"the world in which doing what you love is a privilege is a world we have failed to design well."

the longer i live and the more i see, the stronger become my convictions about how the world should work. that said i wrestle, on a daily basis two specific ideas (i think it’s a coming of age thing). first is the idea of “doing what you love.” second is the idea of “making a living.” and then, the combo struggle is the intersection: should you be able to “make a living” “doing what you love?" 

this gets complicated for all sorts of reasons. in western (post-)industrial societies, we have an outdated definition of work, a major component of which is the 40 hour work week. industrialization divided work/labor into repeatable, assembly line-type tasks to maximize efficiency. however, we are evolving past that understanding of work. an increasing amount of people want meaning from their work. this typically means becoming more like craftspeople and less like cogs in machines.

unfortunately, our economic infrastructure doesn’t support our trajectory. so the plot is thickening. is it ok to do something you hate (because the world needs it to be done) in order to support yourself to do what you love on the side? or maybe complete integration of love and work is the goal? what does it even mean to “make” a living? shouldn’t we all just be able to live without having to “make” it? and if “make” really just means “earn,” isn’t it sort of fucked up that we have to “earn” the to live? 

i’m really unclear about this and i realize there probably isn’t a one-size fits all solution. two things i do believe strongly, though:

1. this problem we’re facing now between work, meaning, and living is a design problem. and it’s solvable.
2. society operates at a net loss when people are unable to find, develop, and bring their passion into the world. because competitive advantage.

i know i’m not the first to think about this but like… let’s get solving. 

on saying no

i was a pretty stressed out dude in grad school. i tried to do all things social and academic. all while was working 2-3 jobs to pay my bills and take on as little in loans as i could.

my dear friend, joel, used to see me be stressed out and one day he quoted this to me. “for every yes, you should be saying 100 no’s.“ i think he called it the monk’s rule of thumb or something. whatever it was called, since then, i have been growing in my ability to say no. at times, it becomes like an obsession.

i’ve done lots of reading about saying no and why (see links and quotes at the bottom of this post). lately, though, i’ve been thinking two things about saying no:

saying no is a productivity tool.

i don’t particularly like warren buffet, but this quote (attributed to him) is great: "The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.” and just like in this article, the beautiful thing about saying no is that it allows focus. some tasks, like dishes, require little focus (though i imagine st. augustine or thich nhat hanh might argue with that assertion). but other tasks, typically production or creative-type tasks really do require focus. and it’s impossible to be focused (and get into flow) if you have too many things to do. even if you’re not doing everything at once, your brain still has to deal with the fact that you have lots to do. this is detrimental to focus and without focus, productivity gets crushed.

saying no is like a muscle.

in an increasingly “connected” (hyperconnected) world, the number of things to do, watch and read are seemingly infinite. saying no, just like any other habit, is difficult to start. it’s even more difficult because it’s socially uncomfortable. but just like other habits, with practice it gets easier. once you learn how to do it (and the different ways in which it can be done), it gets easier and easier to say no and protect your time (and your mind)…

i have so much more to say about this… but for now, i’ll just leave these resources here.

• “you say no so that you can say yes. prune and survive.” — courtney martin
• my friend, maureen, upgraded courtney’s quote and said “You say no so that you can say yes. Prune and thrive.” brill.
• article: creative people say no
• article: 21 ways to give good “no”
• article: 5 ways to say no effectively
• zenhabits blog post: say no so you can say yes
• nyt article: saying no so you can say yes
• blog post: No more yes. It’s either HELL YEAH! or no.
• onbeing article: five ways to say no gracefully

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?