Here we are, already at the final day of The 15th Annual Final Countdown! If you’re just now finding this, it’s not too late to join in. You can start right HERE and catch up with us!

I hope you’ve accomplished a lot with the first two tasks to give yourself a good start on the new year, which, by the way, starts TOMORROW!

We have one final task to tackle. I usually make this task a “thinking” task, just to give us a break from the hard labor of the first two tasks (giggle). This is a task that will make us take stock of what we have going on, what we need to do, and what we plan to do going forward with this fresh new year.

And, due to popular demand, we are doing this again!

Our third and final task is:

Perform a Project Assessment

We did this one back in 2018, and you can get some ideas from that previous post HERE, but here’s some more stuff to think about as you do this one . . .

• Do you even have a list of what projects you have going on? If not, do you need one? If yes, does it need to be updated?

• Do you need to reorganize your list(s) to make it easier to use and decipher? I have my lists divided into categories: large Quilts, small quilts, tops that need to be quilted, vintage projects, and business projects for others. You may not need this many categories, or you may not have a very large list, so you can keep them all on one list.

• The projects on the list: Do you need to get rid of some of them? Change your plans about some of them? Are there any that would be quick to Finish so you can mark them completely off the list?

• Go through and prioritize the list. If there are some with deadlines, some you want to gift away sooner rather than later, some you want to finish so you can start using them right away, some that are true long-term labors of love that you are slowly working on over time, some that are simply leader/enders with no set time frame for finishing — list them in order of finishing importance.

• Do some scheduling. If you find you need to make some appointments with a longarm quilter, make a trip to the quilt store for some supplies, or plan out a project to meet a deadline, get those things on your calendar so you don’t forget to do them.

This past week, I went through my to-be-quilted bins (yes, there are two large ones) and pulled out all the quilts that I want to quilt up quickly to donate to my guild for their Comfort Quilt stash. They are running low, so if I can finish these soon, they will be gone from my house (before we move). After that, I will go back and pull out all the smallest and easiest ones just to make the list go down faster. Then, I’ll move on to the larger and more custom ones that will take longer. I will have to fit these in between customer quilts on my longarm, and any quilts I’m making that have deadlines, but hopefully, I can whittle down the number this year. (I consider myself lucky that it only went up by 2 over the last year!)

I’m also going through my UFOs little by little. Choosing the quickest-to-finish ones first, and taking stock of the others to see what I will do with them. Some get downsized, some get taken off the list altogether, and the others will be getting prioritized as I work my way through this project assessment task.

Some of you have said you finished so many projects last year, and have really been tackling the UFOs, and I’m so proud of you for that! I know it feels good to finish things and have the projects more under control. Frankly, I’m not sure how I let mine get so out of control, but it’s time to rein it in!

And I love making lists, so this task is always right up my alley! I’m off to look them over and get them updated!

Here’s to a fresh start for all of us beginning tomorrow! (You DO know I’ll be in bed well before 10:00 tonight, right?)

Happy New Year!