Month #2: Designing something every day (and stop eating dessert)
A Year of Monthly Challenges
Last month, my two-part goal was to design something every day and stop eating dessert (except for on Thanksgiving). Here’s how it went:
Goal 1: Design something every day
Successes
Failures
I only completed 18/30 days of design. This was a hard challenge and I didn’t step up to it. Particularly difficult was making myself sit down and work on it when I was traveling or surrounded by friends and family doing other fun activities.
My initial goal was to create something I was proud to post on Dribbble every day. That was usually taking multiple hours per day, especially since DailyUI challenges are so open-ended that I felt compelled to create inventive or whimsical contexts around each of them. If I didn’t have the time I needed to do that, I started just skipping it altogether.
I eventually constrained the challenge to be simply “spend an hour per day designing something that isn’t work related.” I allowed myself to work on the same projects multiple days in a row. I was able to accomplish this much more consistently, but it was too late to make up lost time and I didn’t create as much content as I had hoped.
What’s Next?
This challenge was awesome when I was inspired about the prompt and could get lost in what I was working on; When that wasn’t the case, it felt like a real slog.
While it was cool to experiment with new themes and contexts, I usually found myself wishing I had a real world problem set to work on. After all, I’m a designer because I love creative problem-solving, not because I like moving shapes around and picking colors (I do love that part, of course, but mostly as a means to an end).
I plan on taking on another design challege in the future, but will do some planning and find a meaingful project to dedicate my efforts to, rather than a bunch of random one-offs.
Goal 2: Stop eating dessert
Successes
- Managed not to eat “dessert desserts” (cake, cookies, ice cream) on any day but Thanksgiving.
Failures
- Breaking the rules. I suffered from plenty of lapses when it came to eating “non-dessert desserts,” like sweet yogurt and cereal, to satisfy my sweet tooth after meals.
What’s next?
The habit I set out to break is the urge to eat something sweet after every meal. I want to treat dessert as an infrequent pleasure, rather than a mundane expectation.
I’ve definitely made progress this month (I went from shoveling handfuls of M&Ms after lunch to wishing I could eat a blueberry yogurt), but the craving still comes along now and then. I’m going to give myself a month without a specifically defined challenge to see how I can do without it. If I’m just as bad as before, I’ll try a stricter approach in January.
Month #3: Write 250 words every day
I’ve always wanted to try journaling as a way to collect and organize my thoughts. Each day I’ll block everything out and write at least 250 words (one page double-spaced) about whatever pops into my head.
Note: This month I’m going to actually print out my calendar and put it on the fridge. Last month I think I would’ve skipped fewer days if I had to stare at my laziness every time I walked by.
Next blog entry to be posted on January 1st.
