done is better than perfect

in the couple of years since finishing grad school, i’ve had a lot of ideas (many of them in collaboration with several good friends). and, for better or worse, very few of those ideas have gotten off the ground (probably around 20%). this, to me, is a problem.

having noticed this trend in myself, i’m trying my best to put an end to it. i’ve been inspired by jessica hirsch (via design matters), @femmebot (of 25x52.com), the done manifesto, and some other folks who just put stuff out into the world.

they’ve inspired me to adopt an mvp model for almost everything in my life. i stumbled upon the value of mvps, minimum viable products, from eric ries. his book, the lean startup, and this specific list of mvp examples really got me thinking about how helpful mvp thinking is.

so now i’m generalizing the techniques to my life. that has resulted in two specific pieces of advice that i give myself and others.

1. get going. this means using processes that work for you to get whatever it is done.
   
2. done is better than perfect (lately popularized by sheryl sandberg in lean in). this means minimizing/removing any barriers that slow you down from getting going.

so what does it look like irl? example: this blog. i have serious anxiety about writing. but, to get going, i just set up a tumblr because it was the easiest process for me (i set up tumblrs in my sleep). and then, to make sure that done was better than perfect, i set a constraint for myself that to just hit publish after writing for 10 minutes. that’s it. (well, i also use hemingwayapp.com to write now and i don’t count research/link-hunting time in the 10 minutes, but whatever). anyway…

i’m really starting to believe that an idea that’s out in the world, imperfect as it may be, is better than one that just exists in your brain. and now i’m getting a lot more things out into the world. 

good stuff.

what is design (to me)? what does it mean to be a designer.

this post is more of rant than organized thought. sorry in advance.

to me, the practice of design is the intersection of systems thinking and making. as a designer, the highest goal of ‘designing’ something is to make it more effective at being itself.

i’ve been struggling a little bit with the definition of design as it relates to things i do. in the past i have been a web designer and graphic designer. but, now many of the things i do (especially at work) are higher level design. i regularly design systems and programs, and yet that work isn’t called design work. i understand the value of being able to differentiate between different types of work. but almost all of my own work seems to involve the same general thinking:

• what is the purpose of this thing i’m making?
• who is it for?
• how is it expected to fulfill its purpose?
  
• how can i make it fulfill its purpose more effectively?

often, what comes up for me is 'elegance.’ this happens most obviously in visual or graphic design spaces. but the reason to make something visually appealing is simple. people are attracted to beautiful things. and when someone is attracted to something, it is more likely that the purpose of that thing will be fulfilled. in visual spaces, this often looks like stripping down excess, and making something 'elegant.’ the thing should only have what’s necessary for it to complete its purpose. this often results in simplicity and elegance.

but applying that thinking to other creations is just as possible. it is possible to design programs or initiatives that integrate functions so well that everything involved is related to delivering on its purpose. it’s less easy to see, but it happens.

so, i’m a designer. i design things at all scales: personal management systems, documents, workflows, systems (that learn).

</end rant>.

the irony of hoarding

a couple of weeks ago, my dear friend, ambroise and i had an interesting conversation about hoarders. it started because he is moving from nice back to paris and was packing. he mentioned that he only needed two or three suitcases. to that, i responded “ah, it seems like you have a healthy relationship with death.”

and then we started to develop a theory. here’s where i think we ended up (obvious oversimplification):

there are two types of people in the world. people who have poor relationships with death tend to hoard. people who have healthy relationships with death tend to have weak ties to their possessions.

in our experiences, hoarders tend to be unable to understand their mortality. they hold on to objects with the hope of being anchored. keeping books, photos, newspapers, etc. seems to be about freezing a moment in time.

and yet, time can never stop. from one minute to next we change, grow, become different. most things i keep have a practical purpose. once they lose that, they can be tossed. because, someday sooner than i think, i’ll die and have to toss them anyway. why wait?

the most interesting part of our convo was this. there is a stark irony for people who have strong ties to physical or memory-laden objects. the irony is that those people are constantly faced with the impermanence of their lives. because they are able to look back at photos of themselves or remember the time they read that book, they are constantly facing the fact that those objects are from the past. and things have changed since then.

interesting, no?

on decision fatigue and cognitive budgets (part 2): on routines and ‘personal systems’

if you haven’t read part 1 of this post, give it a read. it’s short, i promise. 

given limited cognitive budget, we are each then daily presented with a maximization problem. how should we make the most of a limited resource (your brain’s capacity to make good decisions)?

now, for a while i was fascinated by high profile thinkers and leaders. i thought that if i could follow their patterns, i could do things on par with them. what i’ve learned from reading about and listening to some of these folks is this: do as much as  you can to take small decisions out of your day and create as much time as possible for doing ‘heavy-thinking.’ heavy-thinking tasks to me are ones that require me to juggle a lot of complexity, let it all roll around in my head for a while, process it, and then create something with it. for me, that thing is almost always a design of some sort. whether it’s a project design, a piece of visual design, or design of a process, i still need long blocks of uninterrupted time (i.e. no context switching) to process information thoroughly and spit it back out in a way that has added value.

so for me (and these ‘greats’ as well) the common thread is minimizing small decisions to create space for big decisions (like how to implement a 12-month data gathering program for my organization).

and, surprise surprise, the easiest way to do that is having routines. everything you can do to take small decisions off your plate (especially in the morning) and put them into a routine helps. this is why people make such a big deal out of picking your clothes the night before. the comparative cognitive cost of choosing what to wear is much less at the end of a day than at the beginning of one.

there are some common themes, especially within particular fields. that said, having studied many fields and many eras of top-notch thinkers and doers, here’s my conclusion. it doesn’t particularly matter what your routine is; it matters that you have one that works for you.

on my ability to integrate

a few months ago, a friend told me that the rate at which I’m able to integrate things is astounding. and just the other day, a different friend said something similar. i’m not totally sure what that means exactly, but i do know that i’m passionate about learning. and, i think my practices around saying no really help me learn. which is counter-intuitive… so let me explain.

back in february, i listened to an interview with eric zimmer. in the interview, eric references some research about how the pace of things nowadays actually keeps us from reflecting. even good content pieces on the best platforms encourage us to move to the next content piece as quickly as possible. just take a look at an article on any major media outlet webpage and count how many links you can click once you hit the bottom (some sites now just autoload other articles you might be interested in so that you don’t have to click or even stop scrolling). or think about how youtube videos now automatically play another video when they’re finished. and those are just a few examples of which there are many. intentionally or not, i agree with eric that the impact these techniques have our ability to integrate is significant. when we’re constantly moving through new ideas and information, it’s nearly impossible to really digest and decide what is worth bringing into your life and what isn’t.

later in the interview eric gave an example of one way to switch this pattern. someone suggested taking just five minutes after consuming (watching, listening, reading, whatever) a piece of content to think about what to do with what you learned. i think that’s a brilliant suggestion. 

and i can already imagine myself resisting taking the time to reflect and process. honestly, i think that makes me want to commit to it more (it also gives me a (another) great excuse to not try to read or watch everything. we’ll see how it goes.