Deliverable

• Pilates video on Tuesday & Thursday
• Upper Body Workout – 20 minutes (varied exercises alternate dumbells with pushups… see how my shoulders feel…).

Acting (Film/Stage/Voice-over) & Filmmaking – Creative

• Review and rehearse Ernest lines until they are second nature
• Record the lines to R. Purkapile onto the computer
• Outline the first word of each line of R. Purkapile as a guide for memorization
• Paraphrase R. Purkapile
• Examine R. Purkapile line by line for actions. Write them in.
• Review and rehearse R. Purkapile lines until they are second nature. Prepare for performance in class on Friday.

Acting – Business

• Update my acting resume complete
• Create an “Acting Pack” to keep in my bag at all times that contains: Up-to-date Resume, 5 of each Headshot, (what else? Performances I want to see? Acting contacts?)
• Create a resume & headshot file in my filing cabinet that has 20 of each headshot ready to go, (complete) and 40 resumes printed on decent paper
• Purchase a decent folder at Staples to serve as my “Acting Pack”
• Change the placement of my backup headshots so that they’re more accesible when I need them complete
• Carry this “Acting Pack” with me every day this week.
• Visit Backstage.com at least once this week. Check the listings. Save all potential’s as .pdf.
• Visit the U. Office w/updated resume

Music – Creative

Not sure what I’ll put here, but I’m including it as a possible category. This is where I’ll take the baby steps of developing my songwriting, writing my book, developing my skills on various instruments, etc.

Music – Business

This would be a section that includes gig development. Songwriting development (getting my songs out there, developing contacts/collaborations, etc.). Again, not sure what I’ll be putting it here, but it’s coming together in my mind as a way to organize the pieces of my life.

Organize

• Eliminate “Sort/File/or Discard” folder on desktop (7.2 MB)
• Assess the contents of my existing A-Z filing system on my main HD. (Are these things filed in a way that I will be able to maintain and remember?) Discard any files that are no longer valid. Refile as needed.

Habits

• Implement my evening and morning routines Monday-Thursday.
• Sleep in my bed Monday-Sunday. (No sleeping on the couch…).

These things I send out into the Universe:

• I have a photo-page for my main website that is easy to update, scaleable, exportable (if necessary) as new and better archiving/display systems come along. I can store comment data on my photos in such a way that this information is easily ported to future systems.
• I have a consistent sleep schedule that is healthy and that works for me.
• I cook healthy meals for myself quickly and efficiently.
• I track my finances efficiently and effectively. This information gives me a greater grasp of my current financial situation, and allows me to greatly inprove my financial situation.
• I maintain successful morning and evening routines that are heatlhy and effective for me.

The recap:

• I did my pilates on Tuesday and Friday this week. (Thursday got really busy with prepping for my scene on Friday.) I need to find a way to vary my pilates workouts, but still keep in short and efficient.
• I altered my upper body workout on Monday and Wednesday as follows: 15 lb dumbell presses-25/20/15 reps – 15 lb dumbell flys 3 reps of ten. My shoulders have been feeling a bit tweeked with all the emphasis on Presses (push-ups and now the dumbells), so on Friday I did some shoulder rolls with the 15 lb dumbells. (I’m not sure of the exact number of sets I did… something like 2 sets (10 forward, ten backward rolls). I think that I may include this into what has become my 20 minute upper body routine next week. I need to balance my upper body workout more so that I work the entire shoulder as well as the pecs. We’ll see how this develops.

Acting
I had some success with my acting goals this past week:

• Record lines of Charles II poem onto computer complete
• Outline the first word of each line of the poem as a guide for memorization complete
• Say the Charles II poem out loud line by line until it is memorized complete (This was in preparation for my Baroque Salon performance on Wednesday night, which went very well. Thanks to all who attended! ; )
• Record the lines of Ernest onto computer complete
• Say the lines to Ernest out loud line by line until it is memorized complete
• Outline the first word of each line of Ernest as a guide for memorization. I didn’t actually do this “outlining”, but I had the piece memorized well enough for my scene on Friday. I think I’ll go back and do this so that I really nail the scene when I do it in our last class.
• Buy a can of silver spray paint. Sand & Paint an Altoids box for my prop. complete

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The following items I didn’t complete. My focus was on preparing the Charles II poem and Ernest for performances on Wednesday and Friday.

