Give it 100 (or 20, or 30 ...) March 2018

[ejchase]

In August 2017, a few of us were inspired by the video at the link below. It's the story of a woman who went to the gym 100 times to try to get herself out of a rut. I saw it when George Takei posted it on Facebook along with the question, "What would you like to do 100 times?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5FkshLcNLQ

Her video was part of a larger movement online called "Give it 100" which, as far as I can tell, is now defunct.

I decided what I wanted to do 100 times was work on my fiction writing at least 30 minutes a day. The times do NOT need to be consecutive. Since I knew I would miss a lot of days here and there, I was aiming to complete my 100 days by January 15, but now it's clear it's going to take a little longer than that.

Others joined in at various points - nswef has been building up to 100 times of a certain number of steps a day and I think is also counting days doing 15 minutes of decluttering. Chicken Lady got 30 days in her studio in November and has been counting swimming lately

Anyway, if anybody else wants to join in for 20, 30, 100 or however many times of something, please do!

After almost a whole month away from working on my goal, I'm at #99 of my writing but am going to aim for 110 now because I had some goals to complete some longer sessions, and I want to meet these goals.

[nswef]

Yay for you EJ.

[Chicken lady]

my goal for March:
15 minutes or more every day on some task/goal that can be measurably completed. (So not things like cleaning and organizing and exercising and cooking...)

i’ve been noticing the last week that I am tired in the evenings and I don’t want to do my chores (brain “i’m Too tired. I don’t have the energy to go out there and work for an hour”) but that if I remind myself that it often takes less than an hour and is a finite set of tasks, I can go out and do one task, and then the next task, and just remind myself that I simply have to keep doing the next task, and that if I do that I will run out of tasks and be done.

i don’t know how much I can do in 7 hours and 45 minutes broken into 15 minute chunks, but I know I can make 15 minutes a day, so I plan to find out.

[Chicken lady]

Yesterday I spent my 15 minutes on drainage around the barn. It didn’t time it, I just got the water moving away from the door tracks by making some minor slope adjustments. I first typed that “slop” - accurate!

[nswef]

CL, That sounds like a job that will save you trouble in the long run.

[early morning]

UGH, CL, drainage can be a problem, for sure. we have had so much water!! TG we had a curtain drain put around the barn a few years ago when the county mucked up some of our drain tiles out to the large county tile when they put in sewer. They swore there was no tile damaged and they weren't liable, because we didn't complain right away (it was a dry year, that one, so we didn't notice... but when it rained the NEXT year, water backed up into the barn. First time in 30 years, and it was not all that wet. grrrr.
Goals for the year: 100 journal entries this year (about 2 a week), daily entries in my interactive journal, and spend 100 hours this year on my upstairs decluttering/reorganizing. I'm at 10 journal entries, up to date on my interactive journal, but only 1 hour on the upstairs *sigh*. Where DOES my time go?? I'd like to be more ambitious, but I'm struggling with this one and I really need to hold myself accountable.

[Chicken lady]

Yes, working on the drainage pays dividends. I think a lot of the good weather days will involve digging. The idea being to do something that will fix a problem that doesn’t have to be fixed again tomorrow/next week/next month/next year.

i missed my 15 minutes yesterday. I was busy all day - including a fun dinner out with my daughters - an I chose more sleep over 15 minutes of progress. Maybe i’ll Make it up.

[Chicken lady]

Half an hour of ditch digging. I’m going to call that caught up.

I am digging in wet, heavy clay with rocks embedded in it, so the speed of progress is about three minutes per linear foot. It feels very slow. But 5ft a day x 30 days is 150ft of ditch. 150 feet of ditch should be enough to effectively drain the goat yard that opens into the pastures, making things noticeably more pleasant for both me an the goats on a long term basis.

[ejchase]

Good going, Chicken Lady!

[Chicken lady]

Thanks! Day three - starting to see an impact!

[ejchase]

Hi All,

Here's an update on my situation: as you may remember, I decided to go to 110 because I had committed to 10 two-hour writing sessions and 30 one-hour sessions within my 100, and I had still had more of both of those to go after I got to 100 because I got to 100 on mostly 30-minute sessions. Well I did a four-day stretch of two-hour sessions last weekend so finished those (Yay!) but still have 7 more one-hour sessions to go. So I'm at 103 (!!!) but stuck there for a while because work and home life are BUSY right now, and I have decided I just need to accept that and surrender to it.

The big revelation for me is that at first, I really thought the two-hour sessions were too much but now I LOVE them. And overall, I'm so happy I'm writing again. It's made a big difference in how I feel about my life and myself. I feel like my whole life works better when I'm writing.

So-o-o it may be March 15th or so before I get back to writing, but in the meantime, I'm enjoying reading about the progress the rest of you are making!

[nswef]

Wow EJ, that is amazing. Because of your inspiration I have been spending about 30 minutes a day on writing activities which all count toward my improvement. I now have a critique partner! I think it's going to work out very well. Her goal is to publish, mine just to improve as if I might publish, so your inspiration has motivated me. Thank you and congratulations to you on finding or refinding your joy in writing.

[ejchase]

That's fantastic, nswef! I feel like we are all such a good influence on each other! :)

[ejchase]

Ding ding ding!

I actually did it! I made it to 110 days of writing today - I went to 110 instead of 100 because I had had some goals for longer writing sessions that I hadn't met yet.

Wow. This was a really big deal for me, and setting this goal and reaching it created a shift in my life I really needed. I've spent a lot of years talking about wanting to be a writer and not really doing it. These last seven months, I've been doing it.

It took me over two months longer than I thought it would to complete this goal, but I'm fine with that.

I'm going to start another 100 times soon but need a few days - possibly a week or two - to focus on other goals I've been neglecting.

Thanks to everyone here who has supported me along the way. It made a huge difference.

[Chicken lady]

Nice going ejchase!

[nswef]

Yay, yay,yay!!!!

[early morning]

woohoo! Way to go, writers! Way cool. I'm up to a sad 4 hours total on my upstairs, but there is actually a hole in my box room, even after I moved some stuff in, and the back hallway stack has been halved. More to come out of box room, to be replaced by stuff I really WANT to hang on to, including some inventory. Broke down a bunch of boxes to recycle, put some like items together, have a bag for good will and a bag of plastic bags to recycle. So a little progress! My dining room table is still pretty well covered, but my pie-safe is organized and the top has items much more accessible. (The dining room is also our sewing room....)

[ejchase]

Early morning, it sounds like you're making progress even if 4 hours doesn't seem much. I did 40 hours of decluttering between December and the end of February, but I think I was about 25 hours in before I started to see clear gains. Try to be patient and give yourself a pat on the back for what you've achieved so far. Small steps count!