How To: Keep things from taking longer than they should

How is it that something seemingly so simple can be made increasingly complicated to the point that it takes way longer than it should?

Is it the excessive use of language that does it? Maybe the “standard processes” that are supposedly what we all need to go through? Preferences for complication and dragging things out? A combination of those?

I don’t know. Dragging things out is not how I prefer to do things. I prefer things to take the appropriate amount of time. How is that done?

By keeping it simple, fighting the urge to involve people who don’t need to be involved, editing out unneeded words, and then, finally, understanding at a deep level that the thing that needs to be done is standing in the way of all the other things that need to be done next.

Get this done, then get all the other things done.

Done and done and done.

Clean, Organized

One very important lesson I got from my dad was to always clean your tools. In his shop where he kept his big rig, greasy and grimy as it was, no matter what the task was for the day, at the end of it, always clean the tools and put them away where they belong, neat and organized.

A huge contrast to the wildly messy rooms of my childhood friends who would go on to drive wildly messy cars, which felt oftentimes like you were just riding around in trash.

As a designer with lots happening at any given time, being clean and organized is how I get shit done.

How To: Move People

Hope and Action > Regret, Guilt, or Fear

In the face of oncoming climate disaster after climate disaster in an uncertain, warming world, how do you get enough people to push for something major to be done? Society wide, system change on a massive scale. A simple formula, repeated over and over at high frequency is what we need to do. Hope and action over regret, guilt, or fear.

No to cynicism, push for the NOW.

Calcified

It’s a very real fear I have. Rigid, uncompromising thinking has always been bad in my view.

However.

And I say this as someone who likes to try new ways of doing things. There are, sometimes, a right way to do something. And there are very wrong ways.

So yes, while calcified thinking is not good, doing things incorrectly is also not good.

Keep learning. Pay attention. Keep your head up. Act accordingly.

I quit.

I decline. I choose not to go. To not participate. Refuse to partake. I’m not in. I’m very much out. I’m saying NO.

I’m Bartleby the motherfucking Scrivener.

Sure, saying NO is something we all know is important in the world of design. But quitting is a skill required I didn’t really ever expect to be so important. I’ve utilized it several times in the past couple years in ways that have been extremely beneficial in the long term, even if that meant in the short I felt apprehensive and/or terrible about the idea.

Quitting has delivered. Big time.

What is ‘ideal?’

The ideal timeline? Maybe the ideal budget? Or the ideal client? When you have all of those, or maybe just two, then is it ideal? Maybe?

The need for circumstances to be ideal is a great goal. But it’s also very unrealistic.

Should it all be in place for a project to get off to a good start and is getting off to a good start a necessary precursor to a successful project?

The answer to both is NO.