• Record the lines to R. Purkapile onto the computer
• Outline the first word of each line of R. Purkapile as a guide for memorization
• Paraphrase R. Purkapile
• Examine R. Purkapile line by line for actions. Write them in.
• Update my acting resume

Finances
I didn’t visit the U. office this past week. It’s one of those important but not urgent (yet) items. The plan is to be there tomorrow morning first thing when they open to avoid lines and such.

Organize

• Eliminate Desktops/Downloads to be sorted 15 minutes at a time complete! Though technically I finished this item off today (Monday) I’m happy to report that my Lacie drive looks a hell of alot better than it used to. The contents of the “Desktops to be sorted” folder have been mostly trashed. (I refiled the most valuable into my A-Z filing system on my primary drive.) I moved about 10 gigs of project files to my archive HD (I will eventually archive them on DVD when I purchase a DVD burner). The “Downloads to be sorted” folder has been whittled down to 770 MB of files that I may install at some point. I need to at some point sort thru my Samples folder, as well as go thru some miscellaneous photos that I have on there, but all in all it feels pretty much clutter free.
• Purchase 8 hooks for cables in studio. Hang & Install hooks. complete! I purchased the hooks yesterday, and finished installing them this afternoon. I can now find cables I might need quickly and easily. (Ended up having two hooks to spare that I may install at some point…).

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Everything that follows I’m going to reformat into a “sending it out into the universe” section on my weekly deliverables posts. Kind of my “plea for help from the universe” for these projects…

• Create photo-page for main website
• Find a way to better track my finances (Quicken?)
• Cook healthy meals for myself quickly and efficiently.
• Develop and maintain a consistent sleep schedule that works for me.
• Develop and maintain successful morning and evening routines.

It occured to me the other day that one of my “hot spots” is my sink.

Flylady.net defines a hot spot as:

(Any area that) when left unattended will gradually take over. My favorite analogy is of a hot spot in a forest fire, if left alone, it will eventually get out of hand and burn up the whole forest. This is what happens in our homes. If left unattended, the hot spot will grow and take over the whole room as well as making the house look awful. When you walk into a room, this is the first thing you see.

If I don’t wash my dishes right after using them (even if it’s just a single plate or glass…) they tend to pile up. There have been times that I’ve let the “hot spots” become full on raging infernos. (I’ve created new life forms in my sink.) It’s not a pretty sight. I’ve begun the new habit of washing my dishes after every meal, and not going to bed with dishes in the sink. It feels a hell of a lot better getting up in the morning to a clean sink, let me tell you. I really want/need to make this habit stick.

My other hotspots:

• The top keyboard in my studio
• The sideboard in my living room (though not as much anymore…)
• The desk in my back living room (ditto…)
• The small table in my front living room (ditto…)

It’s been helpful to take five minutes or so and go on a “hot spot fire drill”.

It’s not complete, but I want to put this out there into the universe…

• Pilates video on Tuesday & Thursday
• Dumb-Bells Monday/Wednesday/Friday-same reps as push-ups (25/20/15/10/10/5/5).

Acting

• Update my acting resume
• Record lines of Charles II poem onto computer complete
• Outline the first word of each line of the poem as a guide for memorization complete
• Say the Charles II poem out loud line by line until it is memorized
• Record the lines of Ernest onto computer complete
• Outline the first word of each line of Ernest as a guide for memorization
• Say the lines to Ernest out loud line by line until it is memorized
• Record the lines to R. Purkapile onto the computer
• Outline the first word of each line of R. Purkapile as a guide for memorization
• Paraphrase R. Purkapile
• Examine R. Purkapile line by line for actions. Write them in.
• Buy a can of silver spray paint. Sand & Paint an Altoids box for my prop.

Finances

• Visit the U. Office w/updated resume

Organize

• Eliminate Desktops/Downloads to be sorted 15 minutes at a time
• Purchase 8 hooks for cables in studio. Hang & Install hooks

Someday / Maybe (from previous weeks…):

• Create photo-page for main website

Things I need to figure out how to do better:

• Find a way to better track my finances (Quicken?)
• Cook healthy meals for myself quickly and efficiently.
• Develop and maintain a consistent sleep schedule that works for me.
• Develop and maintain successful morning and evening routines.

Just wanted to touch base with how the days been so far so I’d have a record of it later.

