What I'm learning in 2023

Hey everyone! 👋

Since starting my career in Digital Adoption back in 2021, I've been much more aware of what skills I'm absorbing, especially from my colleagues and the growth I've been experiencing since that time.

This year, I've set myself a couple of skills I'd like to look back on this time next year, personal and professional alike, so that I can benchmark my improvements and appreciate the progress I've made.

I'm not setting myself any concrete goals for these as it avoids me feeling anxious about chasing after a target all year. Rather, I'm just building towards a similar point of recognition and appreciation for all the things I'll have learnt during 2023. If anything, I thought it may be interesting for you to see what goals I'm tackling and what resources I'm using to approach them.

Depth in Design 🧰

First up is being more conscious and considerate of my web designer abilities.

In 2022, I designed five no-code websites for small charities in the North East. I learnt a lot about design practices and principles, but I was also fully aware of how little I still knew, particularly around UI and UX in web design. To begin learning some of the fundamentals, I signed onto Dann Petty's course in 'Standing Out as a Web Designer'. This video series was really insightful and has peeled back the curtain on web design for me, helping me recognise the practices of good design that I had taken for granted until only recently.

Improving my UI and UX skills was one thing, but I also wanted to understand more fundamentally the intention behind the websites I had been creating. For this, I turned to my favourite past-time of downloading information, a big cup of tea and a good book!

I began with Lou Downe's excellent book on Good Services, a guide towards 'demystifying and decoding what makes services of value'. The nuggets of wisdom and informative anecdotes contained within were exactly what I'd be looking for and I think I'll be revisiting its pages many times over in the years to come as I'm designing more services myself, websites or otherwise. Next up is Daniel Priestley's study on what makes businesses and their services high in demand in his book Oversubscribed which came highly recommended by my colleague Adam. I admit I've still a lot to learn about entrepreneurship, so I know this will be an enlightening read.

Back To Basics🧗🧑‍🎨

For my personal goals this year, I'd like to see myself get better at two particular hobbies: climbing and miniature painting.

I've had a long history with both of these activities and yet I would still describe myself as a novice in both. I've been happy with that for as long as I've pursued them, enjoying the social aspects that they provide, whether that's visiting a new climbing wall or playing miniature board games with friends. However, I've recently reached a point where I felt that I was starting to plateau in terms of what my current level of fitness/expertise could achieve in these disciplines. I was missing out on further nuances of these activities simply by not being adept enough to experience them.

But now, with some handy tools like a hangboard for finger strength training and a wet palette for extended painting sessions, I feel confident that I'll be looking back this time next year with a new-found appreciation for all the things I've learned.

To round off this ramble, I'd like to take this much-belated opportunity to wish you a happy new year and I hope you're similarly excited about 2023 and what new opportunities the year will bring with it. Thanks for reading and take care!