establishing goals and criteria for blogging that resemble those for writing that ROW80 has prompted
• read novels and posted reviews. hosted giveaways including the one posted yesterday for BBW

There were more but those are the ones I believe relate directly to creating a productivity friendly environment and so going forward I'll ease back into the ROW80 writing routines while trying to keep the other aspects of my life on a similar track.  I have to fight my inclination to hyper focus on one thing leaving all else to wither or worse.  

During last round I may have finally gotten my perfect strings of Ys but so much else fell by the wayside the ripple effects of their neglect were starting to backwash over the writing.  Apparently keeping care of ones self and ones environment is as important for creative productivity as is planting butt in seat to do the work.

My husband suggested tonight that I add SLEEP as one of the time investment goals.  But as I explained to him my struggle with sleep issues has been as epic as the battle between Jacob and the Angel and every time I've tried to address it with some sort of plan or schedule that depends on will power I fail abjectly.  I know that if I were to add this to the ROW80 goals it would only serve to inject that sense of failure into this endeavor and poison its roots.