Entering the new year with a new plan for weeknotes…
Although I enjoyed writing my first few weeknote instalments last year, they got harder (or less pleasurable?) to write each week. This was, in part, because they began to feel repetitive, boring and forced. I was using the previous note as a template for the new note and this seemed to make it easier to repeat myself without moving things forward (although I had hoped that strategy would result in precisely the opposite effect, ie making building on the old post easy!?). Of course, the repetition/boredom was likely also a symptom of my usual holiday slump (because I am far less likely to go out to do things when everyone else is also out doing things). Can’t wait for everyone else to go back to work (sorry, not sorry)!
My recent post “What’s with the weeknotes” cemented the ethos of this space as personal rather than professional, with weeknotes being a part of that decision. In light of Tracy Durnell’s idea of weeknotes as a tool for attention, I’ve identified a few goals for my weeknotes:
This mindmap amounts to the following goals (and the headings identified further down):
- motivation via accountability (a gentle push to help me do the things I want to do)
- tracking to enhance memory (because my mind tends to focus on failure rather than achievement, and I’m dreadful at remembering when things happened)
- sharing (no pressure to gain an audience, but if my writing turns out to be helpful to others then great)
- planning (reasonable expectations)
What I’m doing on this website relates to my move from employed to unemployed (as D consistently points out, I’m not retired, I’m too young to draw my pension). No longer on an externally defined work schedule, I think I need to create some structure for myself (but structure that encourages trying new things, some of which might spark joy, as well as sticking to things that are good to do regularly).
I took a look at some other people’s weeknotes to see what they wrote. Some make a list (similar to the way I’ve been including a list of “Stuff I did”). Most people have headings (not all of which appear every week). These headings might be for lists or paragraph of text.
Since I don’t want to shut down my free-writing rambles completely, I’m going to use headings and paragraphs. I’m cutting down the final list of plans to record “Three ideas”, for fun/new things I’d like to do/try in the next week (or so). The “Plans” section I had last year was too long, repetitive and did not motivate me to action regularly enough!
Headings:
- Reading
- Golf
- Exercise
- Food
- Garden
- Adventure
- Three ideas
I’m going to see how this goes for January. It’s my website, so I can change things whenever I want, but I’ll give it about a month to test the new, more structured, approach properly. My hope is that as well as helping make my weeknotes more helpful to me (and maybe interesting for other people), I’ll also identify topics and ideas to expand on in other more informative/analytical/thoughtful posts.
