Earlier this year, I had grand plans to start a Calendar of Firsts at the turn of the new year. Here’s what mine looks like right now:
Isn’t it lovely? 😉 No, a scrawled list of random sightings on scratch paper stuffed into my nature journal isn’t quite what I had in mind! But Christmas preparations and celebrating got the best of me, and I never had a chance to think through the format options and begin one in earnest before January arrived. I too often fall into the trap of what I lovingly think of as perfectionist paralysis, which, in my head sounds a little something like this: “What format is best? A binder? A notebook? A desk calendar? A virtual calendar? And how should I organize it all? By month? By sighting? By date? I want to get it just right–I’ll be using this for years!!!!” Cue many months of thinking and researching, with very little to show for it. Does this happen to you too, or is it just me? 🙂
And then I remind myself, “Perfection is the enemy of the good.” So I keep scribbling a few notes as I see “firsts” outdoors, and I vow to just start something by spring. Well, spring is here! And a recent conversation on the Ambleside Online forums reminded me of this to-do. So I’ll be back very soon with a little transformation of this jumbled list into a maybe-not-perfect-but-good-
