Hour-A-Day-April 2012

My friend Jule Ann has re-issued her Hour a Day April challenge in order to provide herself and others with some motivation to get to those tasks around the house that we never seem to get around to. I really enjoyed the HADA challenge last year, and accomplished a lot. 

So again this year for the month of April I commit to spending an hour every day doing something that I otherwise have a hard time finding time for. The idea being that an hour a day of targeted effort can make a big difference towards accomplishing an intimidating To Do List. It doesn't have to be one consecutive hour. Set a timer when you start and if you get interrupted by kids, your husband, a neighbour dropping by or whatever then just stop the clock and resume your hour later on in the day.

Want to participate with me? Here's an abridged version of the guidelines (see the link above for Jule Ann's original)

1. Think of something that you normally have a hard time finding time for. Sewing, cleaning, painting, organising, playing basketball, crossing things off your honey-do list, it's up to you! It can be one big project, or a bunch of little projects.
2. Spend an hour every day working on your chosen project(s). Set a timer and stick to it. You have all day to squeeze in that hour, even five or ten minutes at a time. But by the end of the day, make sure you've clocked that hour. If the best way for you to get in your hour is to get up early, get up early. If you clean best after everyone else goes to bed, skip CSI. It's only for a month.
3. Take one day off a week.
4. Keep others updated on your progress. Comment on this blog. Blog about it yourself, and send me the link. Tweet about it on Twitter and use the hash tag #HADA (Hour-A-Day April). Take pictures and post them to your blog. Phone up your mom. Put a gold star on a chart.
5. Don't give up. Missed a day? Keep going. Even if you only do half the days, that's still 15 hours more productivity than your April would have otherwise had.
6. Celebrate when it's all over!

Adapt the rules as you see fit. I'm including on my list things that I would enjoy doing too but never get around to -- I'll be using up some old rolls of 35mm film (that I found during HADA last year and, um, never did anything with) and also working on my girls' baby books in addition to tackling mountains of unfolded laundry and organising junk in the basement.

I'm also planning to do only 5 days a week this year, instead of 6.  I plan to take Saturdays and Sundays off , but if I miss a day earlier in the week, I'll have to make it up on Saturday.

I'll be blogging my progress here, and also chatting about it on Facebook. I hope you'll join me, or follow along with my progress.