Following Instructions and maybe then again not...

 

Very happy to have only had to record £1 spending for the day and putting the receipt away, but I think today's task may well challenge the size of box I've chosen for finances...

Laying hands on all the manuals and instructions for the gadgets and machinery around the house is long overdue. Now's the time to track down as much of it as possible.

Some appliances and equipment have paper details whilst some is only listed online.  In gathering it all up it's surprising how much information there is for 'stuff' we no longer have - guess you know what I'll be doing with that!

The up-to-date information will be needed later on in this elephant eating process so there needs to be a good place to store it all together along with a note of the web addresses for other non-paper based details. It could go into the box of financial paperwork, but I'm thinking that the box I chose is too small for all that so maybe a file with clear pockets or a separate box. Now when I come across anything else I'll know where to keep it.

As for not following instructions .. it never fails to astonish me how much I hang on to old ways of doing things even when (if I were to think about it) there's often a better way.

I was at my spinning group last week grumbling away while I took time away from my wheel to sew up a finished jumper... I hate sewing up! After a while of listening to me drone on Bob, one of the other members asked why I was sewing the sleeves when I could have knitted them in the round, using double pointed needles like I do with socks. It honestly had never occurred to me. Not only does it remove the need for sewing up the seams, but it a) looks much neater and b) feels more comfortable as there isn't even the tiniest ridge to rub on the skin.

Why haven't I done it before? Partly because I never thought of it and partly because I'm far too used to following the instructions far too closely. Yes, I had to adapt a bit with increasing (Bob put me right on that too), but really it was sooooo simple and made much more sense. Much of it though is about the confidence to try something different in case I mess it up - all it would have meant if I'd got it wrong was a bit of undoing and re-knitting.

I wonder what else I can change instructions for to make life easier?