Monday, January 13, 2014

Crafting By The Numbers - 4th Quarter and Final Report

This is the 4th quarter 2013 and final Crafting By The Numbers post ever.
I started this crazy exercise in January 2012 because I'm a numbers nut (that's what happens to us accountant types) and I wondered just how many days out of the year I typically manage to work on something crafty. I kept track just for shits and giggles.

October was just a so, so month craft/sewing wise. I got to work on something just 9 out of the 31 possible days, or 29%.
November wasn't much better. Only 11 of the total 30 days was I able to put a check mark on the calendar. That works out to 36%.
December was an impossible month as I've mentioned before but the final days of the month and the post Christmas semi-quiet gave me a few more calendar marks for the month. I was able to get into my studio only 5 of the possible 31 days, or a measly 16%.
My grand total for 2013 is 127 days out of 365, which equates to 35%. It certainly isn't the big number that I was hoping for when the year started but it is better than 2012 so I'll take it.

What have I learned through all of this numbers keeping? A couple of things actually.

I've learned that my mood can be directly related to me getting some ME time, no matter if that is some sewing time, some reading time or some gardening time. The more days that I went without doing something crafty or indulgent, the more uneasy I got, sort of like a bad itch that I couldn't scratch. So in fact, being creative is important for my well being and that is better than any medicine or food any day of the week.

I've also learned that it doesn't take a ton of time to fill up my creative need for the day. Some days all I had time for was to browse through a magazine or quilting book while I got ready for work and it was enough to get my thinking brain working on a potential new project. Other days I squeezed in a little fabric coordinating, considering the color, scale and pattern possibilities of potential pieces.

While I'm not going to continue this exercise in 2014, I know that I've spurred a few others to track their own crafting time and hopefully they too will learn something about themselves along the way to accomplishing their creative endeavors.

2 of you added your own colorful comments:

Lorna McMahon said...

I totally agree that being able to exercise our creativity is directly related to how we fair on the mood scale. Here's hoping 2014's craft time will result in an overall happy year!

Tina said...

Yikes! I'll bet my numbers are similar. That darn job and commute and family obligations and housekeeping sure get in the way of the things that make us content, like quilting.