(I know, I hate acronyms in titles, too. But, if I wrote it all out, it would be too long. Trust me, the page looks really ugly when the title phrase wraps twice.)
I was reading a blog yesterday, a stitcher’s blog. She’s starting a yearlong exercise she calls WIPocolypse, in which she lists every Work In Progress that she wants to work on in 2012. She’ll do monthly posts on the day of the full moon (she’s a witch) with pictures of her progress on each project. The goal? To reduce the number of UFOs (Unfinished Objects) in her life.
To Read baskets in the living room (there are more in our bedroom and my office)
Our huge house, 10 rooms not counting
- bathrooms
- halls the size of my childhood bedroom
- stair landings large enough for real furniture
- front and back entryways
- three unfinished attic sections
- three small walled-off storage areas in the basement
is filled with symptoms of the unfinished projects (UPs?) in my life: books and magazine articles to read, knitting/needlepoint/sewing/watercolor projects, various types of stuff in various stages of sorting/filing/weeding. Every year, I finish one or two of these, while adding several more.
2010 was the beginning of a change. I actually began to make visible progress on several of the largest household and personal projects. 2011 was even better. Not only was there more progress on the big stuff, I also managed to finish more small projects than I started.
If I’m going to do even better in 2012, my efforts will have to become methodical and structured.
Flower pots have taken over the dining room table.
Even though only a few of my UPs involve needlework UFOs (the half-finished sweater that is now two sizes too small, the needlepoint piece that was intended to cover the seat of a chair that now needs joint repair, the scarves I started last year and the year before that and…), I’m going to borrow the term WIPocolypse and start my own UPs list. It will include craft projects, art projects, jewelry repair, organizing my plant stuff, cleaning the attic, setting up a sewing room, excavating my office from the decades of school and work files, reducing the mountain of magazines that have one or two articles I want to read…you get the idea
My WiP list will have a few work-related projects on it, too: converting my years of writing samples from a notebook to an online portfolio (and doing killer SEO on it), doing a new marketing plan, adding articles to my business website, learning Moodle so I can put some of my seminars and workshops online.
I expect the initial list will be somewhat intimidating. That’s OK. I know I don’t have to finish everything in 2012, although that would be nice. But I will finish at least one major project in each category (professional, personal, household), and be able to show significant progress in several others.
I may also decide to abandon a project or two, once I have everything out in the open where I can see it.
That’s also a kind of progress.
