One Little Word | FOCUS | February

Who knew?? It seems I may be able to focus!!

I chose the word FOCUS (or maybe it chose me) as my One Little Word for 2016. At first nothing happened. I still completely lacked focus. Just like always.

So I bought a MudLove band with the word “focus” on it. I wear it every day. Then I bought the word “focus” made out of recycled materials and put it on the wall beside my computer.

At the first of January I wrote about my word – what it means, why I chose it, quotations with the word, plan of action, intentions, . . . stuff like that. And I spent a good amount of time staring at my arm and the wall. Nothing.

All of a sudden it was February – time to assess my FOCUS in January. All of a sudden I had a revelation. For the entire month of January I had actually been focusing on something: Bible study! For a number of years that has been hit or miss for me, mostly miss.

There’s no excuse for me not being consistent with Bible study. I’m home a lot, and I deeply enjoy Bible study. BUT I start it, get distracted easily, and don’t finish. Or I get side-tracked and don’t even start it.

On the first of January I decided to SHOW UP (a mantra of the OLW group) for Bible study by doing it every day (not knowing whether I would actually stick to it). When I was home all day, I did it in the morning after I got ready. If I had to go out first thing, I’d do it as soon as I returned home. Somehow I managed to do Bible study every single day in January. 

Wow. Nothing interfered with my daily Bible study for a whole month, not even the cat who sat on my stuff at least once every session. (Hi, Wu Chow!)

One morning I knew I’d have some time between appointments, so I took my Bible stuff with me. I went to Starbucks and worked on my Bible study while I had coffee and a breakfast sandwich (that’s the remains on the napkin):

Ali Edwards sends out monthly prompts to those in her OLW workshop. For February we are to put our word into practice. So, I’m FOCUSing on a new area, while keeping up with my daily Bible study. For February my practice will be FOCUSing on my photos. Maybe I can FOCUS on two things?

About my photos, . . . Lord help me, I have a ridiculous number of photos. I have grandkids; I have pets. Need I say more?

This month I want to get on top of my photos. Every day I’m going to work on one of these three things:

1. Transferring photos from my iPhone to my computer. (I keep forgetting to do that. This is one reason I wish I had a Mac so they’d transfer automatically. And that’s the only reason.)

2. Deleting photos, both from my iPhone and my computer.

3. Organizing the photos as they’re added to the folders on my computer.

Here’s the page I made for FOCUS for OLW for February:

I’ve printed the page and taped it into my bullet journal. I don’t know how I’m going to mark off the days – by put a letter in each circle to indicate what I did that day (“T” for transferring, “O” for organizing, or “D” for deleting) or by giving myself gold stars.

In the meantime I’m keeping up with what I do each day on the February monthly page of my bullet journal.

See the column on the far side of the left page? That’s where I’m tracking my photo progress. (I got the idea of this minimal tracking method from Ryder Carroll, the originator of the bullet journal.)

Bonus photo from my morning Bible study:

Notice anything? I got a FOCUS mug! (I got it here.) Now I’ll really be able to focus!!

Thanks for stopping by! Thanks for your comments. I’m off to delete some photos! I am so focused!

One Little Word | FOCUS | January progress

Here’s an update on how I’m doing with my One Little Word this month. As I said in the last post, my OLW is FOCUS. I chose it because I have no focus. Nope, not a bit. Example: I started this post four different times, but got distracted and never finished it. See??

Here’s what I'm doing so far in my journey with FOCUS.

First, I’m wearing my Mudlove band that says “focus.” 

I’ve worn it without taking it off (it’s waterproof) since the 11^th of January, the day it arrived in the mail. I wear it by itself or with other bracelets, from cheap to expensive ones. It goes with everything.

I look at it all the time because it’s there in plain sight. I have it turned to face me to make sure it catches my attention. Although I’m sitting around staring at my FOCUS bracelet, no one else is. To date no one else seems to have noticed it. Or maybe they have and just think I’m weird. 

Secondly, another prompt I bought is the word “focus,” that was handmade from recycled material by Colleen Attaras:

It’s 16 inches in length. Colleen is a mixed-media artist, and she often works with salvaged materials. Isn't it cute?

