As ever, I’m conscious that time is ticking by. Whilst the study statement will be useful to focus what’s buzzing around in my head, moving forward I need to develop a more concentrated and sustainable way of working in order to ensure that I get the most out of the next 5 terms.

Up until now I’ve been all over the place, immersing myself in art, books, programmes, aimlessly ‘doodling’, without any direction, just exposing myself to everything I can and seeing what might stick. Jumping from one thing to another. This process has given me lots of ideas. It’s not too difficult to have ideas – the difficulty is having good ideas and then developing them into a piece of work. I’m feeling that at the moment I’m talking the talk, but not walking the walk.

I lack self-discipline; I get easily distracted; I get bored; I often don’t finish things; sometimes I wake up and know that the day is not going to work for me, and it’s a case of just getting through it; tomorrow’s always another day; I have no routine. I need to establish a routine, if I can, one that allows me to fulfil my everyday responsibilities but which dedicates time to developing creativity. I have no idea how much time I have spent so far on this course. So, moving forward I’m going to record how long I spend doing what. Just roughly, not down to the minute. I’ve had to do this previously – it’s soul destroying having to account for your existence – but the reason for doing it now is to give me a better understanding of how I work, what works for me, whether I’m doing enough and how I need to plan for the future.

Thirty hours a week is a long time, I’ve realised. So, that’s blog 20 mins…