Building Momentum

This morning I had an appointment that was abruptly pushed back to the afternoon. I am not a great afternoon person, so moving an appointment from 9:45 to 3:15 is a big deal for my psyche.

I will be completely upfront that I wasted at least an hour this morning being grumpy about this change. It just threw off my morning and my view of the whole day. So I sat on Facebook chat being grumpy with another pregnant friend (yes, I will be grumpy about it if you are also in the boat with me).


I realized exactly what I was doing, and decided to start looking for some motivation. My first stop was Ravelry.com to browse patterns, both new and old ones that I have ear-marked for my future projects. Unfortunately, I don't often find quick satisfying projects there (quick being less than a day).

So not having found some positive virtual vibes, I went to my purse and grabbed my huge husband socks. This is a habit of many knitters, to always have a simple and small project on size for those short bursts of time where one could make some progress. It is not a habit I am very good at, which is probably why it took me a while to think of them.

I started working on my socks while sitting at the computer, still chatting. Eventually, I realized that I would be much happier knitting on the couch. So I actually put on a podcast and moved myself to the couch.

Now picture this, I am sitting on my couch, listening to a podcast, and knitting upon some socks. That does not seem like a productive picture, does it?

WRONG! Boy was that assumption wrong. What this did was build momentum for my re-shuffled day.

I moved away from the Facebook, sat down comfortably, and fed my mind with some chatter about the yarn industry. Now the knitting allowed my body to be busy and my mind to wander around. Luckily, with the right podcast in my ear, my mind began wandering into my own role in the knitting world.

In fact, as I noticed this happening I saw the potential for a blog post. Then I began thinking about the pattern proposal denial I got yesterday (sometimes I make up a proposal just in hopes of getting to try out a new yarn...this was one of those times).

I thought about the aspects of that pattern idea that I really liked. Lacey stitch pattern in lovely yarn that begins dark in the center and expands out to lighter shades. Realistically, I did buy myself some lace weight yarn that matches that description. And, I vaguely remember seeing a pattern for a shawl that was modified from a triangle shape into a rectangular shape. I haven't knit a rectangular shaped shawl. Perhaps getting started on this pattern will help get some creative juices flowing for my knitting today.

Lately, I have been learning a lot about my own productivity while attempting to work from home. Today was not the only day that I realized the value of a "warm-up" activity. Other daily warm-up activities have included: reading, journaling, blogging, actually cooking breakfast, and listing out my daily priorities.

How do you get yourself started for a productive day?