An eclectic blog about beads, beading and beyond



Monday, October 18, 2010

Creating productive time for beading: how do you find it?

I decided to catch up with email reading today – reading emails I hadn’t had time to read last week. Ironically, several of them were about how to find time to do what you like to do! Beading is not everything in my life but finding some more time for seems a challenge. Etsy’s emails for online shop owners are full of advice on how to create time to move through the things that make for a successful online shop, The Beading Gem’s Journal listed 10 tips on finding time to bead and a piece on simplifying your life so you can do what you want to do appeared in my ‘junk’ mail folder. An omen??? Mind you distilling all this time-saving advice took quite some time! Here’s what made most sense to me in my efforts to have a regular, productive and calm space to bead:
  • Do at least one beady thing today that gives you pleasure
  • Limit the time you spend on the computer and/or texting, etc. as it is a major way in which time can be lost in current times
  • ‘Edit’ and declutter your workspace so that it is not full of the unnecessary and the impossible - just spend 15 mins on it a day and celebrate what you achieve, knowing you'll do more tomorrow.
  • Choose to do one beady thing today that you have been putting off for a while
  • Create beading routines that allow you do to some beading you love every day
  • Single task your beadwork, rather than multi-task – it’s less stressful
  • Create a strategy for dealing with UFOs.
What works to make your beading time productive, enjoyable and as often as you’d like? I'd love to know. I'm off to try to put these handy tips into practice - 15 mins for declutter with the computer left off!!!

7 comments:

shibori girl said...

Oh, UFO's are my biggest issue - I have so many the task is daunting. I used to tell myself I could start something new when I finish two UFO's, but that pact with my lazy self has fallen by the wayside.

I think my problem is I get so excited about something new, I figure I'll start that and finish this current thing "whenever".

Good luck with the finding more time issue. My solution is to sleep less! :)

Kate

Enchanted Beads said...

I love your Blog posts. Thank you for this one as well!-
ileana

Marsha Wiest-Hines said...

For me, it's a time of day, set aside just for beading. From the time the dinner dishes are finished until my bedtime belongs to me, and I choose to spend nearly every evening beading. No computer, except if I am working on a blog post or listings. I do spend at leat an hour each day reading beading realted e-mails and blogs. but try to keep that to morning coffee and lunch times. It's not easy, having a full time job and beading too, and my housekeeping and yard work are not great!

Glenda of Dax Designs said...

Thanks for your comments folks - its great hearing how others manage to find the time for beading in our busy lives.

KRDesigns11 said...

Thanks for the post Glenda. The computer does eat up a lot of my time. I hope to "borrow" someone else's idea of having all of my UFO's on a tray that's always visible, so I can see what I have to work on, but I have to make the time to set it up! Mine are hidden in little bins. The doing what you love is really important.

AsteropeBC said...

Marsha, the way you organize your time sounds pretty similar to the way I handle it. It is hard to balance everything along with a day job! Beading time is usually from the time the kids go to bed to the time I go to bed. I usually have way more ideas than I have time to execute them. I try to choose just a few things to work on and finish them before moving on.

Glenda of Dax Designs said...

I can see that time is an issue we all face challenges around - bursting with ideas doesn't help. I start something and then get a new idea and the UFOs pile up and then the time to finish them seems impossible. Still I am trying really hard to spend 15 mins a day tidying by bead area (its working!) and really limit my computer time and be focused on what I do with it. That is helping too. Thanks for the great sharing on this topic.

Dax Designs - now on Byhand.me Artisan Co-op