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This is something I have been meaning to do literally for well over a year now but never seem to get around it, probably due to my lack of time-management skills, the (un)healthy dose of A.D.D. I have had for too long now, and the fact I am, in essence, all Aries. I love to start things...but before finishing them- "Poof!" Oh, looky- another project to start!
So many neat things to do. So little time to do even a drop in the ocean's worth of them.
But because I have really committed myself to get control of all manner of things in my life (Gaia just being the symptom of a much larger disorder), including things I am not getting into in here, I wanted to post up a list of the on-going/current projects (what I call "To-Do's" wink , what I wanted to do in order to consider myself caught up, and a general list of things that I hope to do on Gaia. Consider these my Gaia Projects.
I love making lists (a little known Flare Trivia Tidbit there, for anyone that cares) and for years I have kept a Gaia Notebook (yeah, really xD) that at first was nothing more then notes on what to do since I was new (believe it or not I did not always type like this- one of my earlier To-Do's was "Experiment with colors- maybe italics?" wink then slowly became more convoluted and detailed; I went from having a few notes about How-To-Do's and What-To-Do's and RP notes to having a repository of everything ranging from how many PMs I was getting out versus what needed to be answered, what artists were commissioned for what, what guilds I was thinking of joining...
The list goes on and on.
Until one day I realized that my cute little notebook had turned into its own monster, and I had long ago lost mastery of it.
So in order to bring it full-circle and try to gain control of it again, I wanted to do this entry. This entry serves many purposes for me. One, it lets people know what it is I am getting into on here. I get a lot of questions about stuff like this and that is one reason I had toyed with making this entry months ago...but again, I never did because I get so caught up in the details. Two, this entry is like a promise- a contract, if you will- between me and any of you that I associate with enough for it to matter.
It's like a handshake between me and Gaia, with both of us saying we will do our best to hold up our end of the bargain.
Gaia's job is to be here. That's it. I love Gaia. I have not always agreed with the stuff that has been done, the changes that have been made (do not even get me started on the way so many people have said Gaia is leaning towards Myspaciness; oh, it hurts!) or certain other decisions that were made but...that is what a relationship is all about. If you care, you stick around and try to work it out; if you can find yourself still caring when the newest turn has been made you stick around. If you reach a point where neither side is happy- that is when you get out, either for the other side or yourself.
You know what? I am here to stay.
Gaia is the mirror I step into to get away from the world; we all have one, sometimes more then one, and I am guilty of loving this site as much as I do because it combines my love of writing and allows me to find others that love it, too. Something that years before I never really considered, because I never had really crossed paths with anyone that liked to write like I do.
Because I do not like to write. Oh, no. I do not like it at all.
I love it.
Because I love it so much and Gaia allows me to write- well, I think you can connect the dots yourself.
So that is where this entry comes in. I do not get to write all that much; to be candid there's never been a point in my life that I have gotten to write as much as I want but there's been times I have had a hell of a lot more time for it then I have now. In trying to juggle the things I have been trying to juggle I have committed the most common and most damaging mistake that all people who think they can save the world commit: I cut out the personal things that made me feel good, that meant so much to me; I tried so hard to be the Mother Teresa that it seems like so many need because I keep telling myself a good person would not need to do things for herself, but that all her needs would be fulfilled by putting everyone and their needs first.
...Needless to say, I found out it does not work that way.
It does not work that way because in order to be able to give people good, you have to first have it.
I am working on getting back to good. The first step to that is really putting my foot down on what I know I need to put it down about and one of those things is I have to squish this damn habit I have developed of being constantly behind on things.
Ergo, this is my first step of taking care of things on Gaia.
If you think I have let Gaia fall behind...Oh, boy. You should see the entire picture, because Gaia is just a part of the jigsaw. I have done very well on Gaia if you compare this to other aspects of my life. xD
Which is not to sound like a complaint; no. I actually feel pretty good about things. I have been allowing myself to be outwardly positive here lately (not something I usually let people catch me doing) and have been feeling a bit more...better about things simply because I refuse to stay down for long. I believe we all have a choice about what paths we take, the type of person we are, how we live our lives.
I refuse to be sitting down and crying when I could be up and doing something to make someone happy (even if it is just me- what a greedy b***h, right?!) and I refuse to just quit. I am not a quitter. I am stubborn, set in my ways, and refuse to back down; I think that is to my credit.
I demand excellence from myself; excellence does not mean giving up. It means holding on tightest when things get the roughest, if not for yourself then for those around you. I've made quiet a large amount of changes lately- both inwardly and out- and I intend to keep changing until I get it right. Change is not this one's enemy.
