hmatt's blog

Today I set my alarm for 6:30am. The past few days I fell into this pattern where I would stay up super late and then accomplish little because my attention span was weak due to drowsiness. To fix this, I woke up early today to accomplish some tasks that I’ve been putting off.. taskrabbit searching and getting background photos for the next episode of my kids show.

Isn’t it funny how we put things off? Well, not funny as in ha-ha, but funny as in hmm. I wrote up the top 3 things that I keep just shuffling around.

Anyway, I don’t want to spend too much time contemplating about doing these tasks.. so I go to do them. = )

The Disney Look, 2000

In 2000 I participated in the Walt Disney World College Program. I kept a big plastic bin full of all the papers pertaining to my experience.

I started scanning some of them, and it is always strange to have that rush of memories flooding my brain as I touch papers I used to deal with years ago. It’s as if I’m being confronted with the 20 year old me, and what I wanted to pursue. The world was wide open with possibilities.

I’m in the place I always thought I’d be, Los Angeles, but I still have (as yet) unrealized hopes and dreams. I see remnants of the past before me and my current hopes of the future still just beyond my reach.

I am purging my papers and documents, and creating a simplified space around me.

I still have high hopes for the future, and it starts today.

Yesterday was my birthday and I decided that I would make drastic changes. I fell into a procrastinating rut, and I didn’t like it.

My biggest goal now is to FOCUS. In the past I have gotten so caught up with various projects and half done ideas; I wasn’t completing as much as I’d like. I summed up my priorities to ACTING {creativity}, FINANCES {create a wealth of savings and pay off all debts}, RELATIONSHIP {Making Jacqui a priority in my life, as well as other friends} and most of all SIMPLICITY!

I haven’t done anything with TheRetroKidsShow.com in a long while, and I still have 80% done of episode 4- so I want to FINISH IT! Plus, create a framework where I am constantly practicing and channeling my creativity instead of letting it flounder.

I cleaned up my environment yesterday; my desk, my dresser drawers and cables etc. I also finally got rid of a few t-shirts that I always wear that I just needed to let go of.

I did make a mistake though, I spent WAY too long trying to drive to a theatre to get my free birthday movie. I want to balance my time and my efforts and make sure that I’m managing things wisely.

Today begins a new day and a new adventure.

I signed up for the “Merrill Ream Speed Reading” course via ed2go and the lapl.org and I started today.

The first question was to write down what I thought my reading speed and comprehension should be:

initial reading rate guess
130 words per min?

percentage remember : 80%

I made up these numbers and I had absolutely no idea. I took the first test and woo-hoo! I was able to read the story in 3:20 which according to the graph meant I was reading 465 wpm!

Then I took the comprehension test…

50%

Okay.. so that makes my starting point 232 wpm.

My goal is to be able to read through books and scripts quickly. I’ve been listening to my kindle read books to me, but reading not-out-loud is SO much faster.

I look forward to mastering the different techniques, the first one is to not move my eyes around so much while reading.. so I’m working on that.

I used to have a list of 10 minute tasks that I could do when I had the time. The idea was to do each at least once and then check them off, until I completed the list. Well, after much deliberation and processing, I’ve come to three 10 Min task lists:

1) Acting Prep – tasks where I gather information or find monologues I could perform, read plays, writing actions in scripts.. stuff that pertains to my acting career, but isn’t me actually performing anything.
2) Performance Practice – these are tasks where I ACTUALLY perform.
3) Other tasks – because my goals are so varied, I had to just write down a list of different tasks, like search for geocaching locations, or add to the many idea lists I have.

Then the next issue was how to randomize these! I wrote out lots of ideas, including writing each goal on an index card, but that would have been too much work. Then I thought I could print out some stuff attach it to cards– or write out numbers, and assign each task a number… et cetera.

Then I came across random.org and they suggest this for lists:

“1) Format your names in one column in a spreadsheet. Let’s call it column A.
Go to the Sequence Generator.
2) Type in 1 as your smallest value and the number of rows in your spreadsheet as your largest, then hit the submit button.
3) Copy and paste the list produced into a separate column in your spreadsheet. Let’s call it column B. The two columns contain the same number of rows and must match up.
4) Sort the rows in your spreadsheet in ascending order using column B.
Column A now contains your randomized names.”

Brilliant! So I did this with my three sets of tasks. Then I was trying to figure out how to carry this list around and cross off the items..

Then I came upon a better idea.

I wrote a new field for a set of entries Acting Prep = 55. Then I went to random.org for a sequence and added one number to each item in my HanDbase iphone app where I keep such lists. Then I added new fields: “Done” checkbox, “Postponed” checkbox and “why postponed” note area. Then I set up a filter to only show items without a checkbox. Hooray!

So this is my new approach. At the end of the list I can figure out which ones I keep procrastinating on, and come up with ways to break these down to get them actually done, or figure out why I really need to do them.

Here’s to a new productivity idea!