Even the packaging for my salvaged word was cute. Colleen taped it to cardboard for shipping. Look how she decorated the cardboard:

That’s a handmade bookmark tucked under the “u” of “focus.”

My word is now hanging on a wall by my computer. See:

I could write a lot about the significance of these items to me, but I won’t. (You’re welcome.)

In case you can’t read it, the quote in the upper left corner says, “Creativity is contagious. Pass it on.” It’s from Albert Einstein.

That’s Isaac Hayes in the photo. Perhaps you recognize him by the chains.

How I came to have a photo of him personally autographed to me is a story for another day. He lived in our neighborhood at the time of his untimely passing. Once when walking by our house our Old English sheepdogs barked at him. He said, “Cool dogs.” There’s a little-known Isaac Hayes fact for you.

Thirdly, besides having FOCUS on my arm and on my wall, I have it in my bullet journal. In the last post I showed the pages I made for FOCUS. Here’s how they look taped into my bullet journal:

So, how am I doing with my word? Horrible. Because I want to FOCUS doesn’t mean I have a clue how to go about it. My mind is still all over the place. I continue to start stuff but get distracted before I finish.

However, I am experiencing success in one area, and that’s my daily Bible reading and study. I’ll write about that later. For now I’ll just say I haven’t missed a day since I decided to get serious about the Bible on January the first. Some days I find myself sitting there for two, and occasionally three, hours with my Bible (actually two), my notebook, my iPad, and my fancy pen-holder bag-thing with its ever-growing collection of pens.

I mention my Bible study not to brag, but to say I’m shocked I am focusing on something and doing it intensely and intentionally. Besides learning a lot and spending time with God, I’m feeling there’s hope I’ll be able to focus on other areas.

Thanks for stopping by!

FOCUS, my 2016 One Little Word

In my last post I shared my lofty goals for this year, which include doing Project Life and One Little Word, along with organizing my life with the help of a bullet journal. This post is about my pages for January for One Little Word 2016.

I’ve started AND completed the January portion of One Little Word. (Note: I started AND finished something!!) 

First, I had to choose my OLW. It wasn’t difficult this year. I used last year’s word – FOCUS – because I sure didn’t use it last year. Oh, how I need FOCUS in my life.

After choosing my word, my next step was to go shopping. I can focus just fine on shopping, so I figured why not start my focusing journey with a successful experience?

What to buy? It seems a lot of OLW folks make their word visible throughout the year by wearing it on a bracelet or necklace or by having some artwork that features the word. I found several Etsy shops who sell such things. I ordered a “salvaged word” from one of them. I’ll show it to you after it arrives.

I bought my bracelet from Mudlove for two reasons: their products are very reasonably priced, and every product purchased provides one week of clean water to someone in need in the Central African Republic. Read about their story here. Here is my bracelet:

 

Side note: I noticed on The Bachelor this week that Bachelor Ben is wearing one of Mudlove’s bands. His says “hope.” That’s not the best show (it's mesmerizing like watching a train wreck), but it’s good advertisement for Mudlove.

After choosing my word and buying stuff, the next step was to figure out the format for my monthly OLW pages. Most people make a separate OLW album. Some people include the pages in their Project Life albums.

I chose neither of those options, because I prefer to reinvent the wheel. I’m putting the pages in . . . (wait for it) . . . my bullet journal!

This is my year to have one place for all my notes, lists, and journaling. I’ll still be working on PL scrapbook albums and on Bible study journals, but everything else will be in my bullet journal.

The OLW pages will be the first thing I put in my bullet journal each month. Win/win! I love my bullet journal so much that I WILL do my OLW monthly pages the first of the month so I can get right into setting up the month itself.

The class materials for OLW include various cards and worksheets to fill out. To aid reinventing the wheel, I measured my bullet journal pages (they're about 8 inches by 5½ inches). Then I made a generic template that size in Photoshop.

I had to do some reworking of the cards and worksheets to make them fit my template. I also jazzed them up a bit, because that’s what the other class participants did. I ended up with four pages for January. They're below.

First January page with some prompts completed:

 

The word “focus” is by Rhonna Farrer of Rhonna Designs. The rest of the cursive words and the stars are from Ali Edwards. The photo is my current Facebook profile picture. It was taken on my birthday while I was holding an overflowing platter of pancakes freshly made by my son Blake. Who wouldn’t have a smug smile when possessing all the pancakes?

