Blog
I Use These Tools to Gamify My Habits so I Can Stay Creative and Healthy
I’m a gamer I admit it. I love turning things into a game, especially things I usually procrastinate on. This type of gamification keeps me interested and motivated. It’s especially helpful on bad weeks when I can only do the bare minimum to keep myself progressing. I built this “gamification system” over the last several months using the following tools: Habits App This app allows me to add widgets to my home screen to track my habits.
June 6, 2022
Are You Following Your Life Signals? Here's A Framework To Help You
So many great opportunities will pass you by if you don’t look out for them. If Tiago Forte didn’t listen to the signals in his life, he never would have created the Building A Second Brain course. This course consistently generates millions of dollars per cohort. But what are signals? And how do you know which ones to follow? What are signals? Signals are little recurring themes that keep cropping up when you’re at work, socializing with friends, or walking the dog.
May 23, 2022
How I Consume Content To Build A Massively Helpful Vault Of Knowledge
Over the last year, I’ve developed a system for how I consume different types of content. This system has allowed me to build a vault of knowledge I can repurpose into articles, newsletters, tweets, and digital products. Here’s my system: Consuming Articles I clip articles using the Save to Notion extension. This organizes articles into a Library Notion DB with helpful metadata like the name, source URL, status, and content type. I read the article directly in Notion, make highlights, and take rough notes. I further refine my notes into Obsidian literature notes. Finally, I process these literature notes into evergreen notes. These are atomic notes I can draw from when writing. Consuming Books I read books on my phone using the Google Play Books app. As I make highlights and notes, these are saved to a Google Doc. When I finish reading, I create a new entry in my Library Notion DB. I review the notes and highlights from the Google Doc and make my own notes. As with articles, I further refine these notes into Obsidian literature notes, then process them into evergreen notes. Consuming Podcasts I listen to podcasts using the Snipd app. This allows me to highlight interesting moments as I listen. This has been a game-changer. I export these snips into my Library Notion DB and make my own notes. Next, you guessed it, I refine these notes into Obsidian literature notes, then evergreen notes. Consuming Videos I watch videos on YouTube and take notes in my Library Notion DB. I refine these notes into Obsidian literature notes, then evergreen notes. The multiple iterations of note-taking and note-refining results in better notes that I’m more inclined to remember.
May 16, 2022
How I Use Obsidian To Take Action On The Content I Consume
I consume a lot of articles, podcasts, and videos each week but I would never take action on this content. I would read something that sparked an idea for me and think “this is a good idea to try out”. Then I’d finish the article, take my notes, and never go back to try out the idea. It wasn’t until I saw this Tweet from Sam Williams that I realized I was missing something:
May 9, 2022
This Is How I Publish My Newsletter Every Week Without Fail
At the time of writing this, I have published an edition of Design Insight every week for the last 49 weeks. Once I’m finished writing this article I’ll be scheduling edition 50! I say this not to brag but to take stock of where I’m at in this process of creating and sending out a weekly newsletter. I wanted to document what goes into creating my newsletter each week with the hopes that someone may find it helpful for starting their own newsletter.
April 25, 2022
This 10 Step Checklist Will Instantly Improve Your Landing Page Design
Having a poorly designed landing page is like choosing between an ugly-looking cake and a beautiful-looking cake. Sure the “ugly” cake might taste nice, but you’re less inclined to try it in case it tastes like it looks. Chances are you’ll pick the pretty-looking cake with the sprinkles, piped-icing, and striking colors (note to self: order some cake for lunch). A well-designed landing page is more likely to convert users into customers.
