Offcuts

Land your learnings somewhere. If you just consume content (reading a book counts too), you're filling your brain with too much that'll go stale. If you read fiction, tell a story to someone. If you read non-fiction, keep a project running in your head to land the learnings. Input / output

Track your energy, not time, to block your calendar. If your energy is high, create. If it's not, do meetings. If your energy dips, do administrative chores. And if you're feeling emotional, call friends & family or block time to do whatever you actually feel like. Track energy, not time

Have one mentor, not more. Seeking or getting tons of 'gyaan' or inputs or directions from a lot of folks requires time spent, which will feel like progress but will drain you. Following one person, even if you disagree, will help you progress for real, and the worst thing that can happen is that they teach you blind spots. You're talking to too many people

If you want to meditate but can't stick, write instead. I couldn't measure progress sitting cross-legged. I also have sciatica, so yeah. But I could measure writing for 15-20 minutes every day. Meditating by writing

Make your books dirty. Highlight lines, write your notes, note things to look up further, write in your words on flashcards, then mix and match the cards to find new ideas. 40 assorted notes on how I read

Study your successes harder than your failures. Failure tells you what to avoid, but success? Success tells you what actually works. 50+ things worth knowing

Take advice from someone who's two to three years ahead of you, not ten. A design head has forgotten what it 'feels' like to defect a piece of work to ten stakeholders. The right kind of help in your design career

Be present. The mind can be in twenty places, but the feet are in one. The room you're in is the only room. Eating is one activity, so just eat and focus on food and the people you're eating with. Keep your hand empty sometimes. Be where your fucking feet are