Organizing and simplifying, one illumination at a time
Sometimes work hits a bad spot. Sometimes mentally you hit a bad spot. Both are OK (which is to say they happen, it’s not necessarily your fault, life goes on).
Sometimes we need a bit more motivation than we’d like to show up at work in the morning.
My August 5 post on The Interconnected was about staying motivated at work. Let me know if you have other ideas I should incorporate into another article. (Or write for us!)
“The Guy” is a concept I heard about years ago. The Guy is that one person that the company absolutely cannot live without — The Guy cleans up the messes, works incredible hours, fixes things no one else can fix, and is indispensable. If The Guy is on vacation, work doesn’t get done. If The Guy gets sick, or has a family emergency, no one’s sure how to pick up The Guy’s work.
Thing is, no company over a certain size should have a The Guy. I’ve seen many situations over the years where The Guy was the result of a manager who didn’t want to staff up or provide adequate support, which forced The Guy develop. I’ve also seen many situations where people made themselves The Guy by putting so much personal pressure on themselves that they became The Guy just because.
Neither of those is healthy. My July 12 post on The Interconnected explains why, and what to do about it.
Read You are not “The Guy”.
I’m doing a lot of writing design guidelines at work right now — essentially codifying in words the things we’re already doing. Paving the cowpaths if you will.
My June 28 post on The Interconnected is about where to put design guidelines when you write them, what application to write them in, what to put in them, and why nobody’s going to read them but you.
Read Back to Basics: Writing Design Guidelines on The Interconnected
My June 2 post on The Interconnected came from a conversation at work about how some “hot” new design projects were really just a way to suck money out of people… and how it reminded me a lot of modern art which was intended to shock and cost money, but not really add anything valuable to anyone’s lives.
It also touches on some accessibility elements — like the fact that many As Seen on TV products are actually products that solve problems for people with disabilities that the rest of us benefit from.
Read Cans of Shit and Salt Speakers at The Interconnected.
So, what’s the status of your project?
It could be on fire, it could be backburnered, it could be asleep, it could be dead.
Hopefully it’s not a zombie on fire.