The five-part 5x5 Agenda. With five things
5x5 Thoughtful Thursday? Too much like Wonder Wednesday. Throwaway Thursday? It doesn’t mean anything. Thundering Thursday? I don’t know if I have that many rants in me. Alliteration has deserted me, so it’s just a free day I can use for any idea that doesn’t fit into Monkeys, Travel, Wonder or Fun. My starter for five is the 5x5 Agenda. What’s it all for?
1 Write every weekday The idea for Five By Five came into my head while I was in China in May, starting to feel more confident about life on my own. I’d decided to take a break from the 9–5 life, get my head together and work out what I want to do with the rest of my life. That’s still a work in progress, but I want to keep writing, because I enjoy it and it’s supposed to be something I’m good at. So I came up with a plan to write something every day, and then at least I’ll have some structure and my brain has to do some work. It’s that or Wetherspoons.
2 Keep it simple Five items with a theme, no more than few hundred words long, and I should be able to complete it within two hours. Otherwise the idea needs trimming to fit.
3 Tell a story Ideally, the five items will flow from one to the next, and the whole thing will tie up neatly into a story. This is more ambitious than it sounds, but if I get it right, more people will read a 5x5 all the way to the end.
4 Use my own pictures I don’t like stealing other people’s work, and fortunately there are lots of amazing images out there, released under Creative Commons. It’s always best to use your own pics, though, even when you’re as average at photography as I am.
5 Do it by 5pm There are days when I just feel a bit “meh” about life, and that list of things I need to do just doesn’t seem important enough, even when it is. But if every day has a deadline then I might just stop reading Facebook and Motherboard and Buzzfeed, wake myself up properly and do some of the other stuff afterwards. And I’ll have done something.
