Going Solo: Design and Productivity Techniques for the Team of One

1. Going Solo: Design and Productivity Techniques for the Team of One @crispinTX #BigD15 #teamOfOne Crispin Reedy

2. Crispin Reedy! crispinreedy.com! @crispinTX! ! Voice Interaction Designer President of @avixd 15 years working from home Usually the only designer 3 different employers ~30 different clients

3. My coworkers

4. Who’s Here? • Just started working from home? • Been doing it for a while? • Thinking about it? • Don’t WFH but the only designer on the team?

5. What’s it like?

6. The Idea

7. The Oatmeal The Reality

8. 20 Reasons Why Intelligent People Fail (Robert Steinberg) Lack of Motivation Procrastination Lack of ! Impulse Control Distractibility Inability to Delay Gratiﬁcation

9. Mental FocusCommunication! and! Collaboration Designing Alone Representing! Design

10. Mental Focus

11. Mental Focus • Sanity! • Metacognition • Pomodoros • Routines, Checklists, Systems • Fighting Procrastination

12. Get out of the house!! Volunteer! Join a professional organization, team or Meetup! Take classes!

13. At the ofﬁce: the hive mind

14. At home: sailing solo

15. How do you stay sane ! when you’re the only one in the room?

16. Metacognition: Become Your Own Lifehacker Flickr: Vox

17. You are a mad scientist! ! and the experiment is! yourself!

18. Idea%/%Tip% Implement% Change% Log%Results% Evaluate:% Keep%or% No?% Find% Another% Change%

19. micapie.com Keep tabs on your:! • Mood • Energy Level • Concentration Level • Type of Work • Time of Day • Productivity

20. micapie.com Use tools like:! • Journal • Habit / Mood Tracking Apps Make observations and apply them

21. My Own Observations

22. Morning: High Energy Afternoon: The Cliff

23. “Eat a live frog ﬁrst thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you all day.” - Mark Twain

24. Save email and busywork for low-energy times

25. When you’re blocked by the need to be social, what’s the plan?

26. Change your energy: location, movement

27. Keep a list of what doesn’t work

28. Start something new for tomorrow at the end of the day.

29. Pomodoros

30. Decide on the task

31. Set the timer (25 minutes or more)

32. Do the work

33. Review & take a short break

34. Pomodoros • Work on the task uninterruptedly; no answering phone / email • 25 minutes is “standard,” but what works for you? • After 4 pomodoros, take a “real” break • Get up, walk around, get outside • If you go longer, take a break after 2-3

35. Routines, Checklists, Systems

36. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

37. How the starﬁsh opens the clam Jon Bloom

38. Goals! Systems! Checklists! Habits! The virtuous cycle

39. Types of Lists • Todo lists • GTD • Procedure lists • Daily life checklists

40. Todo Lists • Schedule design review! • Make travel plans! • UXPA Submission! • Try Lucid Chart! • Write whitepaper • Grocery! • Bookstore! • Lowe’s! • Call roofer

41. • Trello! • Evernote! • Nirvana! • Remember the Milk! • Etc.

42. Procedure Checklists

43. Having things written down is like seeing your thoughts outside your head. Warner Brothers

44. Daily Life Checklists: Build Habits

45. Why Habits? Decision Fatigue

46. Fighting Procrastination: Use a Site Blocker

47. Communication and Collaboration

48. Interaction! Workspace! Process! Results! Factors of Remote Design UIE Seminar by @JimKalbach! Designing Remotely: ! Effective Techniques for Remote Design

49. Presence

50. Presence • Organizations differ • All remote vs. only a few people remote, the rest onsite • The most difﬁcult situation to deal with • Persistence is key

51. Collaboration: Digital First • Communication Tools! • Phone / Audio! • Screen sharing! • Webcams! • File repositories! • Chat! • Email • Design-Speciﬁc Tools! • Online prototyping! • Online testing! • Virtual whiteboard

52. Conferencing! ! • Skype 66% • Hangouts 43% • GoToMeeting 32% • WebEx 24% UIE Seminar by @JimKalbach! Designing Remotely: ! Effective Techniques for Remote Design Chat! ! • Slack / Skype 43% • Google 31% • What’s App 18% File Sharing! ! • Dropbox / Google Drive 54% • Internal 34% • Evernote 16% • Box 14%

53. Macs Especially: Be Prepared!

54. Practice safe conference calling

55. Get a headset

56. Don’t trust mute

57. Close your chat (and other windows)

58. Tend your knitting

59. The person who is most prepared for the meeting wins the meeting • Brainstorming! • Discussion! • Design Review • Goal! • Agenda! • Deck / Materials! • Capture Decisions

60. Sometimes you just need to get together

61. Online Prototyping! ! • Invision 48% • Don’t use 44% • Marvel 13% • UXPin 10% • Proto.IO 9% • Internal Tool 8% UIE Seminar by @JimKalbach! Designing Remotely: ! Effective Techniques for Remote Design Online Testing! ! • Don’t use 59% • User Zoom 21% • Other 14% • Optimal Workshop 11% • Internal Tool 9%

62. Lucidchart

63. mural.ly

64. Optimal Workshop

65. Agree on your suite of digital tools

66. Maintain your virtual workspace

67. Train new team members and clients

68. Designing Alone

69. Create an ofﬁce that supports different kinds of work

70. Bodystorming for One ﬂickr: xian

71. Go out and get input in other places

72. Recognize when you’re lost in the weeds • Catalog the medicine cabinet! • Cut the work up and remix it! • Give yourself permission to play

73. Recover and keep going

74. Representing Design

75. Justify your existence

76. Constraints largely come in the form of other people

77. • Invite people in! • Make things together! • Teach them about design! • Listen to their needs! • Get OK with being challenged! • Don’t sweat the small stuff! • Choose your hills

78. Persistence is key

79. you have a poem to offer! it is made of action @crispinTX “Notes on the Assemblage”! Juan Felipe Herrera

Going Solo: Design and Productivity Techniques for the Team of One

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