7 Habits I Wish I Didn’t Stop When I Started Working In The “Real World” of UX

5 min readAug 6, 2019

Recently my career shifting from trying to get a job as a UX designer to a full time position at a corporate office working on high level UX projects. While this brought a lot of growth to my design skills, I also noticed a series of habits that I spent a long time developing that I sadly fell out of. Whether this was because I was burnt out from work or because I needed to find a new way to satisfy these goals — I don’t know. But this list is a compilation of things I realized are very important to maintain, no matter your workload.

1. Don’t Stop Creating for the Sake of Creating

“Every child is an artist; the problem is staying an artist when you grow up” — Pablo Picasso

When I started working, I was still under the mindset to constantly churn out content to my various social media sites. Slowly, this stopped. Eventually I caught myself going months without checking these sites let alone uploading to them.

The problem with stopping this habit is that you fall out of the daily grind of sharpening your skillset. How can I expect myself to one day attain mastery of my craft without dedicating time each day to getting better?

When I started working, that sense of urgency to share yourself online began to fade. I got too comfortable. You don’t have to post your designs online or share them with anybody if you don’t want to. But I firmly believe you do have to create something frequently.

2. Don’t Stop Keeping up with Fellow Designers

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” — Edgar Degas

A long time ago, I created a separate instagram account where I curated my feed to show me all kinds of designers — logo designers, ux designers, brand identity design — the whole 9 yards. I would check this everyday and it would inspire me with new ideas and new designs to try.

As I got busy with work, this habit slowly began to fade. I became too consumed with the work I was doing and stopped caring about what others were doing. In a way, this helped me, but in a lot of ways it hindered me. I found myself sometimes not having ideas of creative directions or concepts. Consuming other people’s work gave me inspiration and ideas for what I could bring to my own work. Without doing this, I kept getting stuck.

3. Don’t stop exploring other ways of Creating

“Originality is nothing but judicious imitation.” — Voltaire

Prior to starting my career, I was experimenting with video editing, photography, calligraphy and sketching. These were all very different to the freelance digital design services I was selling. Once I started working longer hours and on serious projects, I was so tired from designing during the day, that I would not be interesting in doing these creative pursuits when I got home. Instead, I pursued other hobbies and activities that took my mind off design. While this was great, I recognize that I would still need to take time every now and again to explore other ways of making content.

My tip? If you feel burnout like I did, each month try picking one or two new ways of creating art and just have fun experimenting. Don’t think much about it. Just let loose. In a way this will help your mind take a mini vacation from the same routine every day. I find that you can draw inspiration from these experiences later.

4. Don’t get locked into tools from your workflow

“A good artist has less time than ideas.” — Martin Kippenberger

Sketch, figma, Framer, who cares.

It is less about the tools but more about the designer. Don’t get locked in to what you use at work. Take time to explore all of your options and learn the tools out today. You can think of these tools as convenient solutions geared towards different problems. Keep your mind open and don’t lock in whatever you do at work as the only answer to every problem.

5. Don’t be so one-dimensional with your income

“An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.” — James McNeill Whistler

Your career could end tomorrow (I hope it does not). We all know this. But somehow a lot of us forget this — including me. A gift we have as designers is our ability to create. There are so many resources out there to teach us how to create content online and make money. When I started my career, I kept putting this on the back burner and stopped respecting myself and putting in the time to diversify my design portfolio.

6. Don’t stop learning

“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” — Pablo Picasso

This is not a shocking revelation but something I am ashamed to admit I did. I stopped reading, listening to podcasts regarding design and learning about how to become a better creative. Again, my justification was that I felt so burnt out from my time designing that I slipped out of the habit to study portfolios and case studies every day. This one hurts and this is another habit where I noticed the repercussions of not doing them.

7. Don’t fall behind.

“Art is never finished, only abandoned.” — Leonardo Da Vinci

Falling behind is the culmination of no doing the above 6 habits. You slowly fall out of the word of design. While you gain the benefit of tunnel vision and focusing only on your job — your ability to stay sharp and out of the box will slowly dull.