Last month was pretty hellish: bad weather, illness, mechanical/technological breakdowns, etc. But I’m feeling like I’ve come out on the other end of that now (knock on wood). In a fit of frustration last week I sat down and had a good look at all that I have on my plate. I realized that I’ve been working a regular 8-hour day plus teaching in the evenings. No wonder I’ve been getting ill! I still have lots of work that needs doing, but I have decided that it is just not worth working more than 8 hours a day if it’s going to wear me out that much. I’ve re-arranged my schedule so that if I do teach 1.5 hours in the evening, I stop working 1.5 hours sooner that afternoon. I just hope I can stick to that without feeling pressured, overwhelmed, or guilty.

One thing that I did last week was put my creative work first. It feels so good to practice, write, devise, and have that be the main focus. Admin comes second. And I have a couple leads on some people that may be willing to do some admin work for me. Time to outsource…

report on goals
I have a post-it on my wall from February 23 (when the hell began) with 3 goals:
1. Spend 1-2 hours per day on creative work
2. Burn susurrations to DVD
3. susurrations grant report

These items have been taken care of. My grant report is off, and I have a susurrations DVD I can just make copies of and send off to various galleries, festivals, competitions, etc. I am doing the creative work, and making it a habit.

I am now working on 3 collaborative projects as well as some solo work. So my goals are going to be centred on those:

Goals of the Week: 30 March-6 April, 2009
1. Find movement artists & space for HR project
2. Write/edit 3 more poems for Mantra project (with James Wyper)
3. Daily voice/piano practice towards April salon in Regina

Long-Term Goals
– to disseminate susurrations
– to find an administrative assistant
– to organize/plan for applications I want to complete
– to figure out my creative focuses (work through The Creative Habit!)

Ongoing Projects
– HR web project
– susurrations
– splanchnologies
– anatomy manuscript
– Mantra poems for paintings
– “conversations” dance/movement/voice improv piece with Jaime Williams
– music for freeflowdance
– admin (find an assistant!)

Seems reasonable for now – off to do!