We’re pretty much halfway through the year (say what?!) so I thought it was about time I checked in my goals for the years and gave you a bit of an update, because you, dear readers, keep me accountable all 3 of you!

 

What did I set out to do?

  1. Read 25 books.
  2. Take a photo/video of some kind every day.
  3. Learn 10 new skills.
  4. Do 120 hours of exercise.
  5. Implement a better sleep schedule.

How am I doing?

 

I’ve actually taken down my big goals poster because it was making me feel worse rather than motivating me to be better. I want to be honest with you because you don’t always reach the goals you set, so here’s a little update on how I’m doing on those 5 things, and beyond:

 

  1. I’ve fallen behind on my reading, I’m only up to 9 books so far. But I’m committed to bringing this one back. There are some great autumn releases coming – Nobody Cares anyone? – so there are loads to get me reading again.
  2. This is the second time I’ve kind of given up on this one. I’m not sure what to do to make it stick. I have kept up with my journal though, and I really want to make sure I take plenty of photos of my upcoming holiday.
  3. This is one I’ve really stuck to in spirit rather than the letter of the goal, I’m at 3 new skills so far but I’ve been committed to learning and trying to push my work in new directions which I think is just as important.
  4. I’ve stopped recording this, but I’m still running 4 times a week and doing yoga most nights. I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in and I’m exercising because I want to so I’ve stopped making it something I have to tick off.
  5. Yeah, that’s just not happening. It’s a bit more regular but I think I just have to work with how my body wants to roll at this stage.

 

This year my resolutions have fallen by the wayside because I’ve chosen to focus on shifting my lifestyle and my schedule more. So I might have failed at some of those specific goals but I’m getting so much more out of my days now.

 

I genuinely think I might be in the best place I’ve been for quite a while. I’m not making the most I ever have, but I am feeling good in myself which is arguably more important.

 

It’s okay to change your goals and your focus as long as you keep going.

 

For the second half of the year, I want to build on those changes. I want to keep focusing on feeling settled in my self and start to finally make the work I’ve been talking about and thinking about for the last 6 months.

I take a lot of notes, at work, for blog posts, when I’m working on creative projects. I’m the kind of person who thinks best when they’re writing their ideas down, with pen (or more often pencil) and paper. I quite often get asked questions about my notebook, and how I put my notes together because I use a mixture of traditional notes and sketch notes.

 

Visual notes help you remember more of what you write down. Don’t just take my word for it, it’s science. It has been found that “visual stimulation is more effective than audio stimuli at achieving higher memory retention and recall,” and “specifically, it seems that the use of visual stimuli with the act of writing seems to elicit the best recall.” That means that notes with a visual element are the best kind of notes, not just because they’re the nicest to look at, but because they’re a great learning aid.

 

Now I know when someone says “visual notes” that can be kind of intimidating. It sounds like you have to be a great artist, or be able to do one of those live illustrated TED talks, which by the way are so cool. But it doesn’t.

 

For me, visual notes are about organising and enhancing the written elements of your notes in a way that helps create a picture in your mind that sticks.

 

There are a few key things I like to keep in mind when making visual notes, which I think will help anyone who wants to start giving them a try. I’d also recommend having a look at Core77’s sketch notes channel if this is something you’d like to know more about.

 

  1. It’s all about flow – I like to put chunks of text in containers to keep single ideas defined, then link those ideas together in some kind of flow that makes them easy to view and remember later. I tend to either go with your classic arrows and make a process out of the information if that suits or just group ideas together a bit like a mind map.
  2. Tell a story – as part of that flow, it’s always great to tell a story if you can because we’re much better at remembering stories than facts. You can either do that through linking up your information into a step by step style flow or quite often I just add in a little scene sketch using my favourite quick doodle friends bean people!
  3. Icons help you identify – I said before that you don’t need to be able to draw to make visual notes, the only real drawings I do (you can obviously go all out, but I stick with a strict effort-reward ratio) are icons that help me identify ideas. Those can be super basic diagrams or symbols, whatever works for you.
  4. Highlight the phrases that you want to stick – this is something that I think is super important in all note taking, and something you can add your own style too. You could play with lettering styles, colour, size, boxes, anything really. I tend to just underline and add some sparkle lines to my favourite quotes.
  5. Frame information and data – where the information you’re capturing fits into a framework nicely use it. That can mean showing numbers in super basic graphs, dividing pro/con lists into two sections, or detailing a process as a flow chart. Use your common sense, what’s the easiest way to view what you’re trying to say?

