At the beginning of this year I wrote an entry (Seven Goal for ‘07) in which I set myself seven goals and improvements I wanted to make to my life this year. As we approach the half way point, I wanted to see how much I’ve been able to achieve so far, and what areas I still need to work on.
1. Read More
Mixed success to date. The first two weeks of my new daily commute, I committed myself to completing ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’, and though I made good progress, the book is lying on my desk at home with only half of the pages thumbed. I think part of the problem is that I’m not an avid reader - especially of fiction, so time to take a different tack.
Last week Al Gore’s new book ‘The Assault on Reason’ landed on my desk. From the excerpt I read on TIME.com, he seems to speak a lot of sense - in fact a lot of sounds similar to some of the things my brother has been talking about for quite sometime now. I’ll let you know what I think.
2. Learn More About My Profession
Up until recently I thought that this goal may be stagnating, but recent weeks have seen a resurgence in my desire to polish up my skill base.
I’ve been reading a lot about typography (vertical rhythm in particular), a topic that has been talked about quite a bit in the web design community. Of course this is resulting in me designing a new website (or network of websites in fact), yet whilst I’m still reasonably happy with this one, I’m planning on spending some time just experimenting and playing around with these new ideas.
I should also add, that I’m continually learning more about interaction design thanks to my work on Ning’s Social Network application. This is an area of design I’ve only touched upon in the past, and it’s great to feel that I’m no longer treading water here in California.
3. Take More Photos
This has probably been my greatest achievement this year so far, thanks to the ‘Project 365’ photo-a-day assignment I’ve given myself. We’ll ignore the fact that I’ve missed 12 days to date, but I’m not too bothered by that. My participation in this project is making me more inclined to take pictures of people and events than I would have avoided doing otherwise, and that’s the real goal for me.
4. Blog More
Whilst I’ve been actively blogging, I’m still only writing between 4-7 posts a month, which is the same as last year. However, I think I’m actually happy with that level of commitment, so maybe this doesn’t need to be a goal after all.
5. Improve My Fitness
Ah, this one has fallen off the rails a little (who would have guessed). Having said that I’ve probably spent more sessions in the Gym this year than any previous year, but it’s all about the consistency and that has been missing. I did buy myself some Nike+ running kit the other month but that has only seen light-off-day once, which is a massive waste.
I still intend to spend at least 3 nights at the gym each week, and a run around the neighbourhood at the weekend, I just need to be more disciplined.
6. Enjoy More Mornings
Not such a good record to show for myself here either. In fact this has got worse in recent weeks that on one occasion I actually missed the latest train I could catch to get into work at a reasonable hour. This was a bit of a wake up call (excuse the pun), and so this last week has seen me trying to get myself back on the 8:29 rather than the 9:12.
7. Create My Own Opportunities
This was the big one apparently, and for the month of April I may have lost sight of this goal as I fell back into old trends. I think I’m back on track now though.
There are a few opportunities I have let pass in these last six months, however there have also been many occasions when taken a more proactive approach.
SXSW was incredibly fulfilling thanks to this new attitude. Aside from my participation in 20×2, and actually talking to some of my peers and people whose work I admire, this event actually led to me being invited by Ryan Carson to FOWD event in London, which in turn lead to spending the evening with the guys from Clearleft and company.
The last month has also seen me attend a number of shows and events, with my attitude to any sort of invitation ‘just say yes’.
Things are certainly looking up in this regard, although there are always some decisions I baulk over, and that needs to change.
Anyway, I hope this post wasn’t too self-indulgent for you. Seems like I still have some work to do to be able to tick all these off as achieved at the end of the year.
How are your own resolutions (if you had any) holding up?
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My goals were pretty close to yours at the beginning of this year... and I'm right about where you are in terms of achieving them.
Although, I've found on days when I'm feeling less than inspired, #7 can turn into "Enjoy More of the Entire Day" and I wind up playing catch up the rest of the week. Grin.