April 11, 2022
Why You Should Plan Your Day Ahead Of Time
Planning your day ahead of time is the most beneficial routine you can add to your life. Whether it’s the day before or first thing in the morning, knowing what’s ahead of you will help you to work more effectively. Here’s why planning your day ahead of time has so much value: You can focus on the work, not what to work on The less friction there is to starting a task, the easier it will be to do. The hard work of deciding what to work on has already been decided for you. You can plan your perfect day
April 8, 2022
How I Create And Repurpose Content To Have The Most Impact Online
There are lots of ways to create and distribute content online these days. There are so many social media and content platforms I’ve lost count. While this is a huge plus for online creators like me, it can also be challenging to know where to start. This is why learning where to focus your efforts to have the most impact is so important. You can try to be everywhere sure, but without a proper system or guiding star, you’ll burn out pretty quickly.
April 4, 2022
Create An Inspiration Repository To Generate Unique Ideas
As a designer, it’s hard to constantly generate new ideas. There can be pressure to create a unique design that looks stunning every time. Your current work is always compared to your previous work. Unfortunately, this can negatively impact your creativity. You’re likely to reserve your best ideas for only a few projects. If you’re in that boat, here’s something you should know: There are no new ideas. Everything has been done before.
March 30, 2022
Jekyll - How To Display A Count Of Posts Per Tag Or Category
My Changelog website (as of 20240126 this site has been decomissioned) is where I keep track of all my creative work online. It contains links to every article, newsletter edition, digital product, and project I create. I built it in Jekyll, my static site generator of choice. One of the first hurdles I had to navigate when building the site was how to display a stats page. This would summarize all my content under a few different parameters. I wanted to display counts of posts per categories as well as tags.
March 28, 2022
Use An Inbox For Quick Capture To Avoid Distraction
Holding lots of things in your head takes up valuable space. This scatters your focus leaving you distracted and unable to concentrate on your work. You may also become so distracted that you forget what your initial focus was in the first place. How can you conquer these problems? Create an inbox to capture these thoughts and ideas as they come to mind. Here’s why this works: An inbox keeps track of the stuff taking up space in your mind. This means you don’t have to worry about remembering it all.
March 24, 2022
Use Netflix To Easily Improve Your Design Skills
Copying good designs is a great way to build your design skills if you’re getting started in design. When I say copying good designs, what I mean is finding a design you like and rebuilding it in your design tool of choice to learn how it’s put together. You’ll never share this work publicly, but with practice, you’ll learn the features that make up effective design. Copying websites will improve how you design websites. However, looking at design through different mediums is an even better way to improve your eye for design.
March 21, 2022
Why You Need A Daily Shutdown Routine
Here’s why a daily shutdown routine is something you should add to your workdays: It creates a mental separation between work and home When you’re working from home, work-life and home-life can bleed together. This results in you checking your emails while eating dinner. A shutdown routine will create a mental cue for your mind to switch from work mode to home mode. You can get clear on the work you did and the work you have to do.
March 16, 2022
How Dark Souls Helps You To Think About Failure
Dark Souls games are punishing for their level of difficulty. They require your full attention, the ability to learn and recognize battle patterns, and the willingness to replay a section over 100 times before beating the boss. You can’t just waltz into a Dark Souls game without knowing what to expect. You probably wouldn’t enjoy the game at all. With that said, Dark Souls games have a very strong and loyal fanbase. Even as someone who is terrible at them, I can still appreciate them and enjoy playing them.
March 14, 2022
How Regular Reflection Makes You A Better Designer
Constantly moving from one project to the next leaves little time to think about the big picture. It can be tough to find the time to ask yourself questions like: Am I making progress towards my goals? What even are my goals? Am I doing work that I enjoy? Without a practice of reflection, you forget about the great accomplishments you’ve made. Instead, you give in to your negativity bias and only remember the slip-ups and mistakes you made.
March 12, 2022
These 7 Books Will Change How You Think About Being A Creative
I read some great books in 2021 that changed completely how I think about my creative practice, how I create, and how I get things done. Before reading these books I had no system for creating, no way of managing my work, and no idea that I could create things others would find helpful. Slowly but surely, reading each book and applying what I learned has resulted in the creative practice that I live each day. I couldn’t imagine working any differently.
