“So you’ve been working in the US without the proper work authorization?” Before I knew it, I was on the next flight back to Europe. Drinking overpriced wine. And sobbing freely.

It was an unfortunate misunderstanding that hopefully gets resolved soon. But until it does I’m back home in the Netherlands. Spending time with friends and family. And meeting with my therapist.

Fast forward a few months. And several therapy sessions. I’m inspired by how similar the tools and techniques of Cindy (my new therapist) are to the ones I’ve been using as a designer.

1. Just listen.

During my first session, Cindy…

I rolled out my mat, following the already existing pattern, and laid down on my back, imitating the girl in front of me. She wasn’t wearing much, just leggings and a sports bra, but there was no way I was taking my top off too. A few minutes later, which felt like hours, the teacher asked us to get into our first pose. Again, I looked at the girl in front of me and continued imitating her for the rest of the class. My approach was working pretty well, until the teacher asked us to get into crow pose. The…

What’s not wrong with it? Some examples are a lack of transparency, abuse of big data, and the fight for attention. The latter one is actually the root cause of the first two (and probably many other issues as well).

The general concept of designing for attention is nothing new. Back in the day though, things were moving a lot slower and there weren’t nearly as many products, services, and experiences. As the market grew, we realized that simply offering our things wasn’t enough to also sell them. In order to make money, we had to find ways to…

I’m guessing not very often, and I can’t blame you. Simply reading the word makes me wince too, and I’m still in denial that it will happen to me one day. Death is as much part of life as birth though, as are taxes. We’re all too familiar with the books “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” and “Taxes for Dummies,” but have you ever heard of a book on how to die?

As Shoshana Berger pointed out during her Creative Mornings talk, death is taboo and we don’t like talking about it, but this has not always been the…

If you take a look at my resume, you’ll see that I’m a certified yoga teacher as well as an interaction design student. A lot of people ask me, “why did you decide to study interaction design instead of being a yoga teacher?” “I didn’t,” I tell them. Even though it took me a while to figure out, I’ve realized that studying interaction design and teaching yoga is not mutually exclusive. I can actually integrate both into my life.

During my Ashtanga yoga teacher training in Bali last year, I learned many different poses, various meditation techniques as well as…