Second January page with some more of the prompts completed:

 

The photo on the bottom is from our stay in Destin. I used it to fill blank space, because I didn’t have anything to say on the bottom. And if I think really hard, I can make it fit “FOCUS.” The sun certainly aids focus by keeping the world visible. Those lights provide direct focus on the pier where they’re located. Most importantly, the colors coordinate well with these pages.

Third January page, which started out as a worksheet, but I digitally made it into cards for consistency with the other pages:

 

The font for the title of each card is Floraless Regular. The text is my handwriting that I had made into a font. The lens thing with FOCUS in the center is what I made for my OLW symbol. I found the lens image by googling “lens images.” I’m very clever like that.

The fourth and last January page, which also started out as a worksheet:

 

Here is what the first two pages look like after I printed them and glued them into my bullet journal:

So, there. I’ve made my OLW project public. I hope this will help keep me accountable for following through with this project. And I sincerely hope to learn to FOCUS.

Are you keeping a bullet journal or pursuing a word this year? If so, I'd love to hear from you about your experiences. If you’re interested, I’ve started a Pinterest board for One Little Word: Focus.

Thanks for stopping by!

PS. If you made it all the way to the bottom of  this post, you really have perseverance! I'll try to keep future posts shorter.

Project Life, One Little Word, and Bullet Journaling

Hello blog!

Long time no see. Here’s why: I’ve been in family mode.

Since April my three kids who live out of town (make that, out of STATE) and their families have made a total of seven visits “home.” This has never happened in one year. More recent visits have included having the out-of-town family here for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and between Christmas and New Year’s Day, but not all once.

All the family time didn’t happen here at home. Between the first of June and the end of September, I was on 15(!) planes, going to see these people and my newest grandchild (shout-out to Tom!!). And we went to Destin for a month, where one son and his family joined us for a visit. What a glorious year!

Usually I post about Project Life. Am I going to do it again this year? YES! Well, I’m going to start it anyway. I excel at starting stuff. I stink at finishing.

Besides Project Life, I have more projects in the works. I signed up for Ali Edwards’ yearly One Little Word workshop/class. I sign up for it every year! And, no, I don’t finish it either. This is embarrassing to admit, but I’ve never really started a single year. Nope, not one.

This year will be different all around, she says with confidence!

Why? Because I started bullet journaling. (If you can't succeed at one thing, try doing ten things at the same time.)

I’m a lifelong note- and list-maker. I had them all over my house and my phone. Not anymore. Now they’re all in my nifty bullet journal. This is what will cause me to be more productive this year!! I hope.

If you’re not familiar with bullet journaling, start here. Then check out “Bullet Journal” on Pinterest and YouTube. On Instagram check #bulletjournal and #bulletjournalchallenge. I've also found two relevant Facebook groups: Bullet Journal and Bullet Journal Challenge.

Here’s what I see right now when I search Pinterest for “bullet journal”:

There is so much on this topic on Pinterest. Here is my Pinterest board. Several of the pins above are from Boho Berry, a fantastic bullet journaler. Here is her blog.

What am I keeping in my bullet journal? Monthly logs, monthly goals, daily logs, future logs, etc. I also have collections, like holiday ideas and quotes I want to remember.

One page is called Project Attic, where I’m recording my progress in cleaning out the attic (number of boxes and bags that are GONE and record of time spent). In November one little corner of the attic might have looked like this:

Scary, huh? And that’s the only "before" picture I took. I couldn’t squeeze between all the junk up there to get good photos.

All of this might sound confusing and haphazard, but a bullet journal is very organized through the Table of Contents (tells what's where) and a legend (tells what the various symbols mean). You can read about those in the links above.

Thanks for stopping by!

Next post: my January OLW pages (I've already done them!!)

PS. Several of my, well, several readers messaged me privately to see if I were still living after I went missing from blog world back in September. I sincerely appreciate that. In this big, ole world, it's always nice to know people care. I blog for myself as a sort of journal. If what I write is helpful or entertaining or whatever to others, that's icing on the cake.