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Monday, January 4, 2016

30 Days of Hustle

A family member invited me to do the 30 Days of Hustle with her (and a few thousand other people) this January.

The 30 Days of Hustle is a motivational challenge in which each participant sets a goal and takes steps (hustles) towards its completion for 30 days.

Along the way, the program teaches productivity and motivation skills that can be used to accomplish other goals.

I have a pretty quiet month ahead in terms of work. And I know the temptation might be to slip into a Netflix coma. Which would be fine if I needed to rest. But truthfully, I just spent the past six weeks chilled out on Netflix. It was great, but here, in the new year, I feel like getting some stuff DONE.


Tying up a big loose end


Although I'm planning to focus on more than one thing in this month's hustle, the structure of the hustle encourages selecting one main goal, so, my Official Hustle is going to be finishing off a number of my UFOs – which is quilting slang for UnFinished Objects.

You see, for about ten years, I was an avid quilter. I made quilts for people I loved, quilts for friends' babies, quilts for myself, art quilts, etc. I took classes, belonged to a quilt guild and gleefully fed my fabric addiction. I started countless projects — and to give myself credit, finished many of them.

But then, about eight years ago, I lost my quilting mojo. I moved from a 3-bedroom home to a 500-square-foot apartment, so I didn't have much space to work in. I became a performing musician and I became much busier in my life. Instead of just going to work and coming home to my quilting studio, suddenly I was leaving work to run around to gigs and voice lessons. My former "hobby" time was re-allocated to recording and producing three independent CDs.

The past 8 years have been an exciting time, but it's a time that feels like it is winding down for the present. I don't feel like performing shows very often these days. I certainly can't afford to create another independent record and can't even foresee a time when I will next be able to do so!

Right now, my focus is on getting settled on the piece of land that I bought last spring and creating a permanent home for myself. My current home is a tiny house on wheels. I'm thinking about building a permanent home – which will also be tiny, or perhaps micro. And that means that the six or seven boxes of fabric from my quilting "hangover" pose a problem. I can't bring myself to throw them out, but I also don't want to keep them in my space.

A small portion of my fabric "stash",
this is probably about one-eighth of it.

Worse still, there are a number of half-complete projects in those boxes, some of which are unfulfilled presents/commitments from 10 or 11 years ago.

The thought of those unfinished quilts has been weighing me down.

When I moved into my winter accommodation in Lunenburg, I got a membership at The Lunenburg Makery, thinking I would take the opportunity to work on some quilts this winter. I've been over a few times and have probably made three or four quilt blocks of my barely-started New York Beauty quilt. 

It's not that I didn't have plenty of spare time in the fall. What I lacked was motivation.

And so, this project seems perfect for the 30 days of Hustle. I have set my goal: complete four quilt tops in the next 30 days – two singles, one double and one baby quilt.

Here's the "baby" quilt to be –
a partly-finished colourwheel quilt.

I'm getting my hustle on!

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