Sometimes I think I’m doing well. At other times I look at what I still have to do and feel overwhelmed. I value my diary almost more than my knitting because it keeps me on track.

There are jobs that I want to have started/completed for a given week. They get put into a day. For example. This week I want to finish “Fraser” so that deadline was written in Friday. The body was to be blocked on Monday/Tuesday (depending on my mood) sleeves to be completed by Wednesday evening with sewing up on Thursday. Friday I’ll be at Uni all day so I’m hoping to commandeer someone to model for me. Then I get to start the process all over again with the next.

I know what Number 4 will look like but some of the cabling requires some thought. (Yes cables are a clue). This planning needs to be done this week so I can get cracking next. Then there are numbers 5, 6 and 7 that are doodles in my diary at the moment. Alongside this I have other things I need to keep up with (twitter, blog, Etsy).

I also need to knit some more sweaters for the shop. There’s Christmas knitting I have to accomplish and I accepted a commission on Friday.

There’s research I want to do for some sculptural/non-sweater knitting I want to experiment with. Then I’d like to knit it and there are still socks to be knitted/designed.

Sometimes I think I should work harder or faster but then I look at the time and see that it’s late, remember I’ve been at this since 9.30am and wonder how much harder can I work? So the other option is faster but a former life in the NHS has drilled into me that faster doesn’t always mean better. I forget how many times I would tell nurses huffing at the pharmacy hatch “You can have this done quickly or you can have it done correctly but you can’t have both” To be honest, I knit fairly quickly anyway and take a pride in what I do.

Already I look at this and feel it’s going to keep me busy until December but actually that helps. Now I know when this lump of work will be out of the way. Put like that it suddenly feels achievable. Maybe I should include “Quarterly Goals” of X sweaters designed and worked out. X number in the shop. X technique cracked.

I’ve always enjoyed breaking down my tasks into small, manageable chunks but it’s important that they feed into something larger too. progress should be forward.

Now. Where did I put my crampons?

x