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

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

45. Daily Life Checklists: Build Habits

46. Why Habits? Decision Fatigue

47. Fighting Procrastination: Use a Site Blocker

48. Communication and
Collaboration

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

50. Presence

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

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

53. 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%

54. Macs Especially: Be Prepared!

55. Practice safe conference calling

56. Get a headset

57. Don’t trust mute

58. Close your chat (and other windows)

59. Tend your knitting

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

61. Sometimes you just need to get together

62. 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%

63. Lucidchart

64. mural.ly

65. Optimal Workshop

66. Agree on your suite of digital tools

67. Maintain your virtual workspace

68. Train new team members and clients

69. Designing Alone

71. Create an office that supports different kinds of work

72. Bodystorming for One
flickr: xian

73. Go out and get input in other places

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

75. Recover and keep going

76. Representing Design

77. Justify your existence

78. Constraints largely come in the form of other
people

79. • 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

80. Persistence is key

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