One little word for 2018 – my reflections

3 min read

At the end of 2017, I decided to choose one little word for the coming year. A lens through which I could assess decisions. Something to keep working at. To always keep in the back of my mind.

The word I chose was Focus. You can read more about it here. I had felt previously that one of my weaknesses was that I easily lost concentration and had too many balls in the air all at once. This caused me to not finish things and I often felt a bit scattered and unsatisfied.

What didn’t work

Looking back, I was by no means perfect at staying focused, for example, I started a whole range of new craft projects before finishing off previous ones. To name a few of my ‘to finish’ projects: I have pattern pieces for a dress, two jumpers are cast onto my knitting needles, a pair of crocheted slippers and some macrame…

I also still have a tendency to multitask. Especially when I am stressed I find it difficult to decide what task is the most important and I try to do everything at once, which never saves any time or leads to very good outcomes.

However, in many areas of my life, I worked with a lot of concentration and did not procrastinate much.

What worked

I focused a lot on my Master’s degree and worked really hard to finish off my last taught modules. (The only thing left is my dissertation now!) I revised a lot for my exams and managed to stick to a revision schedule and get grades I was very happy with. At the same time, I was able to work on many interesting projects as part of my job. I learned new skills and did things for the very first time, like facilitating a workshop or translating a live focus group.

Studying, working, and being married took up the majority of my time and energy this year. And I am very happy with that. I was not able to blog much or have the concentration to follow through on some bigger knitting projects. (Edd, I promise I will finish knitting your jumper eventually!)

One little word for 2019

I really liked having a word for the year and FOCUS was just right, even though not in the way I had expected. This is why I decided to also choose a word for 2019. Come back here on Tuesday the 1st of January 2019 to read what it is. I am looking forward to seeing you then. Lots of love x