The Fifth and A Half Update!: 8 Major Goals I Have For 2024
As you can gather from the previous update, I wasn't really feeling last year. At all. 🥴
I want this year to be VERY different. Here are some of the things I hope to do:
1. Go to sleep at a better time
Ever since high school (has it really been that long? Couldn't have been the entire time...), I've had a bad habit with going to sleep late and this only worsened in college...back then, it was more so me panicking that I didn't have any free time to myself. Now, it's mainly because I'm unsatisfied with what I've accomplished during the day. Most of the time, I try to comfort that emotion by scrolling endlessly on the internet. Other times, it'll be due to me stalling on something I've been wanting to do since I woke up. And when I'm locked into a project, I don't want to stop until I finish or at least get somewhere close to finished.
Fearing that I'll miss out on something, duping myself into thinking I have more time than I really do--either way, I tend to underestimate how long it'll take me to satisfy these wants and it ends up being very close to midnight. Even when I do get my eight hours, I'm still tired when I wake up. Usually too tired to want to do much of anything, so I'm tempted to stay in the bed longer. By the time I do go get up, pretty much half of my day is gone and that doesn't leave me with enough time to get bigger things done. This is discouraging and I get unsatisfied with my day. It's such a terrible cycle.
Tiredness has negatively affected the quality of my life for too long. It makes me more likely to stay in or change my mind on an outing. If I do go out somewhere, it makes me not want to go as far as I'd like to go. Being tired has even interfered with the jobs I've had and prevented me from being my absolute best.
I've seriously HAD IT with these all these sleep deprivation problems I've inflicted on myself! I want to be more aware of my surroundings and enjoy them! And I'm also (hopefully) going to be starting a new job soon. So this year, I'm going to learn how to force myself off my devices around 9pm-10pm and get myself more accustomed to waking up at 6am. I'm going to remind myself that it's more than ok to pick up where I left off and take a break. Whatever I didn't accomplish in the day, I can try again tomorrow; there's no need to cram.
2. Live healthier when I'm awake
Over the years, I've spent way too much time being stagnant, sitting down in front of the computer or
Isn't enough to sleep right and move more, but to eat better too: If I remember correctly, I started eating more organic products somewhere around 2019. For the new year, I want to look into more gluten-free and maybe even dairy-free options (more so the former than the latter). I don't think I'll be able to eliminate gluten and dairy completely, but I do want to at least try having less of each. I don't know how necessary this might be for me to improve but I want to see how much of my health changes.
Something else I want to work on is my lack of Vitamin D. I know for a fact that this is a big contribution to my tiredness...sun exposure would be a great way to tackle this since spending too much time indoors caused it...but it's pretty cold outside. While I will continue to push myself outside, I'm gonna start taking a supplement and seek out certain foods for now.
Y'know what, I just want to cook and bake more of my own food this year. I usually toss premade stuff into the microwave or oven due to being impatient. Like, I'm either too hungry in that moment or I want to get back to whatever I was doing before. This makes me kinda sad...I never really make anything out of scratch. I used to make pancakes and regular cakes (with pre-made mix), I'm slowly starting to customize cookies again (I switched over to premade dough a while ago), and I tend to blend soup with ramen and other ingredients...but I want to make a real meal someday! Try a recipe I've never done before! And have fun! I said I wanted to get into more crafty arts and making food is adjacent to that.
3. Spend less time on social media
In the spring of 2023, Redbubble decided they were going to add more charging fees to the sales artists make on their platform. This upset me greatly. I was hardly earning anything and now they were making it harder to meet my withdraw threshold? I didn't think it was worth it, so I eventually had to disable my listings. As I turned away from that to find another Print-On-Demand website and work on my June Birthday Project, Instagram decided to double-down on a horrible new update to the tag search. Gone were the recent and reels tabs to help better organize things. Now there was only Top Posts and Top Recent Posts with hardly a difference in between them...
As expected, the likes on my posts immediately cratered and combined with the issues users have been having with the algorithm, things basically became a popularity contest. Unless you have tons of followers, you won't get far. Unless you have a bunch of people sharing your post, you won't get far. Personally, I hate telling people to share my posts, I think it makes people want to share less! Why should I have to depend on others instead of Instagram giving me the proper exposure? I want people to genuinely share my stuff because they just want to, not because I asked!
Most people on the app don't feel like playing algorithm games, they just want to scroll through the people they followed or the specific topic they searched for. Oh, so I'm supposed to follow the tags now? What if there's something in that tag I don't wanna see? I want to follow people who make their content in a certain way. But how can I do that if I'm seeing "recent" posts from seven days ago?!
