By The Yard: How to Make Time for Quilting
Posted by Jen Lopez on Oct 2nd 2019
As crazy as it may sound, I actually have skipped work to sew. In my defense, I was trying to finish a bridesmaid dress for a wedding I was in…. which pales in contrast to what the bride did. She didn’t finish her dress in time for her destination wedding, so she brought the sewing machine to the hotel the night before the wedding in order to finish the dress. Fortunately, there are simpler ways to make more time for sewing.
Cut Down on Cooking – No, I’m not talking about skipping meals or getting expensive takeout. Try making twice as much food as you normally would for one or two meals per week. Then you’ll have an entire meal ready to go for later in the week! No food prep, just heat and eat. Hours saved.
Keep Your Sewing Space Organized – I know this one is a tall order, but if you keep your sewing space tidy, you can pop in at a moment’s notice and zip out a few seams. Think how much more work you could get done if you didn’t have to unearth your machine from a mountain of mail or laundry before you could begin.
Go on a Social Media Diet – We all think we have “no time”, but have you ever really taken a look at how much time you waste online, especially on social media? One quick peek and before you know it, you are down the rabbit hole. Same thing with email. When I was a Software Project Management Consultant in a previous life, I often advised my harried and overworked teams that they could get more of their day back by only checking their emails first thing on the morning and before they left for the day. This significantly cut down on the running around all day trying to answer every little thing. Note that if it’s really important, they will call you.
The MIT Way, a.k.a. “Judicious Punting” – When I was a freshman at MIT, the first week I was on campus I was advised by an upper classman that the key to survival at MIT was “judicious punting”. Not “punting” like on the Thames, “punting” as in football: just kick it away. Decide what is really important, and just don’t do the rest. Do you REALLY need to make something homemade for the bake sale or could you just buy something? Do you REALLY need to answer that work email after hours that was CC’d to 40 people? Nothing copied to a huge recipient list is ever legitimately urgent. With a bit of practice and a little bit of prudence, you can cut your to-do list down to what’s really necessary.
And THAT leaves more time for quilting!
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Please join us here every other Wednesday for another fun, fiber-filled installment of By the Yard. You can read more from By the Yard and find more comics at: www.bytheyardcomics.com.
