I started the 100 days challenge following The100DayProject from The Great Discontent.
"It sounds so interesting" I thought, and looking at other people's projects, I was so inspired. "I'm ready to do this!" I mentioned to a couple people and thought if someone do it with me they can hold me accountable.
As a designer, I found finding a topic is extremely difficult. I was very self-aware that what other will think of this topic, will they find it boring or inspiring. So I spent weeks brainstorming an interesting topic, and a topic that no one is doing so it seems more creative. But the more I think about it, it becomes more stressful. Then I realized that's the wrong way of approaching this project. It doesn't really matter what you do, because it's something that you're doing it for yourself.
What helped me decide eventually, is to focus on "What I want to improve on", "What I'm interested in" and "What could help me become a better designer". I decided to do information visualization (infographic) because I'm always interested in data, and how to present the data in different way the help people consume and better understand the information.
This is a snippet of the data visualization that I did on Instagram . I did it for 42 days, and stopped. The was last year but I still told myself I'm gonna get back to it.
The reason I told other people I switched a new job, I didn't really have time. I moved, my family came visit, etc. There are so many reasons that I could tell others, but I knew that it was excuses. There are a couple things I learn from this challenge still, and I'm positive I'll get back to it because I had so much fun doing it :)
- Find something you're interested in, so everyday you're excited to do the challenge
- Gather data (or depends on what your topic is, for example, sketches, you can save it to pinterest) and save it somewhere easily accessible. This will help you focus on the skills instead of spending time finding resources
- Have someone hold you accountable so you don't stop
- Knowing that you're doing it for yourself, it doesn't really matter what other thinks