Project monogamy, that is. Like in knitting and stuff.
Somewhere along the line, the idea spread among knitters that project monogamy is the ideal to be aspired to. I don't know where it started; probably with some Big Name Knitter. I know Wendy Johnson is a monogamous knitter, which certainly helped the propagate this idea even if it started elsewhere.
There's nothing inherently wrong with project monogamy, if it works for you. It does help finish projects sooner. Some people express that as "faster", but that's not really accurate. A knitter might get a small benefit from monogamous knitting if it helps him memorize the pattern, thus spending less time looking at the sheet and more time making stitches. But even that's going to add up to a very small advantage. Nonetheless, if a project takes a month of solid knitting time, you will finish one worked singly sooner than you will finish either of two worked in parallel. But two projects get finished in the same amount of cumulative working time.
However, there are disadvantages for many people in monogamous knitting. A big one: the project slog. Sometimes when you're working on a project, you just get flippin' bored with it. Sometimes you even get to the point where you just don't want to do another stitch on it. Twice this weekend alone I've seen people say that they've been avoiding knitting because they just don't work on their monogamous project. Dude, put it away and cast on something else! This is supposed to be fun. If you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong.
I'm coming to embrace my polygamy. On the other hand, I am trying to keep it under control. Right now I've got three project bags. My idea is to have that many going at a time, and not to start another until I've either finished or frogged one of those. I'm not sure three is the optimum number, but it's a starting place. (Right now I've got a scarf for my Reversible Cables class, the Baby Draco sweater I'm so bloody sick of that I just can't work on it much right now, and a lace scarf that turned out harder and slower than expected. I might need a fourth bag for a 'definite no-brainer' project.)
Next topic: Maybe I need to rethink my approach to online patterns. Currently I've been bookmarking just about everything I like, and then going back as I have time and saving them to my hard drive in neat formats. That means I've got, according to file count, 183 patterns saved in neat formats, and another 9 or 10 that need some cleaning.
Now, saving patterns isn't a bad idea. The internet is not a permanent media, after all, and the Wayback Machine is far from perfect, especially on anything graphic intensive. But, I'm never going to make all those things. I find myself thinking, if I don't like something enough to put it in my Ravelry queue, or at least on my favorite patterns list, maybe I don't really need to take the time to save it. The odds are good that I will NEVER get to it. And frankly, with the exception of some toys, I think at this point that there are few patterns that I couldn't recreate if I realized that yes, I do absolutely need that after all, and no, it isn't available any more. It's not as easy, granted, but I think for me its doable.
I think I could at least handle cutting down. Of course, this is an invitation for my Ravelry queue to grow out of control, but that's OK. It's fairly easy to manage.
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