Several months ago I put up some planning worksheets for use in planning for project success. Although I completely understand the joy of casting on a new project, as I study my behavior and that of other knitters, I am coming to the clear opinion that planning for project success is necessary, unless you are doing fairly small projects or only work on one project at a time.
Otherwise, we tend to *get in the weeds on a project, abandon it in frustration, and repeat from *. My fear is that repeated working from the asterisk will lead to knitter frustration with knitting in general, or knitters who stick to working only one type of project and never expand their knitting horizons. Obviously, it is in my interest to keep knitters trying new things, but I don’t think this is purely selfish.
© Murmyrka | Dreamstime.com – Knitting Pattern And Needles On A Background Photo
As a designer I love trying things I’ve never done before, or finding a more efficient way to do things, or looking at the design task from a different perspective to see if I can find a better way. As a knitter, I want my projects to work. I don’t care if I make mistakes that cause me to have to rip back, but I want to have a straightforward path to finishing. I have a never-ending list of projects I can turn to as soon as I finish this one!
I know that when I put things aside because I don’t know what to do next and I pick up something else, in all likelihood, that is not going to lead me to a solution, nor will it lead me to project success. When I run into problems, the best thing to do is to assess where the issues are and to seek a solution. Sometimes it is just needing some rest, or to do something different for a break, but often it is because it isn’t clear where I’m going. Starting a new project rarely brings clarity because it just provides my brain other things to think about. So the solution to project success is to figure out where I took a wrong turn, or what I didn’t understand and move ahead. It is fine if you take a break–but you need to have a plan for picking that project back up and getting it moving ahead.
We forget that there is a lot of this!
I went to bed one recent Friday night not knowing I had a design issue on a project I am creating. I woke in the middle of the night and realized that something wasn’t right in where I was going. I fell back to sleep and woke up Saturday with the bones of a solution. That is a rare and wonderful occurrence.
Interested in project success, not just more projects? Here is a past post that might help you with planning and project success. This one can also help! If you’ve been following me for very long you know that is something I’m always thinking about. I have found that for solutions to work, they must actually be used.
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