Y'all! I can't take this anymore!!! I'm trying to find people who share my (sometimes rare) interests or a classic character I like, but in order to do that, I have to go through a sea of shock value images by people who could care LESS about integrity. I want to support those people who DO genuinely care and show them that there are other people who like that thing too! And oh my gosh, I'm just now remembering how people have to censor words like "shop", "commission" and even the phase "link in my bio" so your posts won't be suppressed...and your comments section won't be full of BOTS! I HATE the bot problem Instagram has! It's disgusting! And it doesn't seem like they're even trying to fix it!
I...I don't have high hopes for the future of social media as a whole. I honestly feel like it's going to get worse in this particular year...I could have sworn I came across an article claiming that the search change came about to prevent unwanted use of the platform. If this is true, it stinks that every tag on IG is being treated collectively rather than targeting the more controversial content. It's especially not fair for newer users who are trying to make something out of their accounts...they have to work even harder than older users!
I have a more recent account for the art business I've been trying to start, so I have a good idea of how they're feeling. With the algorithm not having the following feed to default, the removal of the Recent tab, having to censor words and a small following... how the frick are we supposed to market ourselves on this app?? You either have to come up with something mind-blowingly outrageous or pay them to promote you (another possible goal they had with the search tag change). I can't do this yet, so I would have to use another app / site as an attempt to work around this. If there's another place that's giving me more visibility without having to pay, why am I spending all of this time and energy into something that's not working out?
The people currently running Instagram have taken all of the casualness out of being an Instagram user. Whether you're seeking to monetizing your presence or not, you have to come up with a complicated strategy. Mmyeah, no. I'm not dealing with this nonsense. I don't want to stress out over being seen anymore, I just want to post when I want to and not get punished for being inconsistent. If IG is going to stay like this, I can put that on the lower end of my priorities and go do other things. Like going to the library! I want to read more books! And go to events! I've been meaning to be more connected with my community. The pandemic really messed with that...
(It would also be great if I could get my bike fixed this year.)
4. Work on my Blogger websites
Since I'm going to try moving away from social media places like Instagram, I want to start posting more frequently to Blogger and learn more about the markup languages that are compatible with it. When the platform didn't work quite like I thought it would, I lost interest for a while, but if I can get the hang of how HTML works, I could make my blogs more unique and engaging to come back to. I've been very inspired by what others have been able to do on another hosting platform called Neocites, and while I am tempted to join, I'd rather see what I can do here first; it's completely free! And the storage limit is basically endless! (Or at least I think so...? Something like that, I hope.)
Having a website ready to share with others could really help the art business I'm working on. I think prioritizing other aspects of KTCW, instead of having that part established, is another reason why I've been unsuccessful so far. I feel like an additional factor could be due to a lack of background for the characters featured in a lot of my designs. When I created them, I didn't intend to make them that deep; they were solely meant to be placeholders until I was ready to reintroduce my older characters. I saw a lot more potential in that group and didn't feel like wasting the best of my creativity on the newer ones.
But it's taking such a long time to get the older group situated...and I've had these newer characters for about three years now...It certainly wouldn't hurt to come up with something to make them more interesting. I would love to be able to reach a point where I can monetize my work website and I need to make it worth coming back to, so, this year, I want to further last year's plans of promoting them through comics. Or at least have a section of short, bite-sized descriptions to help others to have a general idea of who these characters are.
The third website I would like to work on this year is one involving my Delpad theory. My whole interest in Blogger came from searching for a new place to host my DuckTales side-blog, and while I did do some experimenting, I kept losing motivation. Not just because of the formatting, but the emotional baggage that comes with discussing the topic. When the show was ongoing, there was a lot of stupid drama over people not wanting Delpad to happen and now that the show is over, I'm
...But since the show's finale, I've realized (and found out about) some things that make me want to try again. I've been posting these newer details in my Instagram stories, but now I need to put them in a place where they won't disappear after 24 hours. I have fanart that I either haven't posted online, allowed to get buried or haven't put to paper yet. There's a whole other installment to my "Association" essay series that I wasn't able to publish in time before Season 3. Della and Launchpad being together is too good of an idea for me to just give up on; it deserves to have a place where it can be appreciated, so I'm going to figure out a way to make that happen. I plan to focus first on reposting everything that's already been released and then work my way up to the newer stuff.
5. Make more videos
As I pivot away from my usual activities on social media, I not only want to turn to Blogger, but give both of my YouTube channels attention as well. This might be a bit difficult because I...hate video editing. It's so much work. And for the longest time, I was stuck with a program that didn't give me the features I needed. (I can't believe Microsoft's Video Editor app allowed us to insert explosions into our projects but not transitions. That alone was a downgrade from Movie Maker.) I downloaded OpenShot and that made editing easier. Then found out about Clipchamp being free to use commercially and that made things even easier. I still haven't reached a point where I no longer hate putting videos together (unfortunately), but I want to make myself more accustomed to combining the best of both programs. So far, I've released some of my drawing processes for last year's June Birthday Project. I still have a few or a couple of those to go.