March 7, 2022
I Scheduled My Creative Time For The Last 4 Weeks, Here's What I Learned
Scheduled creative time is something I read about but never thought to try until recently. I noticed I struggled to work on anything outside of my primary recurring tasks each week. I wanted to try my hands at building a Notion dashboard or creating a website, but tasks like writing and scheduling my newsletter always took priority. Re-reading my notes from The Accidental Creative, it struck me that scheduled creative time might be the answer.
February 28, 2022
How I Do My Weekly Review In Obsidian
If I didn’t have a weekly review process I simply wouldn’t make consistent progress towards my goals. I have been doing my weekly review inside of Obsidian for over a year and have found it to be a really helpful process. It gives me the space to look back at the last week and plan for the next week. My weekly review process has evolved considerably since I wrote about it last. I recently finished the latest revision of my weekly note template so I thought it would be a great time to share it with others who might find it helpful.
February 21, 2022
These 5 Tips Will Improve Your Designer To Developer Communications Today
As a designer, communicating with developers can be challenging. Throw in remote communication and you might find yourself struggling to reach out in the first place. You can’t get your point across over the phone, there are disagreements with how something has been implemented, your Wi-Fi cuts out mid-call; you’ve been there. While remote communication can seem frustrating, there are a lot of benefits. It gives you a chance to share your work, exchange ideas, and build relationships with your teammates.
February 14, 2022
How To Include Jekyll Liquid Tags in Code Snippets
When I write about Jekyll on my website I often include code snippets to provide more context for how something works. You can easily copy these code snippets and paste them into your own Jekyll website to make them work for you. This is the advantage of being able to include code snippets in a how to article. However when you include Jekyll specific code in default code snippets you’ll notice all kinds of error messages start to appear in your terminal.
January 31, 2022
How To Add A Pomodoro Timer In Obsidian Without A Plugin
This article outlines how to set up a Pomodoro timer in Obsidian without installing any extra plugins. I’ll also explain what a Pomodoro timer is and how you can start using one to focus and get more work done. What Is A Pomodoro Timer? A Pomodoro timer is a timer that allows you to make use of the Pomodoro Technique. Really any sort of timer will do but there are specially designed Pomodoro timers that exist both in the real world and the digital world.
January 24, 2022
My Obsidian Daily Note Template 2022
This article is about how I use the Daily Notes feature in Obsidian to manage my day. I’m a designer, creator, and productivity nerd so having an easy-to-use and engaging system helps me to get my work done. I make use of several plugins and code snippets to make this system possible so I wanted to share how it all works. If want to learn more about Daily Notes, Templater, Dataview, Buttons, Typescript, and more in Obsidian, you’ve come to the right place.
January 17, 2022
6 Procrastination Triggers And How To Overcome Them As A Designer
Procrastination can strike at any time. Whether it’s staring at a blank page first thing in the morning or drinking a third cup of coffee to face organizing your emails at 3 pm, the urge to procrastinate is always hiding. It’s our lizard brain in action trying to keep us on the easiest path possible. The result of procrastination is that your work doesn’t get done. Sure, you might start work on some other task but only to avoid the big important task on the top of your list. However, as a designer, spending time organizing your Figma file isn’t the same as finalizing that mockup for a client.
January 10, 2022
How To Add A Table Of Contents To Jekyll Blog Posts
A table of contents is a helpful component to include in longer blog posts that have lots of detail. It gives readers an easy way to navigate through your blog post to find exactly what they’re looking for. I use a table of contents for most of the blog posts on this Jekyll blog and it was very easy to add. In this post, I’ll walk you through the process of setting up and adding a table of contents to blog posts in Jekyll.
November 22, 2021
The 7 Step Process I Used To Build A Landing Page To Promote My Book
A custom landing page is an invaluable asset to have as a creator online. It acts as your own little space on the internet to promote something you’ve created. It shows your audience what your product is and how it can benefit them. It’s also a place for people to buy your product directly. In fact, more and more people are moving away from the default landing pages services like Gumroad offer in favor of unique and highly customized options.
November 15, 2021