day 30: the logbook

Nothing to do with the 30 day challenge. Just some puppets I made when I was 12.

30 Day Challenge Complete!

My self-appointed challenge to blog everyday for 30 days is done. It flew by! It ended up not being too tough to sit and spend a few minutes posting some photos and links and a bit of rambling text. I maybe had to reach a bit for content, but the habit wasn't hard to set. So what did I learn from this?

1. I don't really have much to say. :) I think it didn't help that nearly everything I was spending my time doing I couldn't post. Plus, I leave all my deep thinking to the TED speakers.

2. Although I did not end up doing any personal projects over the last 30 days, having to think about what to post every day was a helpful break from deadline deadline deadline. Gathering inspiration or putting together a tutorial helped me keep invigorated for the projects I was working on.

3. I learned how to make a screen recording. That was cool.

4. Keeping a logbook is a good idea. One of the suggestions in the Steal Like an Artist book is to keep a logbook and I decided to do this as an offline companion to the daily blog post. Before trying the logbook, I just had a simple calendar to keep track of deadline. But after keeping the logbook for 30 days, I definitely think I've done better with my time management and general awareness of what I do every day.

This was the first logbook. I picked up a day planner from Target and wrote bullet points about the day. The bottom section I used to keep track of exercise and what I ate. I used the top of the page to write down the one best thing about each day.

It became clear pretty quickly that I was writing the same sorts of things every day, and since I love a good checkbox, I decided to make a new logbook that was totally personalized. (Hooray for Kinkos!)

This is what I came up with. I've got sections to keep track of diet, sleep, exercise, how much time spent on project, a place to prioritize my daily To Do list. I kept the idea of writing the Best Thing for each day, plus added a spot to write down what I could have done to improve. The column that has been the biggest eye opener is writing down every penny I spend each day. D'oh.

I wasn't perfect, and didn't fill in every slot every day, but the overall concept has been really informative. It will be interesting to see if there are any trends to analyze once I've done this for a lengthy amount of time. 

5. Ultimately I'd say the 30 day blog post was a success. Nothing massive happened or changed because of it, but it's been good to step outside my little box and share some of what I know and what I enjoy. It probably won't be every day, but I'm planning to keep posting fairly regularly.

Thanks all who have been following me for the past 30 days!

day 27: leverage & pixar

What an interesting book you have there Mr. Jimmy Fallon.

Here's another installment of things I've been listening to. I go through phases, most of the time it's music, but sometimes I'll get on a talk show kick and listen to Jon Stewart or Letterman or Conan or Jimmy Fallon while working. I can't generally listen to plot-driven shows. I will just stop working and watch. But talk shows are great.

Flavia de Luce. Great illustration by Brigette Barrager.

Sometimes I will listen to audio books or podcasts. All time best are the Ricky Gervais podcasts. Right now I've been listening to The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, the first of the Flavia de Luce books. Set in England in a big old estate in the 1950s, 11-year old Flavia loves chemistry, her passion is poisons. And of course there's a murder and she has to investigate. It's a fun book. I once saw it described as Lemony Snicket meets Nancy Drew, which is pretty accurate. I'm about halfway through, but taking a break for:

Leverage! Okay, so I geeky love this show. If you've not seen it, it's a higher-tech classier version of the A-Team. Former bad guys help the little guy by taking down The Man. I just got the Season 4 DVD yesterday, so I'll be listening to the audio commentaries this weekend. Audio Commentaries in general are hit and miss, but the Leverage commentaries have been universally interesting and entertaining. John Rogers, the head writer, show runner, co-creator, guy in charge, is a great story teller, offers interesting insight into their process and keeps the pace going. Looking forward to getting a lot of work done.



And finally a couple Pixar-related things I listened to this week. The first was a Google interview with Brave's director Mark Andrews. It's always interesting to hear how these guys got to where they are, plus what they were thinking when they were making the movie.




Here's Andrew Stanton's Ted talk about story. And finally since I'm at the Ted site, if you haven't listened to Elizabeth Gilbert's talk about the creative genius, please do. Here, I'll embed it for your convenience!

day 12: cabin pressure

Super exciting party girl me is partying it up this Friday night. Yep, I'm sittin' at my computer working on some freelance. Shake it up woot woot! Actually, I have a silly grin on my face while working because I am listening to some John Finnemore. I can't always listen to audiobooks or tv shows while I am working. It depends on what I'm doing. If it's just straight-up painting without too much brainwork, I like to mix it up and listen to something besides music.

So earlier this year I maybe got a little obsessed with the whole BBC Sherlock show. Which introduced me to a BBC radio show called Cabin Pressure. It's an old-school style radio sitcom about a small crew of a charter jet airline. Or rather as they only have one plane, it's more of an air-dot.

It's written by John Finnemore, who also plays the resident idiot Arthur (see photo above) and it is HI-larious. Basically go to YouTube and type in his name, and listen to anything that comes up. (link to YouTube channel that has all the Cabin Pressure episodes) His Souvenir Programme is also quite entertaining.

Alrighty! Back to Qikiqtarjuaq and painting! Happy weekend to you!