 

These kinds of notes can work in pretty much any situation where you would normally take notes, whether that’s when you’re reading, watching something, or in a meeting (they’re particularly good in client meetings because they do look a little more impressive than bullet points).

We’ve all heard the saying that you need to spend 10,000 hours on anything before you’re good at it right? But how do you structure those 10,000 hours?

In my quest to learn more, and to learn better, I’ve been reading up a lot on deliberate practice and thinking about how I can apply it to what I do. Because one of the best ways to learn and remember something is to teach someone else, I thought I’d share where I’ve got to with you all and get your feedback.

What is deliberate practice?

Deliberate practice is probably best known in the sporting world. Golfer, Ben Hogan is often credited with “inventing” the practice in the 1950s, when he became one of the greatest players of the 20th century (I know nothing about golf so I’m taking James Clear’s word for it). He earned that title through tireless deliberate practice rather than innate natural talent. He “methodically broke the game of golf down into chunks and figured out how he could master each section

 

That’s essentially what deliberate practice is: breaking a skill down to its smallest constitute parts then mastering each piece individually, relying on incremental improvements, then bringing them all back together again.

 

How do you do it?

Deliberate practice isn’t rocket science. But it does have a few key requirements to actually be effective:

  1. Break down your skill into teeny tiny pieces, what is the smallest action within the skill?
  2. Show up and put the work in. As with everything, the work doesn’t work unless you do.
  3. Repetition alone isn’t enough. I’ve discussed before how repetition creates habits, which can be great for somethings, but mindlessly falling into a habit and reinforcing old behaviours is the enemy of deliberate (stress on the deliberate) practice. Keep asking yourself, what can I improve here?
  4. Create a feedback loop. The only way to see where and how you’re improving is to measure what you’re doing, that could be through static measures, comparisons, coaching, or a mixture. Just make sure you’re getting feedback on your performance and acting on it.

 

How do you apply it to art?

As I said, deliberate practice is best known in the world of sports. But it can be applied just as easily to the skills-based elements of art and design, because while “technical proficiency” certainly isn’t everything you want your hands to be able to make everything and anything you can see in your mind, right?

 

Benjamin Franklin, for example, used deliberate practice to develop his writing so that he could express his ideas in the most compelling way possible.

 

Personally, I want to use deliberate practice to improve the way I draw both digitally and traditionally. Currently, I’m planning on breaking my own practice down into line, composition, and then specific things that I draw most often, such as faces.

 

Have any of you tried deliberate practice (deliberately or not)? What are your best strategies for learning a new skill?

Do you ever have those “oh crap I’m actually going to have to do the thing now” moments? I had a major one of those a few weeks ago as I got into work the morning I was meant to give a presentation to pretty much my entire team. Where I work, we have monthly sessions called learning lunches where someone, anyone, teaches the rest of the team about something they care about. My line manager challenged me to do one, and, because I can’t say no, I agreed.

I was also really keen to share my passion for inclusive design.

It was something I’d been half preparing for (read procrastinating) for a good few months, so it felt like a big deal. It probably wasn’t for anyone else involved. But because it was a big deal to me I want to spend some time reflecting on it and learning from it.

So here are a few of the notable takeaways from my hour in the spotlight.

The first two minutes are the worst


I freak out about presenting, pretty much every time whether that’s sharing my work a group of teammates, presenting something important to a client, or just having to introduce myself in a group. But the build-up is always worse than the doing it. That’s something I’m going to try (I stress try because there are no guarantees when it comes to controlling your own reactions to a situation) and remember the next time I have to do something like this. Worrying about something that hasn’t even gone wrong yet is only going to cause me anxiety with no benefits.

 

 

Technical difficulties are inevitable


They are, so don’t panic. When the tech fails you – my screen just kept turning off – don’t panic. Everyone else in the room has been in that position or sat in another presentation where that’s happened before. If anything, while an inconvenience, technical difficulties can actually endear you to your audience.

