#The100DayProject

Tomorrow, on the 2nd of April, #The100DayProject starts again, and until now I really hadn’t considered doing it. I sort of took part last year, privately sketching a knitting pattern a day for a hundred days, off and on, and beyond the length of the project, but moving across the country in the middle of it shook things up, and I considered it totally reasonable not to stick strictly to the plan given the circumstances.

I don’t know what it is about these challenges, #The100DayProject, writing 1000 thousand words a day in March (which got me journaling a lot and helped me work through some of the things I’ve been struggling with lately), but something about committing to something on a shorter term, but more consistently, really speaks to the way I work.

Having said that, I also know that I need to go in with a level of flexibility. Last year I definitely didn’t work on pattern designs for 100 consecutive days, but I did end up with a hundred sketches that I can look back at now and use for the basis of knits long into the future.

And looking at the project again this year, just a day before it starts, I’m considering a different flexible approach.

Instead of focusing on a creative idea, and spending 5 minutes doing it every day, like sketching a design or practising calligraphy or having a personal dance party, I think I might try to take this structured time and use it to get back into Knits Please, and learn how to be inspired by it again.

There are a lot of things that run through my head when I think about Knits Please, and I’m sure you can probably relate. When I’ve got something in front of me that feels kind of big and insurmountable, when I think of all of the different elements that go into this one big thing, and the fact that there are steps to be taken all across the board, I get that feeling of overwhelm and I shut down. And that’s exactly how I feel right now.

I want to ease myself back into Knits Please, but with that I’m considering current patterns in the works, future pattern designs, Instagram, emails, commitments I’d made to other people, what’s in my stash that I want to be knitting, and a million and one other things, so when it comes to deciding where to focus my energy my response has been to freak out, turn around, and do something else entirely.

But I think that if I approach this big thing alongside #The100DayProject, breaking it down into small chunks of work that I can do in a few minutes every day, I might just be able to do it.

So it’s time to think about taking the big, vague goal of getting back into the swing of Knits Please, and breaking it down into smaller goals, and then into the steps that will help me to achieve those goals.

Honestly, I’m not quite sure just how I’m going to go about it yet, but I think I’m going to consider it in three stages: the master plan that outlines the big vision and where I want to be 101 days from now, a few key goals that are tangible and that I can work towards throughout the project, and the small daily actions that I can take to getting one step closer at a time.

There are also a few keys areas that immediately spring to mind when I think about what I want to get done, and those are existing patterns in the works, a new pattern, consistency on Instagram, and building a regular email newsletter. I think these are a great basis to work from, and it’s easy to put some real-action steps into place in order to achieve things around these areas.

One thing that I’m conscious of, in the midst of getting things done, is to remember the why of it all. That’s one of the things I feel that I’ve lost along the way, and so it’s important to me to keep it at the forefront of my mind when taking these actions and becoming more active with Knits Please again.