In the last few months I’ve found myself saying I just need to recharge. The battery needs to get above 50% for a good amount of time. The power has been draining and it needs to be filled back up. As if I were a robot. But I’m not a robot, I’m a human. With inefficiencies, forgetfulness, and randomness. Full of flawed thinking and irrational behavior. (Shocker to the free-market economists out there.)
There is no substitute for ‘the doing’
Never has been, never will be.
Read Real Books: 1st Edition
I’m trying to read more books. Here’s how that’s going:
Books Finished
Fantasyland, Kurt Andersen
Chuck Klosterman X, Chuck Klosterman
But What If We’re Wrong, Chuck Klosterman
Books In Progress
Why Buddhism Is True, Robert Wright
Men Without Women, Haruki Murakami
Design for People, Scott Stowell
We Were Eight Years in Power, Ta-Nehisi Coates
Everybody Scrolls
Fuck “the fold.” What do you think this is, a newspaper?
15 Years A Designer, Now Working 10–4
New year, new goals. Milestones reached, proclamations announced. Changes afoot, changes made. All this points to an update to the hours I’ll be working. In an effort to cut down on my average of 54 hours per week, I’m changing the hours I’m expecting myself to work. JKDC, now working 10–4 PM CST.
This is the time in my day I’m setting aside for work to happen, Monday thru Friday. Not 8–6, or 9–5, but 10–4. The new standard operating procedure. Of course, special circumstances will arise and some projects will call for work outside of this new range. But as a general rule, this is when you can expect me to be around.
And what will happen to that time I’m no longer working? More reading, writing, experimenting, and making statements. Something along those lines, I suspect. But more importantly, setting aside extra time for not working will help protect against burnout and allow me to focus on the projects I’m most excited about. At the end of the day, being extra selective has always led me to doing better work.
We’re not put on this Earth to work. While I love the job I’m able to do, I’m much more interested these days in the life outside of it. After 15 years of being a designer, I’m very excited to cut back on the common trope of “Oh man I am SO busy with work! Just busy busy busy!” You know the one. It’s always been lame, and now I’m just over it.
Hope & Happiness
From Tyler Riewer and his friends, the reasons 2017 was actually pretty great on a lot of levels. The Women’s Day March, Master of None Season 2, Dogs on Instagram, Making Your Own Hot Sauce, and so on. Pretty great stuff. Here’s one of mine:
Reading Real Books
Even though I love the Internet deep down and my work depends on it, I’m also losing my patience with it. Fake news, trolls, the alt-right, relentless ads, how Facebook can be terrible, etc. Give me powerful ideas wrapped up in a tactile object made of paper.
Say Anything
Over the break, I did not do any planning, managing, or organizing. I opted to not plan anything that needed to be managed or organized. I didn’t manage anything organized or planned. And I organized nothing that was planned or managed. It was quite liberating. And exactly what was needed.
There is no shortage, it seems, of items to be planned, managed, and organized. But in the last couple weeks, I chose to not do any of it. I feel very fortunate I had the choice to do so. And as a result, I feel centered and recharged, with a certain amount of clarity I was hoping to find over a break that seemed to come at just the right time.
