The first board was shared today to people subscribed to the Play with Me QAL over at alidatweloqdesigns.blogspot.com. If you are interested, check out the latest blog post and follow the instructions to get your free pattern!
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The WGACA project is my idea of organizing projects to get them from UFO to FO :)
The concept of "What Goes Around Comes Around" reminds me of "completing the circle" and this made me think that if I "connect" projects with each other, they may carry each other to completion.
The idea took its final shape when I heard the latest podcast by Sandy from "Quilting for the rest of Us".
In this episode she mentions that someone choose "Three" as her word of the year for 2015 because three is the maximum number of projects she could work at the same time.
When I heard this, something clicked in my mind :)
I cannot work just on 3 projects at one time, because I need many more projects to keep my creative juice going, to be inspired and to be happy :)
However, 3 seems to be the perfect number for the WGACA idea and this is how it works:
- I lock 3 crafty projects to WGACA, which means that I can work on them only by following WGACA rules.
- I need to make some progress on each of them before going back to one that had already some progress done in the past week.
- the progress will be tracked in the planner below (copy printed and hanged in a prominent place in my house).
- the progress tracked need to be "concrete". Concrete means anything from "I picked the yarn out of the box and put it in my to-go bag", to "I completed 10 blocks", to "I designed the next block". However it needs to be done in a single session.
- I can work on all my other projects without rules, but those three are locked with these rules!
- once I am done with one page of the planner, I can decide to print another page, to lock different projects, to continue with these projects or to wait until next month to start a new planner
This is the planner I developed. I hanged this right across my mirror so every time I get ready I see it and I know what I should work on ;)
If you want to participate, you can download the pdf above.
And this is a little visual reminder about the rules :)
The successful strategy in picking the projects, for me, is to have a project that I really really like to work on (that will be the driving force), one that I am less enthusiastic about but that I still like a lot and one that has been a UFO for to long and that I just want to get it done. In this way the happiness of working on the first project will drag the actual actions needed to make the other two.
So what about you? Do you have strategies to tackle your UFO? Is a simple list enough for you?
Let me know in the comments below!!
I have lots of ongoing projects and which one gets finished has long been of interest to me. I'll be happy to see what you learn. For me, the finished ones are for entry, have a deadline, are really exciting or manageable. You have reminded me that I wanted to figure this out! Thanks for that. LeeAnna
ReplyDeleteMust be something wrong with me as I just work on one thing then when its completed begin the next one, hahahahaha feel like an odd duck not having UFO's hahahahaha
ReplyDeleteThat's a terrific planning tool! I have lists in my head, and tend to be extremely productive with a deadline. I also have several projects going at one time (but not as many as you!!), with some having more priority than others. Eventually they get done.
ReplyDeleteThis is brilliant! I've downloaded it and am going to use it to finish three quilts for my guild's upcoming show in late April. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
ReplyDeleteGreat idea. I've downloaded it and I'm going to give it a try. Let's see if it gets me going. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI found you through Linda's (above) post. I'm going to give this planner a try. I need all the help I can get to stay on track!! :-) Hugs, H in Healdsburg
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