I have finally completed #17 on my list, to start a scrapbook/journal documentation of this list – with proof (blog is just a bonus), to my satisfaction. I’ve actually been working on this since I started working on my list. But I told myself that I’d not count it as completed until I had prepped a write-up for half of the goals I’d already completed. Of course, that proved to be a moving target, so here I am, completing this in my last week of work on my list. (Only six days left!) And this will obviously be something that I continue doing, finally culminating in a lovely photo book from Blurb.com.
Counting my write-up for this goal, I will have prepped my text for 41 out of the 82 goals I’ve completed so far. I have that semi-final text in one big word processing document, which is also backed up online. (I learned my lesson after the computer crash in which I lost a bunch of my first attempts at that material.) But I’ve actually been documenting much more consistently than that.
I have used this notebook and journal throughout my work on my 101. (I talked a bit about my journal when I added it to my documentation routine here.) I have a page in the journal for every goal, and I made initial notes for all of them. I would add to those thoughts as I finished a milestone within, or actually completed the goal. The amount of text for each goal directly correlates to how much I thought about it. Some required a lot of thought and introspection, while others didn’t require me to think beyond the moment.
I used the spiral notebook from the beginning in a very different way. This notebook holds very messy, unorganized notes about some of the goals. I would plan out my attack, or rethink my progress, for goals as I worked on them. If my journal attempts to tackle the “why” of each goal, the notebook covers the “how.” And using both of them together turned out to be a very good system for me.
As I’ve been working on prepping for my final book documenting all the work I’ve put in on this list, I have referred back to my blog posts on each goal. They usually cover the specifics about each one. When and how I completed it. I might have gone into a bit of why it made it onto the list in the first place, but I’m pulling those kinds of reflections primarily from my journal. I gave myself the time to really delve into my reactions to each goal. I think that having both resources has made it far easier to create the final text for my photo book.
And, though I didn’t originally plan for it to work this way, I’m finding that I really like pulling together these thoughts at the end of my list. I can add a bit more about the impact some goals have had on my routines or daily life, and the ones that failed to create the new habit I was hoping for. This little bit of distance from most of the completions has made my text more thoughtful and complete.
