Jump Then Fall

For the past few weeks, we have been using a Gantt chart to track our progress in our project and to make sure we stay on track to be able to complete our projects by the end of January, we call this our timeline. You may be asking yourself, ‘what is a Gantt chart?’. Google defines a Gantt chart as a chart in which a series of horizontal lines shows the amount of work done or production completed in certain periods of time in relation to the amount planned for those periods. 

This is my timeline using a Gantt chart template. I have my milestones (all the major things I need to finish in order to complete my project) along the left side of the chart. Following my milestones on the right are the days in which I have to start that specific milestone and the approximate amount of days I will need to complete it. When I put in that data, it plots a rectangle on the chart that coordinates with the day you are set to begin working on that task. The yellow numbers on left side represent the amount of tasks you need to complete in order to finish the ultimate milestone. As you’re working on those steps, you fill in how many you have completed so far and it will fill in the rectangle with a dark purple color to show how much you still have to do. So, in my chart the dark purple rectangles are the milestones I have finished and the light purple rectangles are the ones I still have to complete.

The yellow bar that you can see in the middle of the chart right now, represents the current day and where you should be in your project on that specific day. As you can see from the bar, I am currently two days behind on my project because the dark purple stops 2 days before the yellow bar. Nonetheless, I would say the majority of the time, I am on track.

My timeline is mostly just ‘do this, then do this, then do this’. My project runs on a week-to-week schedule, meaning each of my milestones take one week and I then move on to the next one, there are little overlaps with my tasks.

In the next few weeks, I will be continuing with this pattern. I will be working on uploading my posts every Friday. Using Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of each week to draft, edit and finalize each of my blog posts.

You can check out what I’m working on for my project at https://easyentity.wordpress.com/.

-Jenna

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So It Goes…

It has been 2 weeks since the last time I wrote to you all. I could sit here and write to you about all of the crazy, wonderful, and magnificent things that have happened to and changed me, my project, and the people with whom I surround myself with every day. However, writing about everything that could fit into those categories may take a tad longer than the acceptable length of this blog post. So, I’ll keep it minimal, I will tell you about the things I have changed about my project since you last heard, my Action Plan, and the next steps that I’m taking on my project.

The changes I have made since my last time writing to you all have been small. I had no major ‘turn the page’, ‘head down another road’, moments. My project has remained essentially the same. Creating a mental health and well-being blog, that is. The meager adjustments I have made consist of changing the goal for the number of blog posts from 8 to now 10 and changing the weekly post rate to once every 2 weeks to now every week on Friday. I’m proud that I have been able to stay grounded and I have had a clear path throughout the semester, so far.

With that being said, I am aware that at any moment, things could change. I hope to be prepared for when these low points hit me but for now, I am inspired and can’t wait to keep pushing through this semester.

An Action Plan is basically an outline of the things you’re going to do throughout the semester. It consists of Milestones and the steps that you have to take to achieve these Milestones, which are called Action Steps. My Milestones are mostly consistent in the fact that it goes, Blog post #1, Blog post #2, Blog Post #3, up until Blog post #10. It’s the Action Steps that make-up each of these Milestones that will inevitably shape my end project.

In the upcoming weeks, I’m going to be writing my rough draft for my first blog post. When I finish the rough draft I am getting 1 critical Propel friend to edit it, alongside a writing professional. After it is edited and perfected I will be posting it to my blog on Friday!! There are a few other less-significant tasks I will have to complete before and after the posting, but these are the main aspects I will complete in the next few weeks.

I hope that once my first post is posted to my website (link in my previous post), you will check it out!!

Thanks for reading.

– Jenna

 

The Other Side of the Door

Here we are, 7 weeks in. There’s been a variety of different emotions and different workflows that I have encountered. There were days when I felt happy with the way I was working and felt eager, motivated and excited to complete different aspects of my Proof of Concept. With that, came the days when I couldn’t bring myself to focus on my project and ended up completing close to nothing in my 9-3 day.

My Proof of Concept wasn’t largely affected by these ups and downs, and I’m glad to say at the end of the 2-week process I was able to check off every box on my goals for the POC. I would say, all-in-all, my Proof of Concept was a success in that I now have more knowledge on how the rest of the semester is going to go. I learned that website and logo design are extremely difficult and that deciding a name for something is so hard because THERE ARE SO MANY OPTIONS! Another thing I learned was that gaining an audience to my blog is going to be a long process and that bringing people to read it will take time. I especially learned that my blogging fame won’t happen overnight and the only way it could ever possibly happen is through hard work, determination and above all, creativity.

Fast forward to January. The end of my Propel experience. When I will have to say bye to this wonderful atmosphere and to all the people who shaped my project and most of all, me. When that time comes, these are the things I hope to have accomplished. I want to have posted 10 self-written pieces to my blog all following the theme of mental health and well-being. I have a personal goal of having 200 people read my blog. I want to collaborate with photographers from Propel so that I can post photos to my website. But if there is one thing I want to achieve from my project, this is it. I want to help people. I want the people who read my writing to benefit from my words and for them to gain a larger grip on their own positive self-image and self-love.

If you care to keep up with my blog and my posts, you can find them at this link –  https://easyentity.wordpress.com/

Thank you for reading 🙂

-Jenna

…Ready For It?

September 6th, 2018. The start of my new journey. The first time in my life (other than kindergarten) where I was in a school setting that I couldn’t find comfort in my already established friends, and the familiar classrooms I had spent my days in during the previous 2 years of my high school career. Of course, I had a slight advantage having Nelson McIntyre already being my home school. I knew the teachers and how to get to the bathrooms, library, and cafeteria, but that didn’t make the butterflies I had on the very first day any less existent. I walked into the Propel room at 9:00 and saw 2 familiar students and 22 other students who I would soon call my classmates, and even more, my friends.

Throughout the days that followed, I allowed myself to become engrossed in the lessons, stories of past Propel iterations, and bad dad jokes told multiple times a day by Mr. Patrician. Each day I walked into the Propel room I knew that that day we would be doing something different than the day before, and the day before that. Throughout these days, I have felt a roller-coaster of different emotions. There have been days where nerves have taken control of my body and there were other days where I felt accomplished and felt like I could control how everything was going.

Now we are 3 weeks in, and after different tasks (make this blog, send a joke, etc.), deliverables (sending in a power point by the end of the day, writing an introduction letter, etc.), Purposeful Play (playing around with you project ideas), and presentations (a 3-5 minute presentation about anything, I chose to present about my summer). I can say that these 3 weeks have been so different from anything I have ever done. In the best way. There is something about walls that makes the majority of high school students feel confined in their schools.  That feeling doesn’t exist when I’m in the walls of Propel. I have the freedom here to be who I want to be and not have to follow the strict curriculum of the previously defined school system.

As of right now, I am beginning to work on my Proof of Concept. The Proof of Concept is basically just a mini version of the project you want to do, so that you can prove that you’re capable of doing and completing your final project. For my project, I will be creating a blog to talk about mental health, well-being and lifestyle and so for my Proof of Concept I’m going to be completing a lean canvas for my blog, working on creating a logo, launching my blog, posting my first post and a few other small things. These tasks will not only prove that I am capable of doing this project but will hopefully help me to gain knowledge of what I’m getting myself into.

By January, I hope that my project can reach people everywhere and that they find comfort in my words.

I hope that you’re one of them.

-Jenna