After using my concept for a few days, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to accomplish all the activities I’d listed for myself before April 9. However, that doesn’t mean that I won’t continue them until they’re accomplished. I put turquoise colored check marks in the “Read Two New Books” and “28 Day Workout Challenge” circles to represent activities that I’ve completed only halfway, and dark blue checkmarks in the ones I’ve fully completed. I only had enough time to finish Becoming, as I had a lot of work to do for school this past week. I hope I’ll be able to start reading The Long Walk this weekend, though! As for the 28 day workout challenge, I’m actually exactly fourteen days into it, so that resulted in a half-way checkmark as well. I also embroidered with an embroidery loop, as opposed to embroidering jeans like I originally planned.
I think my experience with my design went pretty well, as it was nice to see my activity goals in a visual way. Also, checking off the goals that I’d completed felt really satisfying, and it showed me that I’m making the most of my spare time at home. Before creating my prototype and setting these five goals for myself, I found myself doing whatever I wanted on a daily basis. Sometimes, a day or two would go by and the only things I’d have accomplished were taking notes on the lectures my math professor posted on Moodle and watching more episodes of All American on Netflix. I was letting my days go to waste, and it not only hindered what things I could’ve accomplished, it also caused me to be really unmotivated.
Creating my activities planner allowed me to set goals for myself, but at the same time it wasn’t strict to the point where I’d feel bad if I were to miss a planned activity on a certain day. Some days I would only do my workout challenge, and other days I would do a little bit of everything. Knowing that I accomplished something every day that would add up to a completed product felt extremely rewarding. After coming out of this experience and having completed many planned activities, I know I will use this technique in the future to make my days more efficient, especially during the summer.
I believe that my prototype helped me attain Creativity and Proficiency on the Design Hierarchy of Needs. I was able to complete two projects, painting and embroidery, and my day to day activities were more proficient than before. When we first entered this quarantine period, I think I was mostly just functioning. I was doing basic things, nothing really that challenging or new in any way. I’m really glad that at the end of this design process, I’ve moved way past this Functionality aspect.
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