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Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug - Book Notes, Summary, Review
Don’t Make Me Think was a transformative reading experience for me. It boils down a lot of complex and indepth usability research and best practices into easy to understand advice with examples. Read This Book On Amazon Who Should Read This Book? I would recommend this book to anyone interested or working in Usability design, Web design, and Web development. There are lots of great insights and guidelines for creating websites, apps, and designs that are highly usable.
March 5, 2021
UI Design Patterns - How To Handle Disabled Components
I recently had to do some research to figure out how to properly handle disabled fields and buttons (I’m collectively calling them components). This design pattern is quite often used across my designs so I wanted to be sure I was implementing it correctly. It turns out there was a lot I didn’t know about this design pattern. Despite that, I continued to research and develop my knowledge of designing disabled components.
March 3, 2021
Using Inboxes To Manage Your Thoughts And Ideas
Our brains are always thinking and processing. If each thought was a word, we would be able to generate enough content to produce a whole book every single day. You might not be completely shocked to read this if you are someone that is always having your best ideas in the shower or out on a run. Essentially anywhere that’s away from where you can action those thoughts and ideas.
March 1, 2021
Can A Rubik's Cube Help With Your Focus?
I recently wrote about the act of continuous learning and made a case for learning from and being inspired by others. In that article, I made reference to YouTuber Mike Boyd and in particular his video on learning to solve a Rubik’s Cube. In the video, Mike documents his journey of learning to solve a Rubik’s Cube in under 2 minutes, and in the end, he manages to achieve that goal.
February 22, 2021
A Simple But Effective Way To Learn Every Day
Just because you’ve left school doesn’t mean that you should stop learning. In fact, I would argue that you should never stop learning new things. From learning new skills to advance your career, to learning to making nutritious meals for your family, to learning how to build a website, there are so many possibilities. By embracing a growth mindset, that is, one that strives for continued learning and improvement, chances are that you’ll lead a more fulfilled and generally happier life.
February 15, 2021
Getting Things Done by David Allen - Book Notes, Summary, Review
Getting Things Done is widely considered a staple of the productivity world and is the go-to book recommended if you’re looking to become a more productive person. It’s the go-to book that many consider being the start of the “productivity revolution”. Who Should Read This Book? I would recommend this book to anyone that is overwhelmed by the tasks they have to do and manage in their lives.
February 12, 2021
Don’t Underestimate The Benefits Of A Day Job
In today’s day and age, many people can become their own boss by being a “content creator” or “knowledge worker”. The internet is full of ambitious and creative people that make their living solely online. This is absolutely amazing to realize and it’s easy to imagine yourself working in this way if that’s something you’re interested in. As someone that has the dream of someday working fully in this way, it is easy for me to feel less excited or passionate about my “day job”.
February 8, 2021
Peak by Anders Ericsson - Book Notes, Summary, Review
Reading Peak was an extremely motivational experience for me. The idea that everyone can improve with deliberate practice no matter how old you are is a really great message. By focusing on deliberate practice to build up your mental models you can grow far beyond a level that is simply “good enough”. I really enjoyed reading this book and would highly recommend it to others. Who Should Read This Book? I would recommend this book to anyone with a growth mindset.
February 5, 2021
How Task Batching Can Accelerate Your Productivity
As someone who writes blog posts pretty consistently and as a content creator in general, I find that I end up working on a lot of the same types of tasks quite regularly. Come up with an idea for a blog post, outline the post, research and write it, create a cover image, publish, share on social media. This content creation process acts like the process of tasks moving along a conveyor belt until completion.
February 1, 2021
The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry - Book Notes, Summary, Review
Reading The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry really opened my eyes to the fun and creativity that can be found in the world of designers and creators. As a UI designer, I now have a renewed motivation to continue to improve my craft and to create new things. If you take nothing else away from this book, then schedule time each week for unnecessary creating. This will build your creative muscle and help you to develop your idea generation muscles.
January 29, 2021
Building A Consistent Writing Habit
I’ve been writing quite a bit about goals, reviews, and routines lately as a result of the new year and that’s going to continue in today’s article. One of the goals I’ve set for myself for the first quarter of this year is to build a consistent writing habit. This might seem like a vague goal in a sense but I’ve broken it down using the SMART Goals method of goal setting.
January 25, 2021
How To Read A Book by Mortimer Adler – Book Notes, Summary, Review
You might think you know how to read a book but you’re probably not remembering much of what you’re reading. That’s where this book comes in. It describes the different levels of reading and how you can get much more out of the books you read. While the book may be challenging to read, it’s important to read books that challenge you, so where better to start than with this book.
January 22, 2021
Determine The Why Behind Your Work For Increased Motivation
At the start of a fresh new year, or when you’re planning out the week ahead during your weekly review, it can be tempting to pile on more and more things to your to-do list. More projects to work on, more goals to achieve, more habits to build. You’ll have a list of amazing things to do and to work on. Then you get even more inspiration from other influencers who are sharing all of the amazing things they are doing and working on.
January 18, 2021
The Productivity Project by Chris Bailey – Book Notes, Summary, Review
Reading The Productivity Project showed me that being busy isn’t the same thing as being productive. When we are productive we are accomplishing the right things that we intentionally set out to work on. Each productivity experiment the author undertakes is detailed using his personal experiences to great effect. This allows us, the reader, to better understand how each one could impact our lives if we were to try them.
