Habits I Want to Build Up in 2022

Hi friends, hope we’re all keeping well.

I realise the ‘writing to stay responsible’ part isn’t working very well. I even made a post in like November, where I wanted to document my journey to a chess title and vowed to review and summarise my progress every month…though of course that hasn’t turned out well at all.
It’s mainly an issue with my discipline and consistency with blogging as of late, since when I do eventually sit down and work on a post I genuinely have a good time. The problem really is just trying to find the time and occasional motivation to actually write and not worry about doing my college assignments.

But with summer coming around the corner, this is the absolute perfect opportunity to begin fostering and cultivating new habits I want to start. So, here’s my blog post on habits that I want to build up over the 2022 summer, going into my second year of college, and then we can check up on my progress at the start of next term 😃

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⛪️College-Related Habits⛪️

These are things that I believe will help my progress in college, and help accelerate my learning for the next academic year.

1. Programme🖥

Basically I want to just work on some coding problem every day, in order to build up my problem-solving and programming skills. Pretty much the only tip my lecturer (and most others) will give on how to get better at programming is by doing it as much as possible. The only way you get better at programming is by solving more programming problems.

And since I definitely see myself doing at least something with technology or software in the future, I really want to be able to get this core skill mastered as soon as possible.

The plan of action is to find free programming problems online, and do my best to solve them. I also bought a Java Udemy course at the start of the year which I have barely started, so finishing that during my summer break would be ideal. In terms of specific goals, making progress by confidently writing 50-100 line of code every day seems okay. Also, I’ve heard many good things about the website AlgoExpert from my course mates, who they claim has helped them demolish our programming assignments. So if the funds look okay, I might even consider buying a subscription and trying out their problems too…

2. Practice Microsoft Excel➕

Not only will this be necessary for my future finance and accounting modules, but Excel in general just has an excellent reputation all around. It’s used in practically every professional workplace, and being literate in Excel almost certainly gives you a boost in many job-finding situations.

Since I have a discounted subscription to Skill Share, the plan is to spend 20-30 minutes everyday working through the classes, practising and completing Excel-related problems, as well as get to know the software much more.

3. Subject Revision📝

I’m almost certainly going to be writing a post dedicated to this in the future, but I’m also heavily considering taking my college’s scholarship exams. If I pass them with first honours (70%+), the benefits are colossal. Free accommodation, free tuition, free school meal 3 times a day and 5 days a week, it’s simply insane.

To even consider having a chance at these exams though, you absolutely must walk in with a bulletproof understanding of your modules, which is why I first want to use this summer to catch up on my subjects.

I want to spend at least 2-3 hours revising various subjects throughout the summer, and make sure I go into 2nd year still knowing and remembering material from 1st year.

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 🌟Hobby-Related Habits🌟

4. German🇩🇪

My ‘ultimate’ goal with German is to pass the German C2 exam, and obtain a certificate for it. Ideally I would also like to prepare for the exam this summer too, but I fully recognise this could take much longer.
Regardless, the plan is to fully focus on reading and listening German. Reading through free German books online and seeing if I can comprehend it all, and listening through podcast episodes. The specific goal should be around 40 minutes per day purely spent being immersed in German, not taking into account language exchanges too.

5. Japanese🇯🇵

While I want German to be my main focus for now, I definitely want to also be learning a second language at the same time to ‘play around’ with, and perhaps focus on perfecting in the future after German is done, which is why I chose Japanese.

While my studies for Japanese probably won’t be as intense as German, it definitely will still be focussed. The plan of action is reviewing and learning new kanji and vocabulary every day, along with grammar (for at least 30 minutes), and then immersing myself in Japanese (through reading and listening) for at least 20 minutes too.

6. Chess♟

Ahhh….yeah I still kind of want to get good at chess I’m not gonna lie🙃

And since there’s no better time to refocus on chess than summer holidays, here’s my plan of action for making studying chess a daily habit.

First, practising and reviewing my chess openings using the fantastic Chessable for at least 20 minutes. Then, tactics training for another 10 minutes, and then I’m going to try play a minimum of 2 games a day, where I can truly put all my calculation and opening knowledge to the test.

7. Blogging✍🏻

Oh yeah, this is definitely going to be revamped this summer.

I’m declaring it right here and right now, there will be a minimum of 2 blog posts every single week of the summer break. I will network with at least 3 different blogs every day, and I will brainstorm 1 blog post idea/improvement for my blog every day.
Writing is something I genuinely do enjoy, so I aim to foster it and help incorporate it into daily routine over this summer break.

8. Piano🎹

This is quite hard to plan to keep as a habit, since there are several days where I leave the house early and come back late at night absolutely wrecked.

Regardless, I aim to practise piano everyday for at least 20 minutes. 5-10 minutes dedicated to warm up and practising technique, while the rest of the time will be dedicated to practising a new song I’m trying to learn (since that’s really my end goal with piano-to just be able to play the songs I like on it).

9. Reading 📕

This is somewhat relatively easy, but lately I genuinely have had no excuse for my complete falling out with the activity. It’s just on most late nights when I’m in bed, I prefer mindlessly scrolling Reddit 🤦🏻‍♂️

Therefore, I aim to read at least 20 pages every night before bed. Let’s do it🔥

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I also aim read 1 article a day in Chinese (since I’ve noticed my fluency in it has been deteriorating recently 😭).

Anyway, that was a very long-winded, completely unnecessary blog post today, as part of Day 2 for the 7 day blogging challenge. So if you have somehow managed to reach the very bottom, honestly thank you so much for reading my random content🙏🏻

Stay safe!