What happens when I get off my ass

Not to pat myself on the back, but I kind of amaze myself sometimes. It seems that what I really need to get myself motivated is a deadline, preferably one that is ridiculously close.

I have a wedding to attend this Saturday and I needed a wrap of some sort. I'm just being practical here - it's October, I hate to be cold and I don't have a lot of disposable income at the moment to buy something I'll wear once. So I decided to make a shrug.

Now, I had started this shrug back in the spring. Between May or June and this past Monday I completed about 5 rows (crocheted). Today, the shrug is just about completed. Did I really have to do the marathon crocheting thing, working until my fingers were ready to fall off every day? Apparently I did.

So there's the secret. In order to avoid a million unfinished projects, I need to have a specific purpose or goal BEFORE I start a project. And that goal has to be imminent. For example, I can't start making a gift for a pregnant friend when I find out they're pregnant. No, I have to do it the week before the baby shower. Otherwise, I end up (like I am now) with three or four unfinished baby blankets in my closet and a whole mess of yarn that I would never use for anything but a baby blanket. It's kind of wasteful, when you think about it. I'm hoarding all this perfectly good yarn, with the vague intention of using it sometime, but someone else could be using it much more productively.

And there we have it. I think I will have to impose some sort of deadline for the rest of these projects (i.e. scrapbooks) that I have sitting around. I want them OUT!!