Design your life

Read better, work better, sleep better, X better.

Whether we like it or not, all of us breathe and live design. We are all designers of our own lives. Most parts of how we operate are because we ‘designed’ it to be so, consciously or unconsciously.

All designs influence our behaviour, but as designers we don’t always consciously consider the power this gives us to help people, (and, sometimes, to manipulate them). Design with Intent

So how do we design our own behaviours?

iPhone home screen as of 13th May 2013

Read More

By only putting the Kindle app on my iPhone dock, I find myself reading significantly more.

Previously, I had Phone, Gmail and WhatsApp on the dock and I would fidget through my emails and messages, resulting in a lot of aimless, wasted time.

Work Better

A better workflow

All of us open up the browser each day to consume information.

Let’s take a step back now and think about what happens in that process: Facebook. Gmail. Facebook. Random Website. Facebook. Random Website. Facebook. Random Website. Gmail. Gmail. Gmail. Facebook.

By designing your bookmark bar to be an action bookmark bar, you can enable yourself to have a much better workflow.

Bookmark bar as of 13th May 2013

My typical day starts like this after I fire up my laptop:

1. Turn on productivity music
2. Visualise my day on Google Calendar
3. Open up Asana to see what I have to focus on
4. Check my email (3 times a day)
5. Open up Medium and write, however little (lately, I made a resolution to improve my writing)
6. Go through my RSS feeds on Feedly (I have a Daily Reads folder for my top and must reads)

The whole process above takes 1-2 hours.

When I come across articles I would like to share, I click Share (post into a closed Facebook water cooler group) or Tweet. If and when I have more time, I allow myself to consume general knowledge stuff on Hacker News or Quora.

Distraction Free

Whether I’m working on Sublime, Illustrator, PowerPoint, etc., I often find it necessary to turn to my browser.

How do you not get yourself distracted?

Hide the bookmark bar to avoid seeing the ever-tempting blue (Facebook) favicon or white (Gmail) favicon so you don’t have to click on it unnecessarily. Out of sight, out of mind.

How I work

Oh yeah. It works.

By rethinking the designs in your life, you can enable yourself to read better, work better, sleep better and do a lot of other things better.

Live long and prosper.