Project Planner Printable

It’s a really difficult time to make plans. We’re uncertain, we’re overwhelmed. All the usual stable things that are happily ignored are becoming shaky, crying for attention.

The place I’m feeling this most is in my work. I’m a chaotic creative at the best of times. I move between projects, I come up with new ideas and abandon others. I get stuck with an idea I thought would be a winner, and need to drop it for a while. And sometimes I get overwhelmed by all the things I’ve started, and I stress about when I’m going to try and finish things in order to spread out any new patterns, but this is the normal low-grade noise going on in my head while the rest of my life is kind of stable. So it’s fine. I write lists, I make plans, I shuffle the plans as new information reveals itself, and it generally works out ok.

But this level of creative chaos has felt completely untenable during a global pandemic. There’s so much uncertainty, that even though my plans usually change in a normal world anyway, my head is going round in circles, thinking about what I want to work on, how long it’ll take to finish, if I have the energy, if it’s the best use of time.

I keep all my Works in Progress in tubs, which I store on shelves in my workroom. I usually work on my quilts during homeschool in the mornings, and in the evening in front of the TV. And this works really well for me if the next step is pretty mindless and certain, eg, if the shapes are basted and ready to just sit and stitch, or the colours are chosen, and I can cut out and baste. As soon as a decision needs to be made, homeschool and evenings are the wrong time for it. I’m either focused on the kids or brain-dead. So it usually gets put back in the tub and on the shelf, and I grab something else ready to go, or start something new. Recently I’ve run out of things ready to go, and I’ve been starting a whole lot of something new.

At the start of this Pandemic, I didn’t have any new ideas. None. My brain was a fog and I spent any headspace I did have scouring the news and figuring out the best way to get my groceries with deliveries halted and shop shelves empty. Things have shifted since then. Instead of a ton of adrenaline brought on by a new scary thing, and an onslaught of massive decisions, there’s just the niggling stress of how to make the most of my day. Like if I don’t do it right, and have it all figured out, the world might fall apart. My poor brain has been in overdrive trying to figure out this impossible, elusive ‘best thing’, and I’ve responded to it by trying to do everything. And now I’m tired out and teary.

Even as I write this, it feels kind of silly. People are dying. People are losing their jobs and their homes. And I’m stressing about which quilt to make next. But really, I think it’s just where my scared brain has decided to focus its freak out. So today, while my amazing Tim took the kids on a bike ride, I decided to sit with the freak out, and I came up with a plan to process what quilts I had on the go and what to do next.

I headed to Canva, a website full of templates and fonts for making pretty things, and chose a ‘to do list’ template and quickly edited one I liked. I copied it to a second page, so that I had a 2-page document, and then I printed it with 2 copies to one page. This was my untechy work around because I couldn’t figure out a good way to put 2 lists on one page any other way. I’m seriously illiterate when I comes to things like this! In Australia, 2 to a page is A5, and it’s the perfect size for adding a list to each quilt WIP tub.

Isn’t it pretty? I’ve printed a little planner for each quilt, written its name next to WIP (work in progress), and added up to 8 ‘next steps’. (I was going to make room for more, but I actually found it helpful for my brain not to think too far ahead.) I’m using the notes section for things I need to remember, like how many shapes to baste or blocks to make, or how many I’ve made already.

After spending the afternoon writing lists, I thought you might enjoy it too? The PDF button below will lead you to a 2 page document, which you can choose to print letter size or 2 to a page. If the layout doesn’t suit you, it seriously took me ten minutes to make this one! Head over and have a play!

They say you can’t manage what you haven’t measured. I haven’t necessarily measured this, per se. I haven’t put in dates or times for deadlines or estimates for finishing. What this does for me is tell me what the next thing is. It’s a tiny little brain saver. Now when I look in my tub, I’ll see “cut joining shapes” or “baste more jewels” and I’ll find something I can do in my usual pockets of time.

And it hasn’t really solved the problem of doing the ‘best’ thing, but my goal is to shift my goal - from the best thing, to a good thing I can do right now. And really, it doesn’t matter if I get it wrong. The worst that will happen is that I make progress on something beautiful. Why am I stressing about that? There are no mistakes here. Not life-threatening, or earth opening up and swallowing-type mistakes anyway.

And look at that! In one afternoon, a quilt layout. In my head, the next thing on this list had been “finish Florin Quilt” which has been way too big for any chunk of time I ever get. But break it into little steps, and then next thing is “layout”. And that, I had headspace and time for. I don’t have the energy or inclination to pick it up off the floor and sew it together, but that’s ok. Today, I ticked something off my list. I made some worthwhile progress.

I’m sharing more of my WIP progress, organisation, etc in my #talesofclothWIPdiary on Instagram. I hope you follow me and enjoy a tiny bit of order in this world of chaos!