 

 

Keep your deck visual


Where possible keep the number of words on the screen at a minimum. You want your visuals to support what you say, rather than to distract your audience or to just let them sit and read verbatim what you’re saying. That doesn’t mean you have to be a great artist or make incredible graphs, some of the strongest presentations I’ve seen have been really simple. I chose to illustrate mine because I wanted it to feel super personal. If you’re looking for more advice on the slide side of presentation I’ve got you covered.

 

 

Slow down


I don’t know about anyone else but if I’m nervous I tend to talk about 100miles an hour. I need to embody my inner Sandra Bullock in Speed and keep the train at a steady 50 consciously. The sweet spot is when you feel like you’re speaking a bit too slowly. You’ll get your point across more clearly and you’re much less likely to hyperventilate – I speak from experience. I wrote up some separate tips for staying calm enough to do that last year.

 

Know your stuff


This might seem obvious, but it’s obvious for a reason. My presentation style, for better or worse, is to half wing it. If I have a script I’ll spend the entire time tripping over my words in order to stick to it word for word. I know that having everything written out works for some people though so obviously do whatever makes you feel the most comfortable and confident. But no matter what your style is knowing more than the content of your presentation will give you that little bit of extra swagger in your step and will also give you the power to throw in the extra anecdote when needed/if your audience looks more interested in a particular section, and it means when you finally get to that open questions stage you can actually answer them.

 

Enjoy it – it should be like telling your friends about something great


I’m the kind of person who can and will over excitedly retell the entire plot of a movie to anyone who will listen. If I find something I love I want to tell you about it. You probably know that already because that’s kind of the premise of this whole blog. Plus it’s something I think we all have inside of us. When you’re presenting, no matter the subject matter, you need to find that something that

excites you and use it to fuel everything you say. If you’re excited to tell someone, you can bet they’re way more likely to be excited to listen, unless you’re telling them scene by scene the plot of John Wick.

 

 

End strong


This was probably the bit I overlooked in my learning lunch because I was so relieved to be done. But reflecting now if there was one element I wish I had scripted was my ending to make sure I got my closing points in and more gracefully side stepped into “does anyone have any questions?” territory.

If I could I would probably snooze and watch Netflix all day. I’m not the type of person who leaps out of bed eager to go on a 10mile run or discover the cure for cancer (although I would love to be able to do either). You might say I’m naturally pretty lazy.

 

I also love making things, and when I’m on a roll I’m on a roll. I also spend a fair amount of time writing about productivity, which feels a little bit hypocritical a lot of the time. That’s the struggle.

 

But is there a way the two can work together? Laziness can be a great motivator. If you can’t be bothered to do something you’ll find the quickest or easiest way to do it, and quite often that can lead to you finding hacks to improve things or identifying pointless steps in the things you do. One of the reasons I love reading about productivity is that the more efficient I am the more time I can spend napping. But that shortcutting can also go too far, which is where I’d go to recently. I’d yielded to my inner sleeping puppy and ended up cutting off so many corners that what I was working on had lost all shape. I wasn’t creating the content I wanted to or making the pieces I knew I could, which just ended up demotivating me even further.

 

So, I turned to my laziness to help inspire my productivity and here’s how you can too.

 

First off you need to work out what it is you’re lazy about and what you’re not. For me, I’m super lazy about:

  • Making decisions, if I can procrastinate having to choose if I have to wear socks I will
  • Getting out of bed, it’s warm and cozy and wonderful
  • Napping, see above
  • Watching Netflix, it’s so darn easy to binge
  • Getting started working

 

But I’m not so lazy about:

  • Planning, I love to put together a plan if I can prep something I will
  • Working, when I’m started it’s hard to stop

 

Take that list of things you’re lazy about, and the list of changes you want to implement, then make a plan. For me, this meant that I set myself up with a really diligent schedule for my weekday evenings, in part because I know that I’m the kind of person who works well in a time box, and in part because one of the things I always procrastinate is decisions. But you might also put specific structures or blocks in place.

 

Once you’ve built that structure, the ultimate way to utilize your own laziness to be more productive is to turn it into a habit. It takes at least 21 days to form a new habit, so that means sticking to your plan for three weeks, and doing it properly. But if you can commit to it, you’ll end up making the behavior your default. You’ll do it on autopilot. That means that you’ll be indulging your laziness and doing what you need to do, win-win, cake and eat it too.