Review and reflection are important parts of any permaculture design process. Through review and reflection we are able to peer into our decision making and learning processes. This helps us to make more appropriate and sound decisions later and insure that we are getting the most out of our learning pathway.
Project One Review and Reflection
The first design project of the diploma pathway taught me a surprising amount about myself, my learning and working styles, and how to establish a clear pathway to achieve my highest aims and goals. As a result of the deep introspection this process generated, I came to some decisions that have had dramatic results on the course of my life. I feel that this process has really helped me to identify my ethical foundations, the skills and talents I have to work with and how to apply them to my visions and life goals.
Within the process of this project, I have also been exercising my abilities as a mentor, meeting facilitator and leader. I realized that I have to manage my time effectively to really produce the results I’m looking for and that it might be a better choice for me to progress through the natural timing of ten weeks for each project rather than trying to rush the process.
The most challenging aspect of this project has been settling on the 10 projects I will work on through out the next two years. At the beginning, the first five projects seemed pretty well defined and I was struggling to make a timeline or come up with ideas that fit in with my goals and skill flex for the last 5 projects. As I progressed, it became clear that even the first 5 projects weren’t going to stay static. and my choice to shift my life in a new direction resulted in a dramatic shift in the projects I would be able to accomplish. After taking some time to digest this process, I made some alterations to the project plan and decided to just stick with what I had on paper… knowing that it would not be the last time my plans would change in reality.
All-in-all, the process taught me a great deal about designing my pathway to achieve my goals. I also learned how to use the Visual Understanding Environment software. I have struggled a lot in my past with mind maps on paper and have never felt that strong about the process the VUE software really made it easy for me to dump my mind into a format that I could manipulate and organize as I went along and new ideas and thoughts came to light. I much prefer this to trying to mind map on paper… although, it has also made paper mind mapping much easier and more effective.