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Independence is a team sport
When you work in a team, you’re in a position where you’re frowned upon if you’re not a team player. You feel like you need to be a team player in order to get by. When you work as an independent, you don’t need to be a team player—you might not even have a team!…
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Put it out there
It’s good to shake things up and put your work on a public surface. Otherwise, it’s easy to forget that other people are experiencing your work too. It’s also good to ask questions early on if you’re stuck, and to let people know you need help with your work. The alternative—not asking—may feel better, and…
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Vision, practice, and spine
At his Substack, Austin Kleon suggests an alternative to having a creative vision: And this all sounds very inspiring — it really does pump you up! — but for much of my life, [having a vision] would have been almost useless advice, because I didn’t really see any of my career coming. There was no…
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“This is not important”
This is how procrastination outsmarts you. It tells you, “[This] is not important.” So you may hear statements like, “This isn’t the right time for me to be doing this.” It may sound like, “I shouldn’t be doing my administrative work right now, because planning for the upcoming quarter is more important.” That’s fine, and…
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Cliffhangers are cheap
I just watched two films that closed with incomplete stories: Across the Spiderverse and Fast X. I’m aware both are very different—the former was received very well, the latter was received as well as the other Fast movies—and I found both to be similarly frustrating experiences. Infinity Wars was probably the first blockbuster to pioneer…
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Documenting Config
My colleague Jenny and I have been busy documenting Config here at the new Figma blog, Shortcut. Because you can already watch many of the sessions here, we decided to approach it with an emphasis on the atmosphere and the experience.
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“I don’t have anything to say about this…”
I’m researching a topic that’s outside of my wheelhouse, with a character that’s outside of my wheelhouse. While it’s incredibly culturally relevant, and I’ve been studying, I can’t say I’ve developed a perspective on the topic yet. And yet, it still captures my attention. A truer statement is probably, “I haven’t done enough research on…
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When emotions limit earnings
When I ran an editorial studio, I was often approached by clients to join their companies full-time. I declined these opportunities and conversations, because I enjoyed entrepreneurship and thought it was the best way to learn, until one client approached me with a salary that I found difficult to say no to. While money was…
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“Don’t do that”
I once got this piece of advice from a bestselling author after I told him I wanted to write a memoir. He told me, “Memoirs don’t sell unless you’re famous.” He wasn’t wrong, and I’m glad I listened to his advice at the time. It was also a sign to me: I didn’t really want…
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Doing meta-creativity well
Whisper of the Heart is all about a protagonist chasing her dream of being a writer, with her love interest becoming a violinist. Hacks is all about a protagonist early into her writing career, who gets cancelled for a distasteful joke. Girls5eva is a comedy show about a retired band going viral and getting a…