“I would often catch myself pulling out my phone to merely check the time (and then check the time again since I never actually remembered it the first time). This frequent ‘time check’ reenforced the habit of constantly pulling out my phone and undoubtedly led to unnecessary browsing if a waiting notification piqued my interest. Buy a watch. Wear it.”
https://medium.com/p/15308056cfae
Speaking of distractions, put your damn phone away.
“And when you’ve finished that batch of email responses and are ready to return to your work? Close that email client, friend! Don’t open it back up until you’re ready to dedicate your attention to it again. Otherwise, it’s just a distraction. I find it useful to set times for checking my email throughout the day, for instance 10 a.m., 1:30 p.m., and 4 p.m.”
http://alistapart.com/column/my-life-with-email
Some good tips here. Email is one of those deceptively simple things that everyone misuses.
“Using Paper, I have a sense of anxiety: what if this is what designers make when not yoked to “product thinking”? What if Matas et alia sans Jobs or Forstall are capable of impossibly perfect physics in UIs, of great elements of design, but not of holistic product thinking, of real product integrity? What if design uses its seat at the table to draw pretty things, but otherwise not pay much attention to the outcomes, the user behaviors, the things enabled?”
…
“In order to avoid losing its place atop organizations, design must deliver results. Designers must also accept that if they don’t, they’re not actually designing well; in technology, at least, the subjective artistry of design is mirrored by the objective finality ofuse data. A “great” design which produces bad outcomes —low engagement, little utility, few downloads, indifference on the part of the target market— should be regarded as a failure.”
http://mokriya.quora.com/Designer-Duds-Losing-Our-Seat-at-the-Table
Mills Baker has some great thoughts about the role of design and its impact on the success of a product. It reminds me of an old adage. “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”. If design is to assist in the utility and usefulness of a product, then you should have some specific goals around what success looks like. Otherwise, you’re just spinning your wheels.
Update: Mills added some followup on Quora. He also posted it on Medium. Worth an additional read.
“After Flores expressed his frustration, Moran showed him his early notes for the restaurateur program, which is unique among fast food restaurants in that it ties pay and promotion to how well you mentor people, rather than store sales.
“It was a great meeting but I didn’t know what was going to happen. At most companies you meet the top execs and then you never hear from them again,” Flores says.
A few weeks after the October meeting, while vacationing in Houston, Flores got a call on his cell from Ells and Moran letting him know that he had been promoted to restaurateur and was getting a $3,000 bonus. Rather than waiting until he returned to Milwaukee to get him the check, it was delivered to him in Houston the following day. At the time his salary was around $38,000, and the bonus was meaningful.
“That’s when I knew the company was special,” Flores said.”
http://qz.com/183224/how-chipotle-transformed-itself-by-upending-its-approach-to-management/
I think the portions are absurdly large at Chipotle, but the few times I’ve gone it’s been a pleasant experience. Different than traditional fast food.
“Whether in person, or online, the idea of collisions and creating collisionable hours throughout the day, month or year is a powerful concept and one that I’m trying to embody more and more.
When I look back on my career there are a series of key collisions that have opened door to entrepreneurial opportunities and future investments. I’e always seen them as such, but didn’t have a term that captured what they meant to me and how to quantify them until I was sitting in that ballroom listening to Tony that day.”
http://bryce.vc/post/81685761115/collision-hours
Some of my best conversations have been in the times where I’ve bumped into someone (at work, at the store, at the park, etc.) and just chatted a bit about life and work.
The referenced slide deck from Tony Hsieh is worth a read.