I’m Free(er)!
I thought I was going around the bend with everything that I was supposed to be doing. Saying ‘YES’ all the time is not a terribly good habit to get into and makes for a very full plate! I had to take control. First thing I did was blog about it. You can read that post here if you like. I got some really nice comments back on that post which I was pleasantly surprised about. Thank you to Sue Waters, Kate Olson, Anne Mirtschin and Sue Wyatt for your support! It was just the little bit of encouragement that I needed. I’ve been a bit out of the blogging loop lately (when my plate gets too full and I get a bit stressed about it I tend to do nothing and so the pile just grows) but it is so nice to be back in the groove and remember the nice feeling of having someone take the time to comment on what you’ve written.
Next thing I did, after reading the comments left and thinking about things for the next day or so, I got a bit more of a grip on reality and have just now sent 2 emails. One to say I am no longer able to write those units for the Dept that I was avoiding, and another to a family I tutored for last year to regretfully inform them that I’m not available for tutoring this year. I’ve also decided that my Webcast Academy assignments are just going to have to wait a little bit longer too. I still have every intention to complete that, it might just take a little longer than expected.
So, phew, I’m a bit more free than I was a day or two ago. Thankfully! I feel like now I can focus much more attention on what I am really inerested in (such as a project to lay the ‘ePlanks’ of Web 2.0 at my school, general planning, and much more testing of and using more Web 2.0 tools) - so look out bloggosphere… never fear, Jess is here! (Oh, sorry, that was really bad :-))
Image is Suzann & Tim by Puja
Going Around the Bend
I don’t want to go on too much about being overwhelmed, busy, overloaded and tired, but I have to every now and again to get a grip on reality and to talk myself into culling the list of ‘to dos’ and making if more realistic.
It’s so important to really think about which projects / tasks are the ones that I am truly interested in and passionate about and focus on those. At the moment I’m supposed to be writing some units of work for the Dept of Ed, but I just cannot get motivated because writing units like that is not something I am really interested in. I don’t really want to continue working on them (haven’t got that far yet) , yet am reluctant to pull out because of how it will look for me.
I have spent so little time lately writing blog posts and maintaining the fantastic networks I have started to establish because of the crazy start to the year. I’m planning more than just one day ahead at a time, which is better than a week or so ago, but not much more than a day! I want to get so much more focussed and organised and when my planning gets more under control, I want to spend time blogging and networking, not writing units that I can’t put too much ICT into because I can’t assume too much of the people who will be using them.
One of things I wanted to do this year was start living a slower life and say no to things. Have to start somewhere…
