Strategies for Organizing Work

This hasn't been the best week for me. I've been tired, sluggish and my mind has been in a relentless fog. I was so ready to jump right into projects after the Christmas break, but that enthusiasm was quickly interrupted by my trip to NYC. Touring the city from morning till night took up all of my energy, so I got little done in the way of creative work for school, and then I was so drained after coming back, that this week has been a total write-off outside of school hours because I would come home and crash. This is going to bite me in the ass really soon. The staff and older students always stress how important your first week is. You have to get your planning out of the way and jump right into projects, otherwise, everything snowballs and it becomes impossible to catch up. So, how can I break out of this funk and get work done?

To help me get through this weekend, I looked at my project list and then set goals that I wanted to achieve, first for Saturday:

• Blog
• Jan and Feb sketches for typographic calendar
• Plan newsletter progress
• Write down ideas and do research for packaging of nothing
• Plan layouts for illustrated book of poetry
• Continue working on organic pet food logos
• Develop 3 beer logo directions: modern, traditional and illustrative

 Then for today:

• Blog
• Mar and Apr sketches for typographic calendar 
• Plan newsletter progress
• Write down ideas and do research for packaging of nothing
• Set layout 1 up for book of poetry and prep for acrylic
• Continue working on organic pet food logos
• Narrow down possible beer logo designs and finalize 3 concepts

It's a hefty list and a bit overwhelming, even when it's broken down from the original projects. I did a pretty good job of staying on track yesterday, so here's hoping that my lists will keep me motivated again today. I also created a master calender of my own personal checkpoints, which I haven't ever done before. I planned out when I want to get blog posts done, when to have poetry spreads done and when to work on my newsletter. I should probably do this with all my projects, but hey, baby steps :) I always keep track of stuff in my planner, but I find that it just turns into a huge to-do list as opposed to a list of achievable goals, so I'm hoping that this new strategy of using a master calender to keep track of my own deadlines will help keep me going.