RSS feedPlanning and failing
I enjoyed Lloyd Davis’s post Stick your five-year plan, in which he argues the futility of long-term planning when it comes to one’s own life. I think in some respects he’s absolutely right. While it’s useful to have some structure, some framework to life, anything beyond a couple of years is likely to be wildly inaccurate. Even in my relatively short life so far I’ve changed my tack quite dramatically. Taking a few five-year leaps backwards:
1993: Aged 14. Shrewsbury, puberty, spots, awkwardness. The usual. Also choosing my GCSEs. At my school there was a heavy sense of trajectory to this - GCSEs were chosen very much with A-Levels in mind, which in turn were chosen to optimise Oxbridge entrance. Therefore I was already on a science path, that being where my teenage tendencies lay.
1998: Aged 19. Nottingham - got into Oxford, but missed the grades. About to start second year of Physics degree after a pretty dismal first year. I’d already lost almost all interest in the subject, and spent a lot of time lingering on the web and publishing my first public website. Frames, tables and all.
2003: Aged 24. Nottingham still, but recently graduated from an IT MSc I’d entered with expectations of being a programmer. However, I became absorbed by HCI modules along the route, and therefore was trying to convince the a government agency I worked for that they needed me to become a full-time Information Architect. Permanently skint, single after four years, still never been on a plane, and feeling abject pity towards uni mates now living in London.
2008: Aged 29. Brighton, after a year in London. Still single, less hair, less skint. I’m living on my own, working for a web agency, doing some pretty cutting edge stuff and beginning to make a name for myself. Travelling regularly, wearing glasses, developing quite a taste for expensive gin.
The way I’ve made this transformation from left-brained science kid to this apparently quite creative and visually-focused adult is puzzling and, from my present viewpoint, quite wonderful. There’s a whole blog post in how that happened, and whether my science background has helped or hindered me as a designer. Once dConstruct is done I’ll write it.
I’m also a lot happier now I’ve relaxed my attitude towards my destiny. There comes a point at which too much self-drive causes you to miss the serendipitous little currents that come when you go with the flow.
As for the next five years? 2013: Aged 34. No idea. Hopefully Brighton. Hopefully not single. Probably not a father. Hopefully still working in user experience. But given the U-turns I’ve made so far I’m not going to rule anything out.
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Comments
Interesting post. As a similar-aged, fellow science-minded individual now working in the webasphere-super-expressway (although not in as creative a role) I can see a few parallels. I still think it’s important to have a five year plan; you just have to allow for unforeseen change and be flexible. Gotta have a goal.
I agree. 5 year plans for life don’t really make that much sense, at least not if you expect to the stick to them.
Interesting too, how similar the start and end of your timeline is to my own. Scientific schooling and degree eventually leading to a creative-leaning vocation.