Part of my resolution for the new year is to nourish my spirit by creating more, and consuming less. Almost a decade ago now, I embarked on a 366 day journey to take a photo every day for an entire year. It was challenging but ultimately made me a better photographer, creative thinker and problem solver. Unfortunately, I don’t have the same free time I did when I was 19 years old. Nor do I really have a specific domain I’d like to focus on right now, which makes a piece of work a day a little more challenging to accomplish.

So, to make it easier on myself, and something I’ll likely enjoy more, I’ve decided to give myself a 52 week challenge to create any unique piece and publish it. The media doesn’t matter; video, photo, code, written, music, etc. My challenge is simply to produce anything new once a week, and publish it on the web. I plan on having a small catalog here on the site, likely at https://alexcaza.com/52-weeks, so you can follow along if you choose to.

I don’t have any expectations from this, and I’m trying my best to keep myself from making this bigger than it needs to be. I have a tendency to throw 200% of myself into projects like this, and create an unhealthy narrative that I need to be the best at whatever it is that I’m doing. The goal for this remains to have fun, create to create, and hopefully walk away having learned a bunch of new, cool, shit.

The rules

1. A week goes from Sunday to Sunday → W1 is Jan 1st, 2022—Jan 9th, 2022.
2. must post a piece of work within the week.
3. A piece of work does not need to be started within the week it’s posted, only finished.
4. There is no minimum requirement for what constitutes a piece of work; whatever I feel is done, is done.
5. I may post more than one piece of work within a week, and a piece of work can be multimedia.

Closing thoughts

Out of everything I wrote about in my resolutions list, this is the thing I’m most excited about. As someone who’s constantly attracted to trying out new things, this feels like the perfect excuse to bounce around, while still making sure I complete something. When I don’t have a mission or a goal, I end up half creating a lot of stuff, which no pressure to finish. A constraint like this offers the perfect amount of time to flesh out an idea, while also ensuring I have a time box to publish it.

Thank you for coming along on this journey with me.