After the turmoil of late April/early May,  I am pleased to announce that we are back up & atom. That being said, when ya make a plan, the universe laughs, so typically there has arisen quite a positive yet significant spanner in the works. I'll go into this properly some time in the next few weeks, but for now let's just say it has necessitated some serious & speedy reworking of the plans. It's not a baby.

As is well documented, the first few weeks of May were a mess of broken technology and trips to the emergency vet, but the last few weeks have all been about schemin' & dreamin' and organising my various goals into actual tangible plans. My productivity is still extremely varied and while my sleep pattern has generally improved it still lacks consistency, but my mindset has completely shifted, which is making it easier to move forward in every other area. I feel like I've regained a lot of my natural optimism and joie de vivre, which is fab. I've been meditating with the Headspace app most days, as well as making a point of writing in some sort of journal or diary for at least a page each day, and I think both of those have been contributors to this shift. Additionally, I realised about half way through the month that I was feeling scattered and distracted by a thousand small things I hadn't properly sorted out, so I decided to invest time into organising those mini-tasks as well as my larger goals. 

As part of this initiative I designated a day to organising my various creative projects, so I could gain some clarity/direction and start working on them properly without all the background clutter. I spent a few hours going through and organising all of my notes and pieces of writing into one place, both for music and for things like books and other projects, and it genuinely felt like gathering up a huge stack of loose papers in my brain and filing them neatly away. I've now separated all of my lyrics into different folders based on how much work they still need done and how interested I am in actually doing something with them, and all my random scraps of writing are grouped together based on project. Despite it only taking a few hours overall, doing that made a HUGE difference. I now can see exactly what creative projects I specifically want to work on, rather than having an abstract goal like 'write a  book' or 'finish an EP', which has made it so much easier to actually get started. 

Below is the end result of going through every music-related word document, voice memo and phone note I had. The 'Done - Good' and 'Unfinished - Work On' contents are also now set up in a notebook on Evernote.

Another contributing factor to a more naturally positive mindset has been organisation across the board. As I wrote in my journal, "it's crazy how much of a difference just having clear goals makes. I've gone from having zero motivation this morning to being focused and excited, just by writing my to do lists for the week." One of my main takeaways from this whole thing so far is that having to do lists for each day written the night before is often the difference between getting up with a sense of purpose and accidentally going back to sleep til 1pm. I've also started using my greatest invention, The Sims Chart, again and it's A+ for keeping me on track with the habits & little things I need to be doing that I wouldn't necessarily put on my daily to do list, since I try to keep that to three major tasks per day. It also helps me see at a glance which areas I'm doing well and poorly in and how that varies week to week. I'll go into the specifics of the chart in another post, because I've tried to make a video about it in the past and didn't even know where to start, but for now just know I'm using it and it's going fab.

Another game changer has been making a goal map. By this I mean I just got out my A3 visual diary (aka the glue that holds my entire life together), wrote down three major goals for the next two years at the bottom of the page, and traced backwards step by step through everything I'd need to do to reach those goals. Once you start breaking goals down like that they seem a lot more achievable, and often you realise there's less to do than you thought. I found that pretty much all of the smaller things I wanted separated into three clear larger goals, so this is definitely something to try if you feel overwhelmed by the number of different things you want to do. Once I'd made my goal map I divided all the steps I needed to take across the board into phases, so now in addition to my day to day tasks I also know what I need to get done if I want to stay on track with my overall goals. For example if I want to write a book then mapping out the plot and characters would be in Phase One, writing it would be probably Phase Two and Phase Three (other goals may have separate tasks for Two and Three, but writing a book will take longer so is carried over), editing and finding a publisher in Phase Four. Alongside that, Phase One will also include tasks for other goals, same with Phase Two and so on, so I can make consistent progress in multiple areas without losing track of one along the way.

Finally, I am back on the Moon Cult bandwagon, and have made not only a retrograde chart for the rest of 2018, but also a list of suggestions for each month based on the retrogrades going on at the time. I also did a tarot card reading yesterday for the first time in months, so things are feeling Phre$h in the occult. Something I've been using throughout this to keep things together and streamline my entire life is Evernote, so if you're someone who tends to write scraps of things in a million different places I'd definitely suggest trying it out. It automatically syncs across devices so I can work on things whenever I feel like instead of having to be at my computer, lets you separate things into different notes within different notebooks (The Dream) and is now my entire life. Not spon but I wish it were.

Organisation is key - don't underestimate the value of preparation

If you don't do the groundwork everything else will be a thousand times harder

Making To Do lists the night before makes a huge difference

Be realistic with To Do lists - three finished tasks are better than six half done

Getting one task done often helps with other ones

Keep your morning routine in a separate area from work

Having a meal plan saves a lot of time

Mindset is everything, so it's worth investing time into sorting yourself out

Making a goal map is the best thing you will ever do

My Sims Chart is genius

Will being off work is terrible for both our sleeping patterns

Sort out a thousand things I can't tell you about yet

Use my Sundays well

Exercise 2-3 times a week

Finalise the plot and scene breakdown for novel

Start a work instagram

Set website live

Many other work things like marketing plan, client outreach etc.

Pitch writing for publication

Actively make time for mindfulness and reflecting

Stay on top of both To Do lists and overall goals

Get my blog at least 3 posts ahead for July

Designate a few specific days to creative work

Round off everything from Phase One

I'm very excited to see how the next month goes. I am anticipating that by the start of July I will be in quite a different place, so there are busy times ahead but it's all gucci cos I've got my charts. Also because this astrologer woman I watch on youtube says the universe is on my side this month. I buy it. Regardless, please pray that my technology stays functional.

Let me know on the social meeds (twitter, insty) if you are also turning over a new leaf re: navigating the turbulent seas of life, and perhaps we can soar together. We certainly will once I share my Sims Chart. Many blessinz. x0x0