Project & OP Planning

The first project related OP will document a project on natural pregnancy and birth. My vision for this project is that I can experience a holistic, natural and conscious pregnancy and childbirth by myself and that other expectant mothers and fathers can take a benefit from my researches and experiences.
In the world of safety and medical progress, pregnant woman become often treated like a sick person. Many woman lost their trust to feel, if their baby is well. They trust the ultrasound and the pictures that they see.  For me being pregnant and giving birth means giving new life. That is something unbelievable, natural, spiritual and wonderful! I think as a pregnant woman you should enjoy this unique time and support all changes with deep consciousness by assisting your body, mind and soul with appropriate rituals, practices and techniques.

• Emotional goals: positive, balanced and motivated attitude during pregnancy and birth, self-confidence and confidence in life and nature
  

  That will help me to fulfil the goal:
  → purposeful tasks (work, free-time, projects, lifestyle)
  → home place to live
  → supporting network (family, friends, GaiaU, etc.)

• Physical goals: energetic, flexible and healthy body, pregnancy and childbirth without complaints
  That will help me to fulfil the goal:
  → balanced lifestyle (sport→ yoga; nutrition → mostly raw; relaxation → massage, acupuncture)
  → practice every day (discipline!)

•  Mental goals: working with clarity and focus on my project (including the blog)
  That will help me to fulfil the goal:
  → regular study time (every day!)

•  Spiritual goals: connecting with myself, my partner and the baby
  That will help me to fulfil the goal:
  → regular rituals (meditation, bonding, rituals)

To work on my projects with more clarity and focus I predefined the topics I want to learn more about. Therefore I created an excel sheet where I collected all Action Steps (click to read it) I want to undertake for a certain project. I thought they are already very specific, but after my Skill-flex advising call with Nicole Vosper about "Project Design and Management" (see notes of the call in the document "Skill-flex-advising, Nicole Vosper") I got more clear what SPECIFIC means.  Therefore I created after the call another more specific excel sheet with some of my Action Steps for project one. This is at the same time a tracking tool. To learn more about my tracking methods just see the section below called "My Tracking System". Nevertheless in a detailed design phase in the beginning of my first project I want to refine my Action Steps and SMART-goals strategically.

Inspired by Nicole Vosper I will categorize and subdivide my Action Steps into functions (goals), systems (how to achieve the goals) and elements (individual steps and smart goals).  I started to create an excel sheet where I can write down the goals of the month (function), how I could achieve the goal (system) and specifically name my SMART goals (element) for the month. Here you can find my "monthly tracking system with SMART goals".  I will work it out in greater detail as soon as I enter the design phase of my first project.

Also inspired by Nicole Vosper I created  a monthly design sheet. In the beginning of a month I write down all my goals events and to-does for the months. I will tick off all tasks I carried out successfully. To view my monthly design template, please click here. To track my daily doings with more effort  and strategy I decided to create a day design. The document "daily design" should be used to reflect about the day in the evening and then defining new goals for the next day.

To track my skills during the year I created a simple excel document "tracking of skills" where I can add all skills I gained, write a comment on what I specifically learned and assess how satisfied I am.

Dissemination efforts:
In addition I will document and track my project and process work on our German blog (schwanger-einfachfroh.de). This way I can share my outcomes with a wider area. On the blog I will regularly post in articles, ideas and inspirations, about my project work, for other people to read and for myself to document.

In conclusion I can say that I think the LIPD has fulfilled its function of designing a clear structure for the year, defining my projects, learning intentions and goals. I now clearly know how I will track and document my projects.
Another very pleasant point is that I used the Dragon Dreaming for my purposes successfully. I know I am on a good way to grow personally as a designer. Also if I needed a long time to produce this OP, I feel that it was necessary to get clear about my life, the circumstances and possibilities. I had the possibility to reflect again deeper about the first year, uncover challenges and find new solutions.
During this OP production I had weeks where I was not able to write anything and I had weeks where I worked very motivated and effectively. The book " The monk who sold his ferrari" I have to thank for, it helped me to holistically design my day and stay motivated at least for big part of time.
Now I am curious how a more fixed project plan with predefined topics and goals will itself turn out in the end of the year.