If I'm going to start making more videos, I'm going to have to make use of my Blue Yeti microphone again. I've had this thing since college and intended to use it often but after graduating, I pretty much stopped. I hated the way my voice sounded in playback. (I still do.) The mic was amplifying annoying vocal things I didn't realize about myself. And even when I tried to push past that and speak more clearly, there was something I was doing wrong with the quality...my audio didn't mesh well with the instrumentals, and I couldn't figure out a proper sound reduction method...while my attempts left me embarrassed for a while, I'm going to try again. This year, I want to look further into developing a solution so I can accomplish the projects I never got to do.
It would be really great if I could create some animation to go with my videos! Or for anything in general. In the past, I've made little, simple clips of animation on a very inconsistent basis. Now...I don't try at all. I came close, creating assets for an animation meme...and then I gave up. While I've always wanted to someday work on or make my own lengthy animation project, the technicality of the process makes me overwhelmed and scares me out of it. I didn't go to school for it, and I don't think I'll get to take a course anytime soon. All I have are my observations, so I'm often concerned about the possibility of doing something wrong, or it's taking too long and I lose interest, or I start burning out and the quality starts to decline. Still, I shouldn't let that fear keep me from trying again, It doesn't even have to be big and spectacular, I can go back to the short and simple. Work my way up or at least become more consistent.
(I seriously need to use the Clip Studio Paint EX animation tools before they start charging people. If that's something they still have planned...)
As a part of making more videos, I started livestreaming on Instagram again. I first started on an old Disney fan account, and then got back into on @Fangirl_KTee. I began the revival with a test run where I drew one image for as long as IG would let me (an hour). During the second and third test run, I spun a virtual wheel of character headshots I wanted to draw. Livestreaming makes me nervous, so I only aimed these streams at my followers to join (it took a bit of convincing) ...but I really do want to connect more with the people who show interest in the types of things I put out on my accounts, so next time, I'll advertise through tags and other media. I also plan to put a theme to them and use the footage for short content.
6. Pick gaming back up
My Switch may be broken, and my DS might be on its last hinge with a jacked-up screen...and the portables may be missing...and the GameCube may be gone...and my brother took the N64...but I still have my Wii U! And there are games that still need to be completed! Another activity to fill my excessive social media time with.
(I need to figure out what happened to the Wii. I hope it didn't get thrown away somehow...)
7. Figure out what to do with unwanted belongings
About several years ago, my brother and I had to switch rooms with a relative that was going to be staying with us. This forced me to hide a lot of my belongings in boxes in the basement, garage and elsewhere. When our relative left, I didn't bother moving back, so I stayed in my new room (which was actually the room I shared with my brother when I was younger. I'm just now remembering that.) and eventually started to brainstorm how I was going to decorate it. But one day, two years ago as the ice was melting off our house, I suddenly began to hear the sound of tapping on the carpet...a leak had formed in front of my dresser...next to my bed...
While it did stop, I knew we still had a big problem on our hands and deemed that room as no longer safe for me to be in. I moved a lot of my stuff back into my previous room and refused to go back to the other until the leak was fixed. Today, our entire roof is fixed now and has been for months. (Unfortunately, not before the ceiling in the room got worse. I tried to prevent this from happening with constant reminders, but no one took me seriously enough.) Am I going to move my stuff back? Not likely, the drywall still needs to be repaired. Will I decorate my current room? I dunno. My mom already went through redecorating this room and it feels wrong to take over it. I basically did that with the other room, pre-leak. Since I can't decide, I want to go through everything I have to clean up and sort out whatever I don't want anymore. Maybe that'll help me determine if either room option is even worth it.
8. Have a better momentum
I've been feeling stuck for quite a while. These recent years have been filled with a lot of disappointments and missed opportunities. Of course, there was a global event that heavily added onto this, but we're not in that period anymore. I know that my day-to-day could be much greater than what I'm making it right now. It doesn't have to keep passing me by, I can make it count by getting back into making myself a schedule. I don't have to strictly adhere to it, I just need to remind myself why I have one in the first place. When it comes to the things that will benefit me, I should take more risks and hesitate less.
I know that if I'm able to complete most, if not all of the things listed in this post, my life would improve dramatically. So, with this new month, I will officially be starting my new lifestyle!
~*K-Tee ✍🏾👩🏾🐹
Comments
Post a Comment