Earlier, I talked about my “writing goals” for 5 books, which is obviously a pretty ambitious creativity goal already. Some of that will be back-ended most likely, and I have a lot of other creative outlets that I’m pursuing. But many of my other goals are activity-based — exercise, cooking, events, etc. While some of them, like cooking, may seem creative, they are not really what I’m thinking of when I’m tapping creativity. So today I’m going to list a LONG set of new goals designed to push my creative juices to the forefront.

25. Make 60 items with 3D printing. I have a 3D printer, and I haven’t got it up and running yet. There’s a lot of psychology tied up in the “why not”, too long to address here, and besides, I’ve already talked about it before. I’m sure everyone was taking notes on previous posts hehehe. Annnnnyway, I want to do more “fun” things for the future when I get it going, BUT for some of it, I want to design the prints myself. I was tempted to commit to more items than that, maybe one a week, or to require that the items be designed entirely by me, but that’s a bit unrealistic. I suspect in most cases, I would take an existing design out there and tweak it to what I want.

26. Make 60 items with other methods. That probably sounds vague, but it is a bit of an odd grouping to categorize. I have Lego kits to assemble. A plan for a Raspberry Pi. Repurposing old computers into a video game option with Jacob. A robot. Oh, and just for fun? I’ve had a very long commitment to wanting to learn more origami. Like, all the way back to Grade 6 when I first saw it. I’ve got paper, books, diagrams, everything else except apparently the will to commit to actually doing it.

27. Play 60 (physical) games. I want to call them board games, but well, there are card games in there too. Now, I could JUST play the ones we already have in the house, and that would reach 60 right there. But most of them wouldn’t count. We play them too often. No, for me, this is a bit like the restaurant commitment — it can’t be somewhere we would go without effort, and it can’t be a game here that we would play anyway. It has to be something that takes a bit of effort to do. For instance, I played Camel Up with friends a few months ago and really enjoyed it. But finding a copy to buy is almost impossible, it’s out of print currently. Soooo, if I want to play, we have to make time to go to their house and play. Assuming they’re willing to play again. Equally, I’m getting into Print ‘n’ Play games that I’ve found on the internet. Full games, ready to play, or at least ready to play once you download them and print them. With lots of fun little hobby-like tips and tricks to make it more creative when doing the assembly.

28. Design 5 board games. Jacob has lots of ideas about board games, and has already created a few at a camp he was part of during previous summers. I want to turn them into playable games, using the tools from the above hobbies. In a sense, I’ll use the techniques of 3D printing and the tools/approaches for PnP games to support building and designing 5 board games with Jacob.

29-34. Complete six learning courses. I’m assigning them by calendar year, so there’s a bit of a glitch in the planning where I get 6 calendar years including the current one for learning. I know the first one is going to be learning to use GIMP. I’ve already started, in fact, although I went a bit sideways of late. The other 5? I have some ideas, but not sure in which order or if my plans will bear fruit. I might decide I want to do something on Greek history and then realize it’s really boring. So it is more the commitment than knowing “exactly” what it looks like yet. But they are going to be significant enough that I want to treat them as separate commitments, not simply 1.

35. 260 new blog entries (not including reviews). There are times when I get away from the blog, just sort of drift. By contrast, I know there are people out there who commit to one post every day. And I might average out to that in fact when some things are posted. But I’m not talking simply about counting ANY blog topic, as many of them are out of bounds for the goal. For instance, posting my writing for books contributes to other commitments, not this one. Equally, I’ll have a separate one just for reviews. So those will be out. Mind you, somewhat ironically, this blog post itself DOES count. Basically, I want to blog about my thoughts and what I’m doing, not just meeting quotas. Call it free-range blogging. 🙂 About once a week.

36. 300 new reviews. Remember those board games I’m going to read? Books? Movies to go to or TV shows to watch? Recipes to curate? Well, I’m going to blog about them in the form of reviews. All added up, I’m aiming for 300 reviews. I haven’t quite decided if it is 60 per topic or just 300 in total, as I could probably meet most of it just from reading books. Or posting old TV show reviews of seasons. But we’ll see as I go. I would like a bit of a balance.

37. Curate a list of 300 of my favourite songs. I think the final list will ACTUALLY be a bit longer than that, but not sure what the rate will be for the next 5 years. I want to commit to 600 songs on the list. Maybe even 1000. But I’ll commit to 300 for now.

