Rant 6: “Where to Invest” (Transcript)
User Experience
Rant 6 // Designed Today
December 2018
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Take Two.
This is take two, Designed Today. Another rant. Why is it take two? Well, because I was halfway through the first recording when my kids came barging into the office with some stuff that they wanted to talk about. Now, I wouldn’t typically talk about why this is take two in any other take. But on today’s rant it’s a bit more pointed.
I want to talk a little bit about balance.
I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving time where you can spend with friends and family and give thanks.
And now as we roll into the holiday season we’ve got time off of work where we get to continue to put an emphasis on those meaningful relationships.
Me — personally, I’ve struggled with this in the past — I’ve taken the time off from work and I’ve just turned it around into more projects on the side to make a couple … you know, make some money on the side.
Now, it is not necessarily a bad thing, right? But, well, with this time off from work, I’m trying to focus a bit more on these meaningful relationships.
So, this may be the last rant of the month; this may be the only rant of the month. I’ve got a couple of episodes recorded that will be published. But as far as rant goes, they type and they tend to happen in the time that I post them. And I just don’t think I will be stepping in front of a microphone again until January as I try and slow down a little bit of my own content and some of the things that I work on the side with. I’m going to try and spend that time back into my family!
How Will You Mea$ure?
I’ve recognized a couple lessons from the book I’m reading right now. It’s called “How Will You Measure Your Life?” by Clayton Christensen. And one of the concepts in there that really kind of rang true to me was this right here: we tend to invest time in the things with immediate payoff.
It’s actually pretty simple, right? If someone came to me and said, “Dillon, I’ll pay you $10,000 to design a logo”— don’t worry it doesn’t happen — but, if it did, it’d be easy to justify. What, just a logo? Yeah, I can do that and $10,000 at the end. Why not? Who doesn’t want spare cash around the holiday season?
Where you don’t see immediate payoff, though, is in your relationships with your friends, or your family, your loved ones, whatever you want to call it. Relationships take time; they take effort. You’ve got to invest in these relationships. And the payoff may not be until the day you really need it and you don’t know when that’s going to be, so you should always be investing in those types of things.
Another thing that popped up in my reading was we tend to — I guess compounded in this issue is — we tend to go wherever’s screaming the loudest, right? If you’ve got a client that’s screaming bloody murder that we need to finish by a deadline, you are going to naturally gravitate towards finishing it so that you can get it done by their deadline.
But notice who doesn’t scream for your attention. Your friends and family will not be screaming for your time and attention because they want the best for us. They want us to succeed. They want your career to build, they want to see growth, so they won’t be screaming for your time and attention.
If they are, maybe consider yourself blessed or lucky.
So, I just want to call attention to those two or four things.
“Where are we investing our time and are we just chasing the squeaky wheel?”
I would just challenge you that, as we go through this month, where we’ve got friends and family that we’re going to be seeing — are we really investing our time back into those meaningful relationships?
It can be friends and family, but if you even want to take it to a different level with your co-workers, you know, not everything is always going to be about work. How invested are you in people’s lives who are around you?
With that, I want to give out and I guess a question or maybe you guys can help do something for me …
(Not So) Secret Projects.
As you guy’s have known, I’ve been working on a little secret side project and I am at a point where actually I could use some feedback. Attached to this video, is going to be a survey, whether you’re watching this on social media, or if you’re seeing this on my website, wherever, there’s gonna be a link, and there’s going to be a link to a survey, and it’s only a couple of questions.
However those couple of questions, they need a little bit more thought than just a “yes, no, true or false” type of thing. So, if you’ve got a minute, please take the survey. Give me some feedback. Give some thought into the answers, and I could really use that information to get to know people who are listening, and how I can gear this super secret project. It’s probably not secret. I think I’ve talked about it, actually, once or twice, but if you can do that for me, it’d be greatly appreciated. Again, the links should be attached to this.
And then, with that, I’ll leave you with this challenge.
Again, spend time in those meaningful relationships. ‘Tis the season, right? And make sure that your friends, your family, your loved ones, are getting that investment from you. And with that, have a good December.
We’ll see you guys in January.
Can I Help You?
My name is Dillon Winspear, I’m a one-man band, family man, content creator, teacher, mentor and UX designer. (Not necessarily in that order.)
I create content for new and up and coming UX and Product Designers and help people navigate their professional careers.
I make podcasts and videos to teach people how to stay informed and on fire through interviews with other creators, life-long learners, doers, and makers.
Check my videos out on YouTube. And my transcripts from Designed Today on Medium.
My motto is “Learn. Teach. Move Up.”
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