#02 Gathering momentum...
Sketchnotes 28th July to 3rd August
Dot and Dash
I’ve recently applied for a consultancy role that caught my interest. It combines my background in specification work within the food industry with service design principles to enhance systems and processes. Unsure if this will progress through the next stage but it gave me a chance to update my various CV's for different roles.
Went off for a chat at the Sheffield United Football ground to check out behind the scenes and find out more about their networking events there. Got to check out the new pitch, the changing rooms and the directors lounge, which was very plush!
Facilitation and workshops
Getting ready for a workshop next week to help a small business map out three years of growth. I'll be using the Technology of Participation method to gather ideas and tackle future challenges remotely. Tools like SessionLab, Butter, Miro, and Canva are my go to software tools - We have plenty to cover in just two hours, but it's manageable since this is part of our ongoing weekly series leading up to the one-year roadmapping output.
With upcoming LSP workshops in Sept - now is the time to dive into Lego soup and sort out my kits ready for the next events. Looking forward to delivering a special event for the Olympic Legacy Park in Sheffield with the theme of connecting communities.
Lovebrain
Stats this week for memory and recall, missed out on the live breath work and visualisation session with around 300 people in the community- but working on the recap this weekend. BRECA came in handy so many times this week, calming anger over a very annoying driver right before a business meeting. Focusing on work projects with such clarity and no distractions. I’ve been working on boosting my memory, and this week I managed to complete the exercise 30 seconds faster than last week! To make it more challenging, I practiced with distracting music and still managed to recall 17 out of 20 words—I’m pretty happy with that result.
I also finished speed-reading two more books using the metronome set at 300 beats. Just 45 minutes later, another book was done. Admittedly, they were short books, but it’s still a great way to push my reading skills further!
App Development
Recruitment and onboarding research participants has started up in full swing, after posting on Linkedin I have be inundated with so many offers of help and support. Setting up all admin behind user research sessions takes a bit of time, luckily I have some systems and processes set up from the previous round.
Deep in preparing for the user research sessions and preparing up the wireframes and journey flows, putting to use all my user centred design skills. I'm working on moving all the insights into a sketchnote visual format to make it easier to refer to.
Another bit of Fantastic news is that we've won an grant for support with Tech SY so I am looking forward to bringing the idea forward faster with the support from Trove Ventures who are partnering with Tech SY. Celebrating the good news, as it made my Friday!
I've been ploughing through research articles on adult neurodiversity and coping mechanisms, learning a lot in the process about my own neurodiversity and the breadth of coping mechanisms. Tools I've been using for this is Notebook LM and Perplexity. This has saved me tonnes of time and I love the interactive mind map in notebook LM which can follow threads within all the research papers.
Personal development
My coach went over something that sparked a bit of creativity in my head - I was a bit like a swiss army knife .. having a broad range of experiences able to tap into the right tool for the work. So I'm working on sketching that out for next week!
I’ve cut my social media time to 30 minutes a day using a tool called Opal to block distractions. Honestly, I feel much more focused and balanced throughout the day. I have realised how many times I pick up my phone, check messages and get caught up on scrolling random things. The stats so far have shown I have cut my time on social media by about 10 hours a week. Insane!
Graphic facilitation work
New pens arrived as I am looking to sketch more portraits this week - so I needed some diverse pen colours! check out Inky shop. Love these colours now I feel like I can actually do a proper sketchnote selfie.
Progress on my PACTs - as I don't do smart goals anymore - I do these instead!
PACT 1 (7 days): I will dedicate 15-30 minutes daily for portrait practice using Eva-Lotta Lamm’s Pragmatic Portraits Masterclass. Link to her shop. Tackling this as doing portraits is so hard but this course is brilliant.
PACT 2 (3/52) I will mind map a book a week. Stuck on a plane ride I managed to get through Austin Kleon's Book Keep Going. Short and simple insights to keep you motivated as a creative. Redrew this as part of my memory recall work.
PACT 3 (3/30 days) I will produce a weekly sketchnote summary. Working on my sketchnote newsletter and reflecting back on the week - had some big wins and some really varied work.
If you enjoyed this visual sketchletter, I’d greatly appreciate your support in sharing it with your network. If you'd like to stay updated over the coming weeks, feel free to subscribe—it’s completely free!