Hidden habits of ineffective people

All five of these habits are easy to pick up but will squeeze out every bit of your effectiveness.  The first negative habit really stands out, and I have to constantly remind myself to create more than I consume.

Consuming more than you create 
Effective people tend to create a lot of content. Content can mean a lot of things - but the rule is always the same, create more than you consume. Ineffective people, on the other hand, spend the majority of their time consuming the fruits of others’ labor. They are consumate lurkers.

Read the rest on Chris Wake’s Quora post

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Explosions in the Sky - Poster Process

A few weeks ago I started noticing DKNG’s shots on Dribbble for “Mystery Project 11”, and yesterday they finally posted the full poster for the band Explosions in the Sky.  Similar to their Black Key’s poster process they screen captured the entire design process and put together this amazing process video.

Watching this video makes me want to teach myself how to sketch.  Right now I struggle with writing barely legible letters.

Final Poster

Explosions in the Sky - DKNG poster

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“When you have the good fortune to have success in your life that is precisely the time you should reinvent yourself. You should go right back to zero as though nothing had happened and start over. Because you can get real stale. You can fall in love with yourself or get to that danger point when you could ride on that success or try to repeat it.”— Robert Redford Wise words.  I quickly threw together a desktop image with this quote as a reminder to create, reinvent, repeat.  Feel free to download the desktop image at 2560x1440px. Via Surfstation

“When you have the good fortune to have success in your life that is precisely the time you should reinvent yourself. You should go right back to zero as though nothing had happened and start over. Because you can get real stale. You can fall in love with yourself or get to that danger point when you could ride on that success or try to repeat it.”
— Robert Redford

Wise words.  I quickly threw together a desktop image with this quote as a reminder to create, reinvent, repeat.  Feel free to download the desktop image at 2560x1440px.

Via Surfstation

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Empathy is the Root of Creativity

“The greatest thing we can do and offer is to be great listeners and have to have empathy for your culture to understand what is the truth.”
— John Jay, global executive creative director at W+K 

One of the most important skills of a designer or creator is empathy. Without it you’ll fail to connect with users and clients in a meaningful way.

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How Intellum switched from making a plan for VCs to making a product for customers

We had been writing a plan and basing decisions on what investors told us they wanted to see.

All that chasing left them living off credit card debt and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. So the team made a decision: Stop chasing a funding event and figure out how to make money.

Armed with a working prototype, the team kept hustling. But now they were hustling for customers instead of investors.

**Note to self. Re-read this article.

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Forget Passion, Focus on Process

Find meaning in what you’re doing. Work to improve your industry. Get joy from making a customer’s day. Surround yourself with the kinds of people and environment that keep you engaged. Figure out the details and day-to-day process that keep you stimulated. Focus on how you execute and making continual improvements. Get off on how you sell, not what you sell.

Process is what motivates me and moves me forward.  Product launches are fun and full of energy, but it the tweaking and refining of the process and customer experience where you will see the most gains.  

Like quality over quantity, put process over passion.

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F*ck You. Pay Me

Excellent presentation by Mike Monteiro co-founder of Mule Design and as a guest his lawyer Gabe Levine (follow him on Tumblr) on getting paid for your work.  If you have or ever will do work in exchange for money take the time to watch this 30 minute presentation from Creative Mornings.  If you don’t have the time to watch it now, bookmark it and watch later.

Be specific and confident about money. Money is an incredibly nerve wracking thing to talk about. If you are trying to convince somebody to give you money and that you are the right person to give it to when they’re asking how much something costs and the first thing out of your mouth is “uhhmmmm”.  You just lost $10,000.

If you know how much something cost stand up confidently and tell them. If you don’t know how much something costs then say “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out and get back to you as soon as possible.”  Just be confident.

Here’s my summary from the talk - always use a solid contract, be confident in pricing and negotiations, and hire good advisors.

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Studio Sweet Studio Studio Sweet Studio is a website and yearly publication that features artists, their work, and their workspace as an interesting dialogue about how environment affects creative work and what it means to have a studio as an extension of your “visual brand” as an artist. I recently stumbled on Studio Sweet Studio after the founders Meg Lewis & Tuesday Bassen started following Style Hatch on twitter last week.  That evening I stayed up going through virtually every post (almost 40) that they have on their two week old site.  The studio tours, posts on process, and designer interviews are beautifully done and quite inspiring. Make sure you bookmark this site and add it to your RSS readers.  It’s already made it into the list of sites that I check on a daily basis.

Studio Sweet Studio

Studio Sweet Studio is a website and yearly publication that features artists, their work, and their workspace as an interesting dialogue about how environment affects creative work and what it means to have a studio as an extension of your “visual brand” as an artist.

I recently stumbled on Studio Sweet Studio after the founders Meg Lewis & Tuesday Bassen started following Style Hatch on twitter last week.  That evening I stayed up going through virtually every post (almost 40) that they have on their two week old site.  The studio tours, posts on process, and designer interviews are beautifully done and quite inspiring.

Make sure you bookmark this site and add it to your RSS readers.  It’s already made it into the list of sites that I check on a daily basis.

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“Art is an idea that has found its perfect visual expression. And design is the vehicle by which this expression is made possible. Art is a noun, and design is a noun and also a verb. Art is a product and design is a process. Design is the foundation of all the arts.”

Paul Rand

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Enter the Dragon: The Old Man Schedule

I’m doing it. No more playing around. I’m manning up. I’m doing the old man schedule.
—Matthew Smith, Squaredeye

Over the last few months I have attempted—unsuccessfully—to switch to a much earlier schedule built around highly productive early mornings, getting the most out of time with my family, and cutting out all of the late nights.  I always feel like I accomplish significantly more on the old man schedule, but I need to learn the ability to fight the urge to stay up late just to get “one more thing done”.

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