38. Learn to play the piano. Okay, this requires a bit of explanation. No, I’m not going to start the Conservatory plan and try to do tests or anything. I will rely on books, videos, maybe a lesson or two here and there, plus guidance from Jacob and Andrea. My goal, such as it is, is basically to get to the point where I could play 10 songs relatively well, albeit with errors. I don’t want it to be cringe-y I guess. Kind of songs that my mother would have enjoyed hearing, even if not perfectly played. Yes, it’s a separate goal from the learning courses above. Those are more knowledge, this one is more creative. And the goal is in-house performance, not some recital or public performance. Maybe a random video for evidence.

39. Do a memory challenge. Do you remember way back in high school when you took chemistry? I don’t, because I didn’t take it. Not because I wasn’t into science, or wasn’t intrigued by chemistry, but in part because the idea of memorizing the periodic table looked really hard and seemed ridiculously stupid. If you watch Jeopardy, you frequently see people talking afterwards about how they learned x or y, and often it was flashcards to help them get ready. There are whole internet sites and fora where people debate the best ways to prepare. For me? I am not very good at geography. I probably couldn’t label more than 15 states on the US map, maybe 20. European geography? Probably 10. Asia? Here and there okay, other areas would be a total wash (particularly islands). And Africa? Fuggedaboutit. Soooo…here’s my thought. I want to be able to turn myself, for a one-time performance, into … wait for it … Yakko Warner. Remember the Animaniacs? He did two renditions. All the US states and their capitals AND all the countries of the world. It was updated a few years ago for the list, although set to the same music. Jacob did it a few years ago, and I want to follow suit. Except that part of my learning is not just the words to the song — I want to be able to memorize where on a map they actually are…when we play trivia together, I avoid geography questions like the plague while Jacob and Andrea double down on geography, worldwide, and travel and leisure. Soooo, I’m going to do it. I’m going to memorize the US states AND the countries/nations of the world.

40. Do a brain challenge. This one is a bit harder to figure out what to do. Lots of articles out there talk about using your brain, challenging yourself, doing Sudoku or crossword puzzles to stay fresh and active, don’t let your mind turn to mush. I have an app on my phone called The Puzzle Page. I wonder if I should use that, it’s simple, and I enjoy doing the puzzles. I used to do the puzzles on my Android app, and the status didn’t transfer over, unfortunately, so I restarted from scratch. Back when the app started, they had about 4-6 puzzles per day of different types. Now it’s closer to 8-10 from a longer list of x puzzles. Some are really easy — Armada is a bit like a picture cross except there are only a set number of “blocks”, almost like a negative-space picture cross. Circuits, Ox and Xs, Picture Block, Picture Cross, Picture Cross (Colour), Picture Path, and Word Search round out the list of 9 easiest ones. For a medium level of challenge, I would put Bridges, Charge Up, Cross Out, Cross Sum, Futoshiki, Picture Sweep, Quote Slide, Wordy. and Word Snake on the lower end while Codeword, Kakuro, One Clue, Sudoku, and Word Slide at the higher end for me. I find Crossword, Killer Sudoko, and Link Words the hardest, just an extra set of parameters or more the need to see “letters” in permutations and combinations that are not the way my brain thinks. I’ve always struggled with more advanced crosswords. And this one has three or four variations of crosswords for their daily. Call it about 26 official types, around 30 unofficial types. According to my progress, I have completed 4800 puzzles on this app, 322 days worth of puzzles, 158 special pages, 14 special issues, and 17 events. It takes me to level 199. Some I find easy and boring, others I find hard and boring. Others in the middle are fun, but the completist in me wants to keep going. Is it the best way to keep my brain stimulated “formally”? Or do I do something more test-oriented. Like downloading some math contests from various sources out on the net and completing them. I like logic puzzles, could do more of those, but often my challenge is how long they take to work through the hard ones. I’m not looking for an activity that takes me 45 minutes a day to do. The app is good, I can try something out for 5 minutes, and move on. I don’t know if it’s the right “set”. Is my goal 10 a day? Or do I do something really off-beat. Like set myself up that at some point in the next 5 years, I’m going to pay to re-write the LSAT or GMAT that I last took when I was 23. It’s certainly an external arbitrary standard way to gauge change in brain power, at least by focusing on the percentile aspect.

41. Learn to juggle. I don’t have very good hand-to-eye coordination. But I’ve always thought that it would be fun to be able to juggle, at least basic stuff. Three balls. I’ve thought about other things like rolling coins on my knuckles, the pen spin people used to do in school (and which Jacob does now), but I never really had the dexterity for it. I think I can do juggling? Or at least try and create some funny embarrassing videos of myself. And no, I don’t want to develop a routine with 5 oranges, a knife and a chainsaw. I just want to try the basics.

It’s more creative than I am now. Maybe there will be other things to add, but that’s my list so far.