20 for 2020: week 9

My 20 for 2020 list.

Week of 24 February 

For my uni course (thing 8), I have five weeks to undertake a project to apply some of the things I’ve learned in the unit to my workplace. There was lots to think about from last week’s workshop and I’ve come up with an idea I want to try out but now I have to go and do the readings and figure out how they are relevant to what I’m going to trying do at work. My lecturer pointed me to some relevant theories that we’d considered and every time I read something that’s even remotely related to my workplace plan I’m jotting down copious notes to include in the assignment. I’m sure this is backwards and I should have put the theories together and come up with a project based on that, but I’ve had this idea germinating for a while and if I can identify some theoretical basis for doing it, then I’ll be happy.

I got my mark for my first assignment back, which was pretty reasonable, and I got some very supportive comments from the lecturer in response. I am also happy that I got away with not only referencing my instagram profile in a uni assignment, but also a not so subtle reference to “this one time . . .”. (You know what I’m talking about.)

I printed the rest of my 2019 photojournal collages (thing 4) and I stuck some more into the journal. I am on the home stretch with this one now! I just have to trim them and stick them in. There’s about 12 weeks to go now. I’m far less behind with 2019’s journal than I was with 2018’s journal this time last year, which has a lot to do with smart collections in Lightroom and making sure I’ve sorted the previous week’s photos by Wednesday evening so I can edit them in my 15-minute creativity slot on Thursday morning.

I also worked on my photo project (thing 1) in my 15 minutes of creative work in the morning on some days. Just enough to keep it moving along.

I’m calling the creative abundance class (thing 6) done. I’ve got the morning routine in place (sort of—there are a few bits that need tweaking), I am working on my project, even if I’m not actually scheduling time blocks to do it. I have another project lined up for when this one is finished. I know what I have to do to eliminate more distractions; I just have to do it. And the last thing for this work it to set up an accountability mechanism, which is going to be me recording how many days I did my “just 15 minutes” in the morning in these blog posts.

I started turning my wall into a vision board (thing 15). I pulled down some things I don’t want on there any more. Then I realised that I already had a pinboard that was already sort of a vision board and thought why didn’t I move it to the “vision wall”, where I’d actually look at it, and give it a bit of a refresh. I pulled off all the stuff that, well doesn’t so much not inspire me, but doesn’t inspire me in the way I want to be inspired right now. And I added in some new pieces—though I’m not sure that John Brack’s Collins St, 5pm is something I actually aspire to . . . more like the future I want to avoid! I left lots of space to add things I find over the coming weeks.

Nothing like procrastinating on uni work, but thing 15 is done.

I can’t read on the bus (thing 14) when I ride to work (thing 10) but I can do it the other days and it’s becoming more of a habit now. I need to track the habit though.

Sunday was the closest Sunday to the last day of the month, so that’s when I’ve committed to doing my monthly review of the Unravel Your Year workbook (thing 22). I went to my local coffee shop and settled for an hour. That was good, apart from the kid on the table next to me who found the noisy toy that played “Funkytown” over and over and over. And over. Just what you need when you’re sitting down to think!

I decided to write my March goals on my whiteboard (which is part of my vision wall now), as well as a few things I meant to do after last month’s review and then forgot about because I never looked at the review page again. Note to self: if you ever decide on an action item from something, make a note of it somewhere you will actually see it so it’s not stuck in a book and you forget about it until next time you look at the book.

Now what I need to do is clear and right where I can see it. Time to make progress.

Habit tracking

• Days I stuck to my 15 minutes creative habit this week: Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun (sort of. It took half an hour for Photoshop to open one photo on Sunday and I got the shits with it and went to do something else. I came back to do the work a bit later on.)
• Days I scheduled (and did) 50 or 25 minute blocks of time to work on my projects: None. I had two or three times when I sat down and worked on my photo project but I didn’t actually schedule the time.
• Days I read on the bus on the way to work: I forgot to track this. It’s a new thing.

Summary for the week

• Things completed this week: 2 (6, 15)
• Things completed to date: 5 (6, 10, 15, 16, 18)
• Things I progressed: 5 (1, 4, 8, 14, 22)
• Things in progress I didn’t progress: 4 (3, 7, 11, 13)
• Things not started: 8 (2, 5, 9, 12, 17, 19, 20, 21)