Fear is.
So with all that in mind I propose to get my butt in gear, both on Gaia and off of it. There's a lot to do, so many things to get done and get to work on- what fun it is, if I allow myself to be open about it.
I love a fine challenge and anyone who knows me well enough can probably agree that I am the biggest challenge there is.
"I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing."
~Agatha Christie
I also have to give my nods to Cee in regards to this entry; I have been thinking and thinking of doing this and then when I saw her profile a few weeks back I had a " eek " moment because it was like she read my mind. xD I saw what she had done and it really inspired me to do one of my own for Gaia stuffs.
Thank you, Cee-dahlink. ^.^ heart
An updated version will be made available on the first of next month, that way I know I am held accountable for what I do not get done. xD Posting this is my way of saying I know I need to get to work and also so I have a barometer of what I am doing/not doing, getting done/not getting done. It's bare-boned to make it easier on my poor OCD brain.
And if you think this is complicated you should see my actual To-Do Notebook, because I have separate books and lists for everything. xD
I like to pretend I am organized. :3
Oh, and thanks to certain others, too, for giving me swift kicks in the butt when I needed them, whether they realized they did or not.
You know who you are. o3o
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The following list is broken down into categories, projects, and follow-up notes taken from my Gaia Notebook and random other places, notes, and lists. I am lifting this mostly from my last To-Do so this is only the barest bones. I intend to correct this and tweak it as I go. For I have a plan, you see.
Follow-Up/On-Going To-Do's:
~These are the projects that are on-going and pretty much constantly need to be kept on top of.
* Keep on top of PMs (This should be a given but twenty minutes a day does not give me enough time to write up twenty or so PMs; I really need to crack down and work on these as I get them instead of waiting until I have enough to break my inbox and then scramble to get them done. Being on more would help this, too, but you gotta play with the hand you are dealt.)
* Keep on top of profile comments (A ton of it is just me being a goober but I really like answering people back; plus some of it actually does require answering back.)
* Guilds (In particular Red Eclipse; this also gets listed down in Advanced projects because Red is a project complete and on its own.)
* Get and keep inventory in order (Packratting again- have to stop that.)
* Get thread subs in order (Use this as a way to keep track of art threads I am current or active in; I have a separate way I keep track of artists or shops I hope to get commissions from.)
* Get back into touch with all the artists that I have been trying to talk to for weeks and have left hanging (I have about ten shots I have commissioned and have not had the chance to touch base with the artists; they say they do not mind but it drives me nuts to not answer their PMs faster. @.@)
Advanced Projects:
~These are projects that would require at least a complete day all to themselves; I can not just sit down and do these in a day because they all require more time to do then I am currently capable of giving. Still, I want to do them and have decided I will focus on one to-do each month or every two weeks, depending, and hopefully they will go by faster. These are some of the background stuff I work on while I am doing PMs or other stuff on here. This is the stuff that is a real you-know-what to get a handle on.
* Profile completely coded/live (This thing was pushed back indefinitely months back- the original plan was to have it up on my birthday but somehow I got distracted and have not worked on it since February. I am the worst for stuff like that. >.< wink
* Completely back-up (from past to current):
- Red
- Memento Mori
- A host of RPs that were carried out in Barton Town and random guilds, all of which I still have the links to- including the very first Barton RP I ever RPed in (I can almost guarantee no one but me can remember that RP. Cookies and kudos to anyone who can.)
- All profile and journal comments
* Memento Mori overhauled (Probably will be done after I back it all up- from entries to the comments I want to keep; once backed-up I can overhaul it with a new banner and such. Plus update all the entries I reserved for my own reasons.)
* Clean out Friend's List (I already did this a few months back but it needs to be done again; currently I have sixty-five people on my list and that was after taking off over one hundred names. I hated doing it because it was a reminder of how out-of-touch I have become, but it was also sad to be reminded of how much time has went by. I want to narrow it down even more because I hung onto some people simply because of the sentimental value; many of these accounts have not been logged on since my join year and a few had posts saying they had made new accounts...so really, it is time to clean it out again.)
* Get certain guilds in order (Finish certain projects I have going in certain guilds. There is Red and then there are the rest of my guilds, which I differentiate because Red is its own entity. xD)
* Go through all the links to stuff I want to read on Gaia (I have a Notepad full of SF threads and stuff that I wanted to read over that I have been collecting for months now. It's driving me bonkers to just have it sitting there but I really want to go and read all that stuff. My goal is to start chipping the list down this week, if at all possible.)
