Here is the thing about Virgo-style progress tracking, it requires honesty, and sometimes that honesty can be painful.

This is what shame looks like.

It was so tempting to just jump from the 19th to the 29th, which still demonstrates that I’ve not met my regular writing challenge, but doesn’t leave all that blank space in my pretty spread sheet.  Here’s the thing about really tracking your writing, though … all that white space matters. Eventually when you track enough that you have scroll up or down in your spread sheet, the white space catches your eye.  It makes you think about what was happening, or why writing was not happening.

Looking back at the goals I set for these five weeks, I think I did meet my goal a little more often than it appears.  (If you really count any writing.) Remembering to track is, however, just as important as the daily writing because in the absence of printed pages tracking demonstrates progress.

Interestingly enough my focused goal for the second week of writing was to update my application materials, and just today I found a couple of reasons to get down to business. (Of course, now I am procrastinating with a blog post. 😉 ) Having a job, and a job that your not unhappy with, is a tricky place to be when checking out the job ads. There are several reasons I wouldn’t really want to leave where I am right now, but there are a few compelling reasons to keep my eyes open.  Namely, I think both the DH and I would like to be closer to one family or the other. When I read a job ad, however, I really can’t stop myself from thinking, “Would I really give up what I have for this?” The question is difficult because yes, it does merit consideration, but it makes it all to easy maintain some inertia. “No, I don’t think I would give up what I have for this” leads too easily to, “Why bother applying.”

Applying leads to all sorts of messy things, discussions with supervisors about submitting an application, the work of updating materials, the endless mental pro/con lists about each position. It is easy to overlook the good that can come from applying, even if the application doesn’t make it out of the initial 600 applicant pool. Submitting an application packet is good practice. Now, I am not advocating for some sort of professional job hunt, but in my case I know that in the next 3 years changes are coming. So, yes, I am just trying to pep talk myself into submitting these two applications. Because, even if these aren’t necessarily the jobs for which I would give up what I have, practicing to get the job I really want isn’t a bad idea. Plus, submitting applications means I could create another spreadsheet to keep track of it all. (It’s the little things that make my Virgo brain happy.)