Why I craft

So many people ask me why I enjoy both cross stitching and knitting and I can very simply say that it helps me stitch my mind back together. That might sound very odd to a lot of people but let me explain what I am trying to say and maybe you will understand it a little better. 

For me finding that time each day to do something that makes me happy and helps me focus on everything that is going on in my life helps a lot. There are times when I can sit and work on a project either cross stitch or knitting and I can figure out the solution that I have trying to figure for quite a while before I sit down and craft. My crafting can help me regain the focus that is needed to resolve an issue that has been something that I have been dealing with for a while.

It has been interesting to see my crafting life through the years and I can say that crafting has helped me through high school, college and every other part of my life because it gives me an escape from the things that are happening in my life. My crafting has been able to bring me join when I wasn’t sure how to be happy especially when going through the exam times of both high school and college. The challenges of those times were difficult but being able to find that little bit of time to sit and craft helped me regain my focus. 

During Covid, so many people turned to crafting as a means of handling being at home all the time but for me crafting was just something that I did because it was a normal part of my life. I might have done more crafting during the time we were required to be at home, but it didn’t seem to be something that I only did when we were in lockdown.

Later in life I have found that crafting has helped me stay grounded when things has seemed to get overwhelming. Being able to focus on my crafting even for a little bit each day has helped me know that I can get through anything that life continues to throw at me. I know there are there are times I am going to need a simpler project, but I normally have one of those ready to go and then there are times that I need a challenging project.

I craft because that is part of my life and that is also what makes me happy and it something that I find helps me relax at the end of a crazy day. Maybe crafting isn’t something that everyone would want to do but we need to understand that crafting may help someone find the peace in their life when life just seems to get out of control.

When too many distractions get in the way

For some of us there are times that there are just too many distractions that get in the way of getting what you want completed. I know that I have challenges sometimes when everything around me seems to be a distraction and I cannot regain a focus on what I would like to try and get accomplished. It doesn’t matter if it is work related or not there are times that distractions just seem to make it difficult to focus on anything.

Trying to limit the number of things that are getting in the way of accomplishing what you want or need to accomplish can be difficult. If you have ways of turning off the distractions that would be good because that can help you regain that focus. Here are some distractions you might want to turn off:

• Music
• Email notifications
• Social media

Here are some distractions that you might have to handle differently:

• Phone calls
• People interrupting you
• Other sounds around you

When things just seem to get overwhelming and you lose your focus here are some ideas on how to manage those distractions and help you regain your focus:

• Looking out the window and not really focusing on anything.
• Putting in earplugs to limit the sounds around you.
• Finding something you can look at that isn’t too repetitive or too distractions (I watch the Port of Miami on YouTube as my way to help regain my focus).
• Get into a location that helps you focus (different room or entirely different location).
• Do something different for a few minutes to get away from the immediate task.
• Allow yourself time to just breath and get the focus back.
• Change how you make the notes, maybe change from computer to tablet or to paper as that might help you get away from the distraction.
• Change up your routine so you aren’t doing the same thing at the same time everyday.

Something that I find that helps me regain my focus sometimes is just to allow ideas to just happen and capture them in point form, or whatever way helps. When you are capturing the ideas don’t try and edit the thoughts, just allow them to happen, as you can edit them later. We also must know that there are times that no matter what we try and do it isn’t going to help at all. Another thing we have to realize is that something that works today may not work tomorrow to help you regain your focus so you will have to try different things.

We all deal with distractions and sometimes they don’t seem to be an issue and then there are going to be times when they are an issue, and we must learn how to deal with them in different ways. I know that some of the ideas that I have recorded aren’t going to help everyone, but these are some of the ideas that I have found work for me, so I wanted to get them down.

If you have any other ideas of how you regain your focus after dealing with distractions, please comment what works for you as I would be interested in hearing different ideas.

Regaining a focus

I think a lot of us deal with a time when we have to sit back and think about some of the things that we have on our to-do list. I know that is something that I try and do at least once a month to ensure that things are getting done that need to get done and that things that are no longer necessary can be removed from the list.

Another thing that needs to be done every once in a while, is to look at the different things that you have thought about doing and seeing if they are still things that you want to do. As someone that crafts, I find that there are times that I need to go through some of my craft projects and decide if they are going to be worked on or if it’s time to say no and either get rid of the project or put the material back into my stash so that I can use it for something else. It can be a little overwhelming sometimes to look at the projects and make these decisions, but you have to remember that realizing that you aren’t going to finish something does help. It gets one thing off the list of things that you are going to do, and then you have more time to do the things that you really want to do.

There are going to be times when you do the review of your things, and you just put everything back because they are all things you are going to work on at some point. Being able to figure out if you are going to work on something or not can take some time, so this needs to be done when you have a bit of time to focus on the task and not feel like you are rushing through it.

After you have done the cleaning up of either your to-do list or your projects, you will be able to sit back and see what is important and move forward on them. There is still the risk that things on your to-do list or your projects won’t get done, but at least you may have your list a little more under control, which is the main thing.

Regaining a focus is very important from time to time. It can help you get back to what is important and what needs to get done, rather than working on things that really aren’t important and can either wait for a while or don’t need to be done. Once your focus has been regained, it is time to get back to doing the things that you need to do and don’t worry about those things that you decided aren’t important any longer.

Getting things back in focus

Things sometimes get out of control, and it takes some time and effort to get things back to the way that makes you happy.  This is a challenge for a lot of people, and that is taking the time to get things back to where they should be.  I have encountered just this challenge in the last couple of weeks, and now I am taking the time to sit and think. 

It is sometimes the hardest thing to do, just sit and think because like a lot of people there are always too many other things that need to be done.  Having a chance to refocus and understand what has happened and why helps make the future a little easier.  The challenge I was facing was dealing with an online course that was not well-designed or executed.  My choice was to continue with the online course and suffer through it, or to walk away and know that I did what was right for me.  The decision came this week when after a couple of major frustrations with the course, I decided that I couldn’t continue with it and needed to walk away.  I contacted the university that was offering the course and explained my feelings to them. I also had to write an e-mail explaining everything, and then I was refunded my course fee and am no longer taking the course.  I have taken other online courses through colleges and never felt this way about the course, instructors, or material before, so this was extremely hard for me to deal with.  

The course was something that I really wanted to take, but understood that if I wasn’t learning anything and just getting frustrated, it wasn’t a course worth taking.  Maybe part of it was feeling that the instructors didn’t understand the material, or maybe they weren’t comfortable with online training.  I know that I was really frustrated with the length of time the assignment took to be marked and even how long it took to get answers to e-mails.  The length was a lot longer than I ever dealt with during any of the other courses I took.  This is the first course that I have tried to take through a university, and it sure wasn’t the experience I wanted.  

I know that having a Certificate for Instructing Adults makes it a little different for me taking courses know because I understand what is expected from instructors.  I have taken courses and seminars where the instructor has been great, and somewhere the instructor wasn’t the best, but normally I learned something anyway.  This online course was proving to be a course where I wasn’t going to learn, so I am happy I decided to walk away.

I have taken some time, figured things out and understand why I was unhappy the last couple of weeks.  Now, maybe I can focus on the things that make me happy, and I realize that taking the time to sit and just think was the best thing I could have done today.