No, PGP is not a typo of PLP, it’s a part of it! The Personal Growth Plan means a lot of different things to me, mental and digital organization, planning for the future, if it’s tomorrow or two years from now, or looking at the problems in life through a different lens. Throughout this course I learned how to make my life easier, how to manage the things that life throws at you day to day. From school, to work, to free time on the weekends, I’ve learnt how to keep track of dates, times, and appointments.

For quite I while, I struggled to find a way to understand the time I really had to work, and how much of the to dos I mentioned above, I could really fit in my day. After an entire school year of, reading books (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, and What Do You Really Want), reflecting on our knowledge, and now to finish off the course, our time machine project.

My Creation

The idea was to create a product of our own choice that represents/shows something we learnt in PGP that we wish our past selves had known earlier in life. This is what I came up with.

What you are looking at in this picture is my interpretation of what when on within my brain during the PGP course. Some of the most valuable information I learned was, the art of time blocking, and all about the app Things. These have become crucial in my everyday life.

In the red box you see a colour representing, uneasiness, being all over the place , and intense. Either taped to the box, or hanging on string from the top of the box, are different things to remember, the kind of things you’d need to put in your calendar. The goal was, that when you look at the red box on the left, you feel like you cant keep track of what you’re seeing, which were my feelings exactly before PGP.

In the blue box the colour was chosen to represent a feeling of calmness and organization. Just like the red box, objects were either taped to the walls of the box or hanging from the top of the box by string. The difference being, that all of those events and due dates shown in the red box are now organized and noted in Things and Apple Calendar (time blocked).

In the Making

This was my first and only sketch of this project, most of the deigning happened in my head, a had a clear picture of what I wanted my product to look like, and I’m happy to say it came out just as I wanted it to.

After that, it was just time to build, I collected my supplies, which included: paints (black, blue, red, and white), two boxes, and a box lid, clear string, and paper.

I really enjoyed putting this project together, it’s really satisfying to create something physical, and to have your own choice when it comes to what you will create, and in the end, the final products end up coming out much more unique.

The Keepers

So much was covered within this unit, sure, there were some parts of the course that seemed pointless at the time, but later on proved themselves as being helpful. This course revamped my brain, it was a brain makeover. I will continue to use Things and Apple Calendars long after I’m out of high school, because they work. Its as simple as that! These skills that make life easier for me, and tons of other people, will be kept in my pocket to use for the dates and appointments to come.