Olivia’s 2021 Life Wrapped
I am quite fond of reflections – as I mentioned in my Lessons Learned from Friends post - and particularly as we approach the end of one calendar year and begin another.
I especially look forward to the end of the year because I can buy a new diary, have extra time to spend in my favourite cafes, and receive my Spotify wrapped results 👀.
I do feel a little exposed when my Spotify wrapped comes out though because I’m such a heavy music listener and song repeater that it’s almost embarrassing. So, let’s just get it out there:
Yes, that’s right. I listened to 87,992 minutes worth of music and I repeated Seventeen’s song Ready to Love 599 times this year. And yes, I’m also upset that I didn’t make it to a round 600 repeats.
But the timing of Spotify wrapped and me being a lover of statistics, it got me thinking:
What would my ‘life’ look like if it was wrapped?
Could I create a similar set of statistics which tell me how many events and activities I’ve done this year? Obviously, the answer is yes and that is indeed what I have done.
Welcome to…
OLIVIA’S 2021 WRAPPED 🎁
I started by writing all my activities from my personal diary into a spreadsheet. I made a note of the day, the month, and the type of activity.
I defined these categories as:
Productive activities = when I learned or developed something, like workshops or seminars.
Social activities = when connecting and building relationships with others was the focus, like catchups with friends or local pub quizzes.
Personal activities = when I spent time or did something for myself, like floating in a sensory deprivation tank or getting a haircut.
Exercise activities = when I was active, like dance classes or played squash.
Some disclaimers:
I was incredibly nervous when preparing this post because I want to present the data in the ‘right’ way. I had to remember that this is a fun exercise and definitely not any form of official statistics.
I didn’t include any of the activities included in my work calendar. The point of this exercise was to get an idea of how I can better spend my time outside of work and honestly it would have taken me far too long.
These activities are not weighted for the amount of energy required or how much time the activity took. It is purely a count of the number of activities (this point is for all you fellow data nerds out there).
Key Findings
1. Over half of my activities this year were social
Of the 300 activities (yes, you heard correctly) I had written in my calendar, 167 were social. That is, 56% of my activities were social events.
I know many people have an aversion to pie graphs, so I had a little hunt on Excel and decided to use a treemap graph instead for fun.
I was not surprised to learn that social activities took up the top spot (particularly because social activities come in a variety of forms). I was also not surprised that exercise activities were in last place, only making up 7% of my activities, as it’s not been my biggest priority this year.
2. May was my most activity packed month
I expected that one of the beginning or end months of 2021 to be the most happening, however, I was surprised to learn that May took the top spot with 33 activities.
Looking at the beautiful raw data, I quickly found that most of the May activities were social ones. Some highlights include an all-day face painting workshop and going to several escape rooms with an old friend.
Also note that dip in activities in June, I suspect I was probably recovering from what shall now be known as “mad May”.
3. Many activities were held on Saturday’s
Not surprising that the first day of the weekend tended to be my most activity happening day. A fun 67 out of 300 activities (22%) happened on Saturday’s this year.
Not much more to say here, other than Thursday’s were also quite happening, clocking in at 50 out of 300 activities (17%).
Perhaps in a future blog post I can talk about what insights I’ve drawn from these findings (particularly with reference to my goal setting for 2022), but for now we’ll leave it here.
What are your priorities for 2021? What are some things you want to do or accomplish in 2022?
Until next week,
Olivia