I’m a massive fan of the New Year- it’s a great excuse to kickstart new habits and goals (also it usually includes a big party!). I’ve chosen 12 goals for two reasons; one is that arbitrarily related to the 12 months of the year and the other is that I believe that there are enough to reasonably manage to achieve in the upcoming year without being massively overwhelmed. Here they are:
Read at least 2 books per month- one fiction and one non-fiction. I don’t read nearly enough at the moment and I find reading a really great source of inspiration for my design ideas!
Budget my money better than I currently do. At the moment, I rely on an approximate understanding of how much money I have when making purchases. Although I believe I have a healthy relationship with money, there’s no harm in budgeting and therefore allowing me to increase my savings!
Wash up as soon as I’ve used dishes. One of my most infuriating character flaws is my messiness, and simply taking more care to clean up after myself will make me (and my flatmates!) much more relaxed.
Read up every day on current events. Although I like to think that I’m quite well-versed in the current events of the design world, I would love to gain a better understanding of the world’s current political, financial and social climate.
Be more proactive in my design projects. I’m very susceptible to ‘coasting’ through academic and design projects, and I want to become better at pushing through the bare minimum and actually producing work that is above and beyond what is expected.
Get into nature at least once a week. Living in London is incredibly fun but it also means that I barely ever get to be immersed in nature. I want to, every week, spend at least a couple of hours walking around a natural area that isn’t just a manicured lawns of the inner London parks.
Sketch or design every day. Oddly, one of the things I find the most difficult to keep up with in Architecture school is the rate that many people fill their sketchbooks. It’s good practice to sketch, paint or design as much as possible every day in order to encourage new ideas and for you to simply keep your hand in.
Try and conquer my extreme perfectionism. I think that one of the main things standing in my way of accomplishing so many of my goals is my incessant perfectionism- finding ways to ease/ overcome this will stop me procrastinating and let me take action on the things I want to get done.
Fly solo more purposefully. Although I do enjoy my own company, often I spend alone time scrolling through social media or mindlessly watching a film to pass the time. This year, I’d love to do more purposeful activities on my own rather than just absent-mindedly filling time.
Post more. In my opinion, using social media to document creation rather than using it for consumption encourages a much healthier relationship with it. I want to post more on tumblr and instagram- content from photo shoots, my sketchbooks, design projects and anything else I may produce.
Curate with intention. This is kind of the flip-side of my ‘post more’ goal- when I am consuming social media, I want it to be beneficial and inspiring. Curating boards (eg. on Pinterest) and filling sketchbook pages with art, ideas, designs, writings and other media will enrich my references.
Learn as much as possible. This is quite an arbitrary one to close with, but I want to learn as much as possible outside just my subject area of Architecture. The fact that I am at a large university in London massively facilitates this- there are so many cheap/ free classes I can take to learn new skills.
I’m going to be partially using my Tumblr to hold myself accountable for these goals- if I post on here, even if no-one sees, it will be a concrete record of my achievements and will hopefully motivate me to continue! :)
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