* Get Red in order (There's pages of notes for this one that I will not even begin to type out. There's so much to do in Red alone that I consider that guild all by its little self a three to four day project- and that is if I can just sit and work on Red, nothing else. My past few days off have been devoted to PMs and such but Red will require a chunk of time. Red takes up 80% of my Gaia-time when handled correctly and I have not handled that guild correctly in years, I am ashamed to admit.)
Monthly Project:
* July's project/resolution is to work away at this list and get as caught up as possible before August first, at which point I will make another entry in here with an updated version of this list. I hope to knock off more then one of these things and the goal is to fall no more then a week behind when it comes to PMs and comments.
Much-Further-On-Down-The-Road Projects:
~Not gonna happen until everything above is caught up and running smoothly. Probably not possible until I get tons more time to do things other then work and such, but I still hope to do this stuff within the year.
* My very own OC art request/contest thread (This is one thing I have been dying to do for years but I can not even maintain my own profile right now, let alone such a massive and detailed project.)
* My very own Candle art request/contest thread (Same as above but I want art of Candle instead of OCs. Again, something I have been wanting to do for a long while now.)
* Create a random RP guild (This last one will take a long, long time to get done because right now I can not handle what I have, but this is something I have talked about for years and I love the idea of doing it. It would be a great way to find new talent and explore some of the plots that I myself have wanted to try but just never have the time/chance to see through.)
* ...I think I heard something about Gaia having a game now? zOMG! or something like that?
Peripherals:
* Update my own personal filing/archiving. Between all my online/offline files and my lists, notes, and the notebook itself the entire system I have been following for years is outdated and ancient. It really is a dinosaur that has hit a critical mass limit- it is just too much now, too inflexible. It basically crushed itself with its own weight, which is really my fault. Instead of changing it as time went by and stream-lining it when I saw opportunities to do so I kept trying to make it work despite the fact it obviously was not. It is like trying to run Gaia on Windows 98. Good luck with that.
I want to comb through and delete or toss out what just is not needed or useful anymore and basically retire/reconstruct my entire filing system. This will take a little time in doing because the transition needs to be smooth and be really considered so that it can be done without my getting half-way through it and panicking because I forgot some crucial detail that basically breaks the entire project. Besides, if I were to be honest here I would admit that there is a lot of memories waiting for me as I do this. I am a packrat at heart and have kept things the way they are due to sentimental value; like my archived art specs. I have some from my very first orders for art on here and boy, does that not take one back.
Throughout all of this I am trying to keep the KISS motto in my head- I want to streamline the process, simplify it so it is useful again, not this massive, outdated monster that I no longer even recognize. Diving into all this use to be fun and neat and easy...now it is terrifying, a let-down, and sometimes just makes me tired to think of it all. To me, that means it is being done wrong and I recognized months back I needed to change it. Well, I have begun baby-stepping the progress back on the first of this month by doing a massive back-up and wipe; now it is all about fine-tuning it all, getting the details right and keeping all my information straight.
God, I am all-over-the-place-crazy. @.@
* Getting my emails caught up and current.
Not at all like doing my PMs. Not half as fun and not nearly as rewarding, it is messy and arduous work that involves cleaning out tons of junk, going through and making sure I entered all the junk addresses as spam...and somewhere along the lines I find out that the very emails I wanted to get- like the RP posts I know where emailed to me- are gone. I know of at least four people on here who email me posts; a few I found and was able to back-up to work on when I had the chance but I think I have lost some. I use my email a lot, actually, but I have not sat down and really checked it (or gotten it back in order) for nearly half a year and it shows. I really need to give my email some TLC and because I use it as often as I do in conjunction to Gaia (like the artist who could not get onto Gaia and emailed me the picture I commissioned years back) I consider it something that needs to be worked on; something that needs to be caught up on and dealt with.
I should really just get a new email but it was the first email account I got and I am really attached to it for that reason. I have/had a Gmail account but it just turned into another thing I do not have the time to keep track of and give attention to, so I basically just have let it sit. I am not even sure if it is still any good. xD
* Update/streamline/simplify my damned Notebook! When it takes over an hour just to get through the arcane little notes you have made in order to figure out what you need to do something is very wrong. I need to break that thing down into manageable chunks, which is basically what I have done here; I like having a paper list of what I am doing, though. Since sometimes I work on Gaia stuff without signing on I like having the list.
Plus I love to be able to mark off what I have done with my colors. xD
~This entry was originally posted Wednesday July 01, 2009 @ 10:47 PM but was edited Friday July 3, 2009 @ 8:19 PM. </div>
 RadiantFlare · Thu Jul 02, 2009 @ 03:47am · 2 Comments |