Progress over past weeks:

• I washed Saturday’s dishes this evening instead of letting them pile up all week in the sink.
• I took two bags of trash and put them in the cans out back immediately instead of letting them pile up in the kitchen, or in front of the door. A little baby step “now habit” forming here. Went and purchased new kitchen trash bags, as I was out.
• My apartment is pretty much not trashed, and it didn’t take hours of cleaning to make it this way. With the exception of a couple of “hot spots”, the place is pretty presentable. I can focus on getting some lines memorized in the hour or so I have before my duet partner shows up to rehearse instead of worrying about having to clean the place up so I won’t be embarassed.
• I spent an hour and forty five minutes today clearing the detritus from my Downloads/Desktops to be sorted folders and made a really good dent in them. It’s really been pissing me off that I’ve not had those cleared by now and I put that energy into making them dissappear. There is something about the “clear cut” aspect of this goal that makes it much easier for me to dig into, as opposed to the rest of my projects. I think that this probably means I need to get really specific and “nitty gritty” clear about the rest of the goals in my life, so that there’s no blurriness. Maybe that will make those other areas that I’ve been putting off easier to go after.

It really may seem like these are baby steps, or things that most people do easily. I just need to remember I’m on my own journey here, and to not judge my progress against the progress of others.

Physical
Successful with Pilates & Push-ups this week. Missed Pilates on Thursday but made it up on Friday (Pilates in morning, push-ups when I came back from teaching). I’m considering switching my push-up routine to a dumb-bell routine for this week to add variety. Make it some type of timed thing. (My push-up routine takes about 20 minutes).

Desktops/Downloads to be sorted
I’m chipping away at this little by little. Mostly the issue at this point is one of “Where do I file this stuff?” It mirrors a problem I tend to have with things in the physical world. My “hotspots” (to use Flylady jargon) in the physical world tend to be things that I have no clear idea of where to file. They are the “grey areas”. Little by little I will eliminate this freakin’ pile of “virtual junk”.

Resume & Meeting
I did neither of these this week. I let fear and procrastination get to me on these two. (Which I know sounds pretty harsh.) I just have to constantly remember to take baby steps and not berate myself when I’m not successful. Be grateful and concious of the small progress.

Time spent on various things

• Trombone – Total: 70 minutes (3 consecutive nights of practice – Tues.10/Wed.30/Thurs.30) – chops felt sharper at gig on Saturday
• Evening routine takes 19 minutes

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Thoughts on the week

• I like the wiki for tracking/capturing things day to day. Simple & effecting way to capture notes on the fly during the week. It’s better than the blog for this because it’s a very quick two’ish step process.
• I think that the morning and evening routines are going to be valuable tools. I implemented them mostly successfully a couple of nights/mornings this past week. I just have to remember to make myself go to bed immediately after finishing my evening routine. It’s just old habits that will take some time to get out of. I think it was helpful to clarify each and write down specific routines, though.
• Dishes: I worked with the concept of washing my dishes from dinner while my food cooled this past week, which worked pretty well. We’ll see how that comes along.
• Salon: My duet went pretty well on Wedneday night. I’m looking forward to the performance this week.
• Sunday nights: I’ve begun to notice of late that my mood tends to take a sharp dip when it comes to Sundays. Sunday evenings especially. This has been a consistent pattern for a while now I think. It’s just that I’ve only now been conscious enough of late to really notate it. I’m not sure exactly what this is about or how accurate this statement really is (meaning, is there something about Sunday’s in particular?), but it’s definitely worth noting.

A new category: Meals I know how to cook, and the time it takes to cook them.

Dinty Moore / Peas / Farfalle – 30 minutes from boiling water to clean dishes / Washed dishes while the food was cooling / (really hustling)

It’s really odd how things work. When I came home from class (I think it was on Monday) and was going thru my bag I discovered a flyer for an upcoming Monologue Workshop that had inadvertantly gotten mixed in with my papers. That in itself is serendipitous… I’ve been trying to decide what if any acting classes to take this summer. Monologues are something we didn’t really focus on in my two years at Esper, and here I find a monologue class in my bag. ( The class is given by one of the directors at the Atlantic Theater Company. I’ve seen a couple of shows there, and really enjoyed the work.)

As I was poking around the monologue site, I came across a section that spoke very highly of a website/system called FlyLady. It’s a kind of self help / “Getting Things Done” site whose primary audience seems to be mainly working & stay-at-home mom’s, but there is quite a bit of useful information and a very supportive vibe. One of the things that I’ve taken and have begun implementing is the concept of Morning & Evening Routines. I’m not feeling very “let’s talk about why this works” at the moment so for now I’ll just layout the Routines I came up with for myself, based on their model.

