20 for 2020: week 44
Week of 26 October 2020
What did I want to do better this week?
Be calm and enjoy my break. Not go back to work on Thursday and get agitated as soon as I walk in the door.
So, how did that go then?
I didn’t get agitated until Friday. Friday’s not normally a day I’d go into the office, but the promise of road workers in my street all day made the office look like a more appealing prospect. It just happened to be the day someone from the building site next door started a concrete cutting job right outside my window.
It was not pleasant and I didn’t handle it well at all, after an unusually stressful start to the morning.
I did enjoy my break though.
On to 20 for 2020
I sat down last Sunday to review what’s left to do in my list and work out what I can get done in the rest of the year.
Things I’ve started:
- 7. Complete the Photoshop class I signed up for in 2019
- 8. Successfully complete my uni course
- 11. Set up a mini studio at home
- 13. Read the book Indistractable and do the activities it recommends (at work and home)
- 17. Learn to use my graphics tablet
- 22. Commit to (and actually do) a monthly review
Things I haven’t started:
- 9. Use no camera other than my SLR with a single prime lens for 30 days and post a photo a day for the month
- 12. Finish the Bored and Brilliant challenge and write a blog post about it
- 19. Take a class in fermentation
- 21. Use the sprout jar
Obviously I can tick off the uni course (8) as soon as I get my final result, and there’s nothing more I can actually do towards that. I’m assuming (hoping?) I’ve been successful. I’d be shattered if I fell over on the last assignment and hadn’t finished the course.
The monthly review (22) is something I can’t finish until the last Sunday of the year but I’ve done those reviews every month so far.
Bored and Brilliant (12) and the sprout jar (21) are easy and I can do them in less than an afternoon. I just need to make time to do them.
I’ve made some enquiries about a fermentation class (19) but the one I wanted to do earlier in the year (and had booked into) was cancelled because of Covid. So I’m not sure if there will be something I can actually do before the end of the year. That one’s beyond my control.
The Photoshop class (7) is something that I’ve twisted and turned throughout the year and I now have five online courses to do, plus two photography courses all waiting for me to finish my uni course. I also have a book of basic Photoshop tutorials to work through. I think I’m going to work through that first briefly to make sure I have a handle on the tools and techniques that are used in the classes, so I don’t have to keep going back and trying to find out how to do things. I’m going to use my tablet (17) as part of this work so that should cover off this thing too.
I’ve changed the prime lens month (9) slightly. I’m going to spend 50 days (not a month like I had planned) with my 50 mm prime lens on my camera and make a photo every day. You can read more about that on my photoblog. I’ve decided not to use the DSLR exclusively for the 50 days so that I can continue to do my Hobart street corners project and a couple of other things that I’m documenting on my phone. But other than that, the 50 mm lens is it.
I flipped through Indistractable (13) during the week and started to make a list of the techniques I want to try, most of which I think I’m already doing but I want to go through it again and make sure I’ve got everything out of it before I call this thing done.
I think that’s everything except the studio (11). I technically have already set up the studio. The backdrops are there and Kramstable is using them. He’s also pinched one of my lights. Ha. I just need to work out how to use it for the photos I want to take. What lenses to use and where to put the camera and where to put the lights. And whether I need the flash off camera. Etc.
What did I achieve this week?
My regular check in: I was a little behind on my weekly photojournal photos because (a) I was on holiday so didn’t have access to my photos for half the week and (b) , because I was on holiday, I had way more photos to work through than I would have in a normal week. I enjoy the challenge of making the weekly collages because it forces me to focus on a small number of photos, usually around ten to 16, that document the entire week, rather than (in this case) try and process several hundred photos at once. But I caught it all up by the end of Sunday so it’s back on track.
My Hobart street corners project is up to date.
Apart from those two regular things, I achieved going on holiday and taking lots of photos, and starting my 50 mm challenge.
What didn’t go so well?
I don’t think anything didn’t not go well, apart from the entire day on Friday, when everything was too loud and too bright and I felt completely overstimulated and didn’t behave very well as a result.
What do I want to do better next week?
I guess learning to identify early warning signs of becoming distressed in circumstances like Friday’s and removing myself from situations instead of trying to push through because I “have to” stay somewhere.
Summary for the week
- Things completed this week: 0
- Things completed to date: 12 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20)
- Things I progressed: 3 (9, 13, 22)
- Things in progress I didn’t progress: 4 (7, 8, 11, 17)
- Things not started: 3 (12, 19, 21)
- Days I worked on my art (Goal = 2): 7
- Days I read a book (Goal = 7): 7
- Days I did yoga stretches (Goal = 7): 0
- Days I shut my computer down before 10.15 (Goal = 7): 7
- Days I went for a walk in the afternoon (Goal = 7): 6
- Days I had a lunch break away from my desk (Goal = 5 work days): 5
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