The year after the year that lasted forever.

I don’t know if I’ve ever been so excited for a calendar year to end. We’ll never forget 2020 as long as we live, but I’ll be glad to have it in the rearview mirror. Now that January is here, it’s time to talk about plans for 2021.

Normally, I would have taken a day or two off of work in early December and headed to a coffee shop to plan my next year. I’ve taken these “retreats” for the last four years and I find they really help me focus on what I want to get done. This year, because of the pandemic, there was no all-day coffee shop retreat and I just planned from home. And while I missed the structure of my retreat days, my process was basically the same as the last few years. I take a stack of index cards and write everything I want to do — one topic per card. Then I look for patterns and sort by priorities. Normally a plan emerges from the stacks of cards and I find 3-4 goals to focus on for the next year.

Looking through my cards, there were three major contexts that were obvious:

School. I’ll finish my Master’s degree in the Spring when I finish my thesis and comps. I’ve got a couple of academic papers I need to revise and submit for publication. And I need to decide if I’m going to proceed with the Ph.D. program.
Health. I’m committing to being healthier and 2021 is the year I’m going be more active and focus on taking care of myself — from fitness to meditation.
Creativity. I’ve got a bunch of creative projects I want to tackle. From big projects like typefaces and novels to small projects like stickers and short stories. I need to make sure I find time to be creative and have fun with some new projects.

But there was a single, overarching theme that became apparent as I flipped through my cards. A topic that connected all of the other themes together: I need to focus on building an intentional schedule.

For me, everything I want to do starts with structure. I need to carve time out for writing my thesis. Set aside time to read for fun. Find time to work out. Make sure I have time to do meal planning and grocery shopping. Cook dinner in instead of getting takeout. I simply do better when I have a structure to my day. And during coronavirus, but schedule and daily rhythm has been destroyed.

Building a consistent intentional schedule in 2021 will be a challenge. I’m working from home for the Spring semester. My kids are on a hybrid schedule meaning that they attend school online some days, and I take them to school on others. And their schedules can change from week-to-week depending on the pandemic. Pretty much every day is different. When summer arrives, I assume I’ll be heading back to work five-days-a-week so I will have to get adjusted to commuting again. I have to plan for my schedule will need to adapt to my changing life.

So for 2021, in order to focus on school, health and creativity, my goal is build an intentional schedule that carves out a daily, weekly and monthly structures for the year. I’ve got some ideas about how I want to tackle this structure, but I know it will change and evolve during the year. I’ll share what works (and what doesn’t) here on Sketchbook B over the year.

Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, researcher, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. Bob occasionally and begrudgingly posts to Twitter and Instagram. And he wears a mask to protect his community.