The first step on my road to managing my everyday and project tasks was testing and adapting the 100 Day System by Steven Feeney (www.100daysystem.co.uk). It’s a Creative Commons (i.e. free) system of setting priorities every morning while keeping an eye on your efficiency and the events and pieces of information ocurring in the course of your day.

It’s a really useful tool, right now I’m in the process of adjusting it to my personal needs. For example, I’m working with an additional timeline to block out fixed meetings, events or work times. Like this, I can visualize my free time budget and, more importantly, my breaks and leisure times.

You need to defend those times to stay capable of being creative. Creativity is luxury – if you waste all your energy doing only the most basic of all tasks, you won’t have any resources left to reflect, invent, scribble or dream. This is the groundwork for creativity.

Inspiration won’t hit you just out of nowhere. It needs to be prepared. Without this, you won’t innovate. You won’t be creative. 1 month ago

Wow, once again a month has gone past since i last used 43things. I’ve missed it! 43things has a really positive effect on my life, it’s great to have your list of goals all in one place to look at, to record progress (or lack of progress), to check out and cheer other people’s goals etc etc. I really should be putting using 43t a few times a week as a high priority.

Actually I should be using the internet more in general. The internet really is an amazing thing and has all the tools to help me work on many of my goals, aswell as the fact that it’s just fun to do stuff online :)

I really have realised something very important recently, that im neglecting myself. I’m not taking good care of my appearance, of my relationship with God or with others, i’m not taking time to do things i enjoy. Why? Well my 10 month baby who has recently started crawling has a lot to do with the reason why! But it’s really hit me recently how important it is that i take good care of myself, physically and emotionally. To be honest, my biggest priority in life right now after looking after my beautiful son is actually taking better care of myself. One thing i am definitely going to do from today onwards is take atleast an hour everyday to use the intenet whilst baby is asleep. I might use that hour for 43t, for chatting with my friends, or for browsing through my google reader, whatever, it’s just important that i do it for so many reasons :)

So expect to see an increase in 43t activity, starting today :) 7 months ago

I really feel like I’ve got my priorities so mixed up in life. Seriously. I feel like i give WAY to much attention to unimportant things and then completely neglect the stuff that i should be giving most of my attention to.
One thing I definitely think i spend too much time doing is cleaning my house, i mean, yes it’s important to keep the house clean, but it doesnt have to be perfect and i shouldnt be spending lots of time on it to the negligence of other things.
I think i spend way too much time actually just sitting around and thinking!
There are other things, but the main one is cleaning.
What are my priorities in life?
-God – Keeping up my daily prayers, learning more about my religion, learning Quran, being a good muslimah
-My son and my husband
-My friends and family
-My home – the cooking, the cleaning etc
-Building confidence and a social life!
-Learning arabic
-Losing weight
-Improving my cooking – (i really do need to improve!)

Am I giving the right amounts of attention to these important aspects of my life? I definitely have to say no. Some aspects are gettting too much of my time/attention , others i’m not devoting enough time to.
For example, i am currently doing absolutely NOTHING towards learning arabic, yet i manage to spend hours on cooking and cleaning. Learninf arabic is so important to me. Not only so i can understand and recite Quran, but so that i can teach my son to, so that i can communicate better with the non-english speakers in my husband’s family. The benefits of me learning arabic are just so heavy really.
Also, i am making very little effort to lose weight – and i really need to lose weight. I gained a lot during pregnancy and it’s not healthy and needs to be lost.
So in short, i really just need to prioritize!
How am i going to do it, by writing out my daily to-do list as a list of priorities and non-priorities and not allowing myself to do the non-priorities before ive done the priorities! :) 8 months ago

I’m sitting on top of a huge list of things that have become a major source of stress in my life. So, I’m reordering my 43 Things list based on what is most important to me. Then, I’ll have to start actually doing stuff to get them done and hopefully off my list permanently. I may also start breaking my long term goals into shorter term ones, so they aren’t just overshadowing quite so much of my life. As Anne Lamont would say, “Bird by bird.”

So, here are my basic guide lines:

1. Health
2. Husband
3. Horses
4. Wealth
5. Home
6. Friends and Family
7. Writing

Everything Else

That’s just off the top of my head, though it looks kinds harsh. Everything is so interconnected, I’m not sure how helpful that a list like this really is. Oh well, I’ve got to start somewhere. 9 months ago