January 15, 2021
Restarting The Weekly Review Process
The start of a new year brings with it the chance to review and refine our routines. Of course, you can do this at any point throughout the year but there’s something about seeing January 1st on the calendar that motivates us to reflect and optimize our routines. One of the things on my agenda was to restart my weekly review process which I did this week. Those of you that have read [Getting Things Done] will be familiar with this concept. In fact, I’m re-reading this book as we speak which is why I have renewed motivation to pick this habit back up.
January 11, 2021
Sprint by Jake Knapp – Book Notes, Summary, Review
Running a sprint is an excellent way to test out a solution to a problem without sinking lots of time and money into it. In the world of agile software development, many people may be familiar with the concept of sprints but may not understand them fully. As someone in this position, I knew about sprints but wanted to learn much more about the intricacies of them and how to fully run one from start to finish.
January 8, 2021
Don’t Get Overwhelmed By Your Goals – Keep It Simple
As it’s the start of a brand new year, we’re all in the throws of reflecting over the last year and setting our new goals for the year ahead. I’ve been looking at goals, yearly themes, and reflections, but I’ve found that it’s easy to get overwhelmed at the thought of coming up with and working towards new goals. The fatigue that comes with trying to decide between hundreds of goals can leave you in a state of analysis paralysis.
January 4, 2021
How To Build A Flow Diagram In Obsidian Using Mermaid
As an avid Obsidian user, I am always curious to learn how I can get the most out of this application. I love watching YouTubers live-stream their work process in Obsidian and I’m constantly scouring the Obsidian Forums for nuggets of helpful tips and tricks. If you’re not familiar with Obsidian, it is a popular knowledge management tool built on markdown files. I started using it after reading the book How To Take Smart Notes and learning about the concept of Zettelkasten and permanent notes.
December 21, 2020
The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll – Book Notes
Each time I re-read The Bullet Journal Method, I come away with something new that resonates with me. This book has inspired a pen and paper revolution among those of us that were previously slaves to our digital devices. I now have a bullet journal that accompanies me everywhere and is part of my productivity/task management/mental health toolkits. The Book In 3 Ideas Self-reflection and introspection are important so that you can learn from your experiences and improve. Regular reflection of your life and work is important to ensure a healthy productive life. Writing things down and getting them out of your mind allows you to think more clearly. Writing by hand allows you to slow down and carefully consider what you’re writing. This allows you to write in your own words and makes remembering what you write down more effective. What Is Bullet Journaling? It’s a system of note taking that allows you to define what’s important, why it’s important, and how you can work on those things. It’s a modular system you can pick and choose from (like Lego blocks) to create a toolkit that works for you. It’s not about how the system looks, it’s about how it makes you feel and how effective it is. Your bullet journal will evolve over time as you continue to use it and learn new things. “All tools, whether digital or analog, are only as valuable as their ability to help you accomplish the task at hand.”
December 18, 2020
UI Design Patterns - What’s The Difference Between Search and Filter?
As a UI designer at the company where I work, I am often tasked with creating new designs for complex systems that manage a lot of data. One thing I can be sure of is that the design will require tables of some sort. The next most frequently used components are either searches or filters to manage data. Over time designing these complex UIs, I found that what I imagined in my head and my prototypes weren’t always what came into fruition.
December 11, 2020
Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon – Book Notes, Summary, Review
From reading Steal Like An Artist, I learned how to become more confident in sharing the work that I create. By learning that nothing is truly original, simply a mashup of other ideas, I learned how to harness my creativity to generate ideas that are unique to me. This is the second book I’ve read by Austin Kleon. The first was Show Your Work, which I found to be equally as insightful and as motivating as this book.
December 4, 2020
Notion Library Tour - How I Capture Knowledge On What I Watch & Read
In this article, I would like to walk you through my Notion Library setup. I use this Library database inside of Notion to manage the content I consume daily like YouTube videos, web articles, and books. This allows me to build up my knowledge and to learn more with each new thing I read, watch, and listen to. Hopefully, you’ll find this walkthrough helpful, especially if this is something you are looking to implement for yourself inside of Notion.
November 27, 2020
Show Your Work by Austin Kleon – Book Notes, Summary, Review
Reading Show Your Work unlocked the motivation I needed to be more confident in sharing my thoughts with the world. This is a helpful book for content creators, knowledge workers, and creatives alike. Another great book I read by Austin Kleon was Steal Like An Artist. If you feel motivated and inspired by reading Show Your Work, then Steal Like An Artist is certainly worth adding to your books to read list.
November 25, 2020
How To Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens – Book Notes, Summary, Review
How To Take Smart Notes completely changed the way I look at reading books and taking notes based on what I watch, read, and listen to. This is a must-read for anyone that really enjoys reading but wants to get even more value and insight from the books they read. Who Should Read This Book? I would recommend this book to anyone that really enjoys reading but wants to get even more value and insight from the books they read.
November 20, 2020
A Starter Guide - Color Theory For Web Designers
Color theory is a fundamental concept used in a wide variety of disciplines, from artists to architects to web designers. Ever wondered how interior designers create color schemes for their rooms? You can be sure they are using their knowledge of color theory. Knowing just a small amount about this subject will help you in many more ways than you might realize as a web designer. I have written this article to give you a quick and easy to follow starter guide to color theory for web designers.
June 4, 2020