Breaking Through, Travelling On

[Deleted User]

A lot of good and valuable advice on this thread today:T (but when is the advice never anything but good and valuable from you all?). Plenty of food for thought about small steps, something I'm taking on board in pretty much everything I try to do these days.

Finally home from my car boot sale. Just about thawed out after 2 pots of tea. It was so cold at 5.30 this morning:eek:, there's only just the first signs of a bit of insipid blue sky and it's mid afternoon!. Mustn't grumble though as I did well today, a lot of sellers and buyers. Made some money and cleared a lot of stuff that was cluttering up my life:j. Not sure how much I made yet, have a big bag of coins to count, but I know there aren't many £1 or £2 ones in there. So many people wanted to pay with handfuls of small change today. There are some notes too, it's just unusual to have such a lot of small-denomination coins. Every little helps, though:)

Enjoy the rest of your day, everyone. Now, shall I be a devil and make another pot of tea?:rotfl:

Karmacat

Ed, thank you, that's great, very kind of you! I'm wondering how people *know* its a boost? Maybe the bookie advertises it ... I'll start with 8 eight 8, I've brought my previous membership back to life, and I saw it recommended by jobbing musician on the new questions thread, so I'll work through it.

CBC, what a shame the sun didn't shine for you! I confess, it was real blue cloudless sky here today - still really cold early on, of course, especially *because* there were no clouds. Hope you made a good amount of profit. And what would we do without tea? :T

edinburgher

Sometimes the bookie advertises it, but more often than not, just keep your eyes on the forum.

Goldiegirl

KC, you sound as if you are close to dipping your toe into the MB Pond.

I'm nowhere near being ready, in fact I haven't even thought about it recently.

But I'm cheering you on!:j

Karmacat

Thanks both! For the cheers and the info I'm going to try to be a bit more systematic about the work - therapy, writing, and matched betting - timing my breaks more carefully will help too, instead of just letting myself get diverted.

Keeps me light on my feet, and keeps my options open

[Deleted User]

Karmacat wrote: »

Thanks both! For the cheers and the info I'm going to try to be a bit more systematic about the work - therapy, writing, and matched betting - timing my breaks more carefully will help too, instead of just letting myself get diverted.

Keeps me light on my feet, and keeps my options open

Sounds like a good plan, KC:T

I agree with you on the trying to stop being diverted front. Now I've discovered Pinterest my resolve to do the same is definitely wavering. The whole website is so visually enticing I just want to dive in there and follow wherever the magical mystery tour leads me:o.

Have a productive day:beer:

rtandon27

Karmacat wrote: »

...I'm going to try to be a bit more systematic about the work - therapy, writing, and matched betting - timing my breaks more carefully will help too, instead of just letting myself get diverted...

KC - that's a really well thought out plan of action! - I'm with you on the not getting diverted bit - it's so hard when working from home!

Karmacat

Thanks both! It's taken me a while to recognise this, because I enjoy producing the work and being productive - but because of that, I go on at one job for too long, and instead of saying "right, I've been doing that research for two hours, time for a break/to go into the garden" I keep going - but I'm more or less at my limit by then, so I'm just faffing about (or even worse, playing computer games!).

So its this thing, that I posted on the previous page:
10 hours client contact
4 writing sessions
3 editing sessions
2 m.b. sessions
2 cleaning sessions
3 gardening sessions – max 1 hour each
tidying – maybe half a "session" per day.

Ah! I've found the flaw in the plan already It doesn't take into account the "life admin" that we're on about all the time. Today, for instance:
- contact talktalk, I'm being transferred from Virgin Media to them (not my choice) and they're being a bit dishonest about the pricing, so I need to check. By 9 April!
- travel insurance for the trip to Belgium next week
- ring my mum, got to do that even more frequently now, she had a funny turn just before Easter and me and my sibs have been discussing ways and means to check up on her more frequently. And to get her to tell us when she has funny turns

At least two "life admin" sessions, and probably three .... hmmm.

[Deleted User]

That's the trouble with 'life admin', isn't it, not being able to be fitted into convenient time-slots?:(. Waiting for calls from people/companies or having to break off from something to call someone at a convenient time for them just halts the flow of planned and constructive work. I often wish I could shut myself away from everyone/everything with all means of contact switched off for designated periods of the day. Lots of people manage to do it, especially writers, but the older I become the more people I feel worried enough about to have to keep in regular touch with. Not a particularly grammatically elegant sentence, that last one:o, but I'm sure you know what I mean.

Karmacat

So true, CBC - though I confess that I've taken something from that Tim Ferriss book about 4 hours work a week - I don't open my post everyday! I should do it more often than I do, I think but doing it twice a week would be plenty, I'm sure - even the time-limited things, like the talktalk thingy I have to do today, I'd catch that in time.

And that talktalk thing is a great example of how I waste time, even though I know I'm doing it - I really hate talking to comms companies, they're terrible - I won't rant about it, but I think they're terrible. So I delay, and that means time wasted, because I know I have to do it at some stage

Will do that before my therapy work time starts at 1pm. Also got to clean the sink and set the room up. Lots of dust decluttered already if I didn't live alone, I'd *swear* that somebody else was being really messy :j