Evening Routine:

• Rinse with Plax
• Brush teeth and/or floss and/or water-pik and/or gum stimulator
• Rinse with Listerine
• Clean bathroom sink
• Lay out clothes for next day
• Lay out / prep any materials you might need for the next day (books for class / materials for meetings / etc.).
• Write any fixed appointments for next day on a 3×5 card (This is strictly “places I have to be at a certain time” type events. I want to stay away from larger project goals or things like that, as those tend to get my mind racing and keep me from going to sleep if I start thinking about them right before bed. The 3×5 card is my tweak… I keep it in my Hipster PDA.)
• Write/plan lunch & dinner for the next day on same 3×5 card

Morning Routine:

• Get up with alarm. “Good morning God! (As opposed to “Good God… morning!”)
• Turn all every light in the house (I read somewhere that bright light in the morning helps to reset your body clock. It’s also helpful on those winter days when you might be up before the sun…).
• Make bed
• Drink a glass of water
• Exercise (My routines take anywhere from 12-20 minutes or so…).
• Eat breakfast (sample: bananna/piece of fruit and a bowl of Cheerios)
• Do breakfast dishes
• Scrub sink
• Shower (shave if necessary), brush teeth
• Hang up towel to dry
• Dress all the way to your shoes

I’ve been trying this out this week, and so far it’s been good. There is something calming about winding down with a fixed set of actions. It also feels as though you’re really setting yourself up for a successful next day. I overslept this morning (late night due to a rehearsal), but felt much less frantic then I might normally have been because I had everything ready to go. The moral here is to make yourself go to bed right after finishing your routine. I tacked another hour online with email / surfing… that hour might have been the difference in me getting to my lesson on time. One of these days I’ll learn!

Anyway, food for thought. We’ll see how this works out.

I need to just post this thing and get it over with. I’ve felt alot of resistance because I feel like I don’t really have anything that I want to put on here yet, other than the physical goals that I’ve been meeting each week. Just going to put it up and add to it as I go if necessary. Been trying to figure out a way to incorporate some of my latest reading into my success strategy… still working on that. Also planning what I hope will be some interesting posts on a couple of other subjects. Stay tuned!

Choices for this week:

• I choose to do my Pilates video on Tuesday and Thursday of this week.
• I choose to do push-ups on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of this week, using the following reps: 25/20/15/10/10/5/5.
• I choose to update my acting resume
• I choose to visit the U. Office w/updated resume

Rollovers:

• I choose to completely eliminated the “Desktops to be sorted” folder from my firewire drive, and file / sort the contents of the remaining labeled folders.
• I choose to completely eliminate the contents of the “Downloads to be sorted” folder on my firewire drive. Any downloads I deem valuable I will burn to disk and file.

Someday / Maybe (from previous weeks…):

• Create photo-page for main website

Things I need to figure out how to do better:

• Find a way to better track my finances (Quicken?)
• Cook healthy meals for myself quickly and efficiently.
• Develop and maintain a consistent sleep schedule that works for me.
• Develop and maintain successful morning and evening routines.

Choices for this past week:
Physical: Successfully completed my push-ups & pilates goals. Missed doing my pilates on Thurday but made it up on Friday.
Proposal: Submitted my proposal Tuesday morning as planned.
Folders: I’ve gotten the “Desktops to be sorted” folder down to 17 files, most of which can probably be tossed (there’s an audio folder and a pictures folder in there that I need to look at more closely…). Still need to look at the downloads to be sorted folder.
Duet: I input the Mopsa duet in time for class on Wednesday and input the whole piano part in time for my session w/Jim on Sunday. After rehearsing with my acting partner, it turns out that the recorded piano part’s not going to work out. One could look at this as 7 or so hours wasted, but I’m choosing to look at it as part of the process. Just don’t have the heart to tell J. that I wasted his time! Alas!
Bio: Memorized and performed my one minute bio successfully.
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note: Reading back I see that I had a note about “a great deal of anxiety” when I submitted my goals for the week, but it seems that I’ve managed to complete each task succesfully. There’s probably a good lesson about fears and their relevance in that. It’s probably also significant that I’ve begun to think of these things I do as “choices” rather than “have to’s”.
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I’ve begun tracking my time spent on my various projects (as well as my planned leisure time). This is my take on a concept (the “unschedule”) gleaned from “The Now Habit. More in depth commentary later, perhaps. To that end…
hours:
Trombone: 30 minutes on Wed./Thurs./Friday – 90 minutes total
Bio: 30 minutes
Duet (input into computer): 6 hours 15 minutes
Day off: Saturday w/M