Brain Head Pinstrosities

**Warning!**
This is quite possibly THE longest post EVER!!!!
 I got a little carried away, maybe I should have made it a two part post?!!? If you are still awake/care by the end of this, and if you received any help/positiveness here whatsoever, it will be a Christmas Miracle.
It's like the Magna Carta+War and Peace, seriously.
 My apologies.
You have been warned, carry on.
So I will be completely honest with you; After Marquette's awesome post on Tuesday, I woke up Wednesday morning, read the post, and said "Oh Crap.".

 Why is that you say? 

Because her post was awesome-sauce, pure genius and was super well thought out and written. 

It spoke to all of us in some way or another, Pinterest related or not. And well I just didn't feel I could successfully follow through after that with something worth reading. So Wednesday I did exactly what she wrote about NOT doing. I was afraid, I was afraid my post would pale in comparison to hers.

 Now please don't see this the wrong way, I love Marquette, she is my best friend and I don't feel competitive with her hardly ever (the only exception would be board/card games, I really don't like losing :o).  I just felt that anything I had to share that day wouldn't be up to par. So I skipped out, being overwhelmed in my brain head (some people just have brains, some people only have a head, I happen to have both, so I identify both) and feeling like I didn't have much to say. 

Looking back on what I was planning on writing, I realize that I was trying to do something unique and different than what we ordinary write about to make up for my self diagnosed lack of wisdom. Hindsight is 20/20 and now I see that particular post would be better saved for another day, not a bad post, it just needs to be shared at another time.

 So here I am today I went out of town with some family for the day which was a nice getaway  and had some time to think about what I would write about. What I came up with is similar in part to Marquette's post "My House Is A Pinstrosity" (if you haven't read that one it's also a good read), only this one is "Brain Head Pinstrosities". 

So is it just me or do you ever feel this undeniable, unshakable, all consuming  all encompassing  urge to do something awesome?! You plan and plan and plan, you gather everything you could possibly imagine in order to do this thing,( and then some), and then when the time comes you have literally too much going on to process it all and get ANYTHING done?! If I am the only one, well too bad, here is a whole post about that, and let me know because I obviously have some stuff to work out lol. If not, which I am hoping is the case than you see where I am coming from in all this.

Sometimes, caroosing through Pinterest your brain head ( now you have one too) just sees to much, and as humans, we want to do it all, we want to have/want/need/know/try/do/see it all, in a very short period of time.

Pinterest is the enabler for this disease. May I add here that Marquette's post on Tuesday was somewhat the opposite to this, she said if there is something that we are wanting to do , then make it happen, "Don't Be Afraid!"! Which is wonderful and great advice, but when we put our minds to it, sometimes our brain head's want to do it all RIGHT NOW. 

Like a computer trying to process too much information at once, we commence mental shutdown mode.

And for me that sometimes  that means not getting ANY of my projects done. 

So here are a few tips to help us beat the "I literally have so much going on in my brain head that I don't know where to start." days.

Home:

If your space where you work is cluttered it might disturb the creative process due to the fact that you are too focused on the mess to think straight. 

My family does what is called a "Five Minute Clean Up", turn the timer on for five minutes, clean whatever is on top of your messy space that you can in five minutes. If after five minutes it's not clean, take a five minute breather so you don't get overwhelmed and come back and do five more minutes, that's 15 minutes total, everyone has 15 minutes to spare somewhere in their day. You should then have enough space to work on something. If you don't...call TLC to be on Hoarders. jk jk 

Somedays I feel like I should have them on speed-dial.

If  your space really isn't spotless, then I say pull your project out anyways and reward your ten minute organizing spree with at least half an hour on your project. Come back to the cleaning regiment every other day until either your project is done, or your space is clean, either way you win!

Sounds like sane logic to me. 

Anyone ever read "Good Enough Housekeeping", that's what I'm talkin' about!

Supplies:

Sometimes I get really excited about a project, buy everything I need for it and then find that one of the supplies is wrong, or  couldn't find what I REALLY wanted for it  and then a heap of stuff sits in my craft pile for months at a time. Or I have all the things I need and this particular project is super time intensive, and so I put it off until I have more time (as if). 

Fail.

Go to your Pinterest board and create a board specifically of stuff you have already pinned that you have ALL the supplies for. 

No exceptions. Not a single one. Be strict with yourself. Not thread, not staples, not glue. 

NOTHING.

 Make it a jump start on your "No Spend Month" project that you pinned a year ago ;)

This lets you feel accomplished without acquiring more stuff, you are using part of your craft "stash" (which husbands love by the way), and you are accomplishing pins! Which is a win in and of itself. 

Then create a board of accomplished Pinterest projects and pin it there.

Enjoy bliss.

A little taste of my "Completed" board. I include everything from dreams, haircuts, crafts, nail polish colors, you name it ,if it's from Pinterest and I have done it, it's here!

Board Organization:

This one is easy:

Pick 7 pins it doesn't matter the size, cost or the theme (Party, Recipes To Try, Crafts, Home Improvements  Clothes etc.) Put those seven items in a "Work In Progress" board or "What's Next" board, this way you know what is first to get done, or first of your priorities, once something is done, it can move to the "Completed" or "Accomplished" board, and you can then add a new pin to the board. 

**I say you can do this with any pin, which you can, but generally I just add projects, because it keeps me on track of what I am currently working on,or what I need to do next. For example right now would probably be lots of Christmas or New Year's stuff, but once the new year rolls around it might be New Year's Resolutions and stuff for Valentine's Day.**

My "What's Next" Board

Difficulty:

Occasionally I pin something that I absolutely LOVE. Like to die for. But it's big, and expensive, and time intensive. And awesome, did I mention awesome?

This one is tricky, because sometimes, your life will literally NOT calm down anytime soon.

 You just had twins, your mother in law is here for the foreseeable future, and then your hubby is on a vacation  business trip, then school starts, then it's the family Labor Day party, then it's camel sitting for the neighbor and then Christmas, and then you start all that over again, minus the twins hopefully.

Get my gist? 

Also I feel like most people's lives really are like that (camel and all), or they feel  like their lives are like that, so this will probably apply to most of you.

What to do then? There are two options.

One, take every spare moment you have to work on this project, or save up, or prepare for this project and just hammer through it as fast as humanly possible, even if it means letting your kids watch a few too many Dora cartoons for a week. If it is important to you, you will make it happen, remember, don't be afraid!!!

This is what a friend of mine does, and well she is amazing, four kids, camel farm, and  still gets stuff done son! P.S. Her kids now hate Dora, jk jk.

Or, take it by months. Month one-seven ( I told you it was expensive), save, scrimp, and study for the follow-through.

Month eight-ten, gather supplies and the troops. Sometimes these projects take an army. Make it happen people, provide semi-perfect cookies as compensation. If there is sugar, they will come.

Month eleven through 483.5, carry out said plan/project. 

I have a partition that I have been working on since probably February since I first dreamed it up. It isn't finished but I work on it every few weeks and slowly but surely it is coming together, and when it is done I will surely show it off, I have had help from my husband on this one, because well it is too big to do by myself, and it makes the work go by faster.

If I want it done badly enough, I find time for it. 

A project I have been planning for for a while now, I still haven't decided how I want to do this one.

Holy Long Post Batman

So there it is, your survival guide on what to do when your brain head doesn't know what to do. Entirely too long, but hopefully it will help when you are feeling Pinterest Overwhelmed.

I hope you have a Happy Friday (what's left of it), and Hooray! We made it through the Apocalypse!