How To Get Things Done
Let me guess, you have too many things to do and too little time to do them, right? Getting things done is a hot topic amongst most professional circles. How do we maximize our results given the limited time we have? Easy, Lower your standards.
Perfection is the enemy of good enough. How many hours of your life have you thrown away trying to perfect something? Unless it was a labor of love, you most likely wasted a lot of valuable time. Time you could have spent doing more valuable things, like sleeping.
You have to realize the point of good enough. It’s where you’ve done enough to complete your goal to be able to move on to other things. It’s where any additional time spent yields little or no improvement. It’s where you can shake your hands clean and be content with what you’ve done.
Don’t think that you should settle for mediocre work. On the contrary! Do your best with as little effort as possible. If you have extra time, then go crazy putting on those little touches that make things that much better. But don’t obsess.
What is unique web design?
Many small business owners who I work with are very interested in having a custom fit web design that says “I am quality and my owner is professional.” They don’t want to have a web site that looks cookie-cutter. They want something that really lets their individual personality shine through. They want a web presence that is one-of-a-kind and unique.
What, though, really makes a web design unique? Many web design templates do have a very generic, cloned feel. Though, on the other hand, there are some that are very aesthetically pleasing. However, when it comes down to it, no web design is completely unique. Nothing in this world is. Everything is inspired of something.
What makes a design unique is the combination of brand, colors, typography, position, and so on. In design, component composition communicates concept. How those components are composed affects how a certain concept is communicated to the viewer. Components like the logo, photos, text and navigation can be composed by being grouped together, spaced out, positioned along grids, scaled down and up, rotated and so on.
So, we know what makes a design unique, but what makes it look professional or well done? This again has to do with the composition of the components and what concept they need to communicate. The design of a web site should feel like it was done with a specific purpose in mind and not just slopped together out of laziness. That means that the web site has a very clear and evident concept or message. Consistent composition of components will emphasize the concept being communicated.
You should ask, what is your website’s concept or message? What words do you want the viewer to feel? Tense or comfortable, excited or calm, sophisticated or simplistic, mature or youthful. Answer this before you design your web presence and, more than likely, you will have a professional-looking, well done web site.
What is Creativity?
I recently wrote about How to be More Creative, but I think I should have clarified what exact creativity is first. So, thanks to a nice article on creativity I have been inspired to share my thoughts on the matter.
Creativity is nothing horribly unique only to the gifted few. Creativity is simply the answer to the willfully asked question, “can this be done differently?” Edward de Bono calls this a ‘Creative Pause’. That is, before you go on to do something, pause and ask this question. If you can answer it in a way that brings out something new and useful, you are creative.
Really then, creativity is a way of thinking. When you make this question part of your normal, everyday thought process you open yourself up to becoming a creator; someone who is creative everyday. The hard part is remembering to pause to ask yourself the question.
So, are you creative? Some call it thinking outside the box, but it’s much more straight forward than that. Just stop to think before you act. Creativity is waiting inside all of us.
I’m a Bad Employee
I’m a bad employee. I only work to get paid. I’m not driven by some altruistic goal to better the world around me and I don’t think I’m the only one.
It seems only the truly self-centered and pretentious individual believes that he is even part of the answer to Man’s problems. Yet when it comes to work, I’d like to be doing something useful with my limited time. I’d like to do something that will somehow make another human being happier, even if only for a moment and I don’t think I’m the only one.
So let me be clear; a good employee is obsessed with his work, because that is the most important thing in his measly life. However, for the rest of us, we have to work because that’s the system we choose to live in. We must earn our way through life.
I believe there’s a way to be a good employee without sacrificing your values in life. Come to the realization that work is just work and decide to do the best you possibly can at it. Be happy when you wake up and know that what you’re doing counts for something. Know that others really appreciate what you do. Seek to be part of something that you can be proud of.
If you can’t achieve those things, maybe you need to quit your job and find other means of employment.
In that way you can be a good employee who does great work and still have a life beyond your secular obligations. That’s what I want to do and I don’t think I’m the only one.
Thank You for the Reminder…
It is superbly refreshing to be shown that no one is really original. Well, at least that no one is so original that what they come up with has never been seen before.
This video(third in a series of four) demonstrates that everything is inspired by something and that the way we become inspired is by first copying something already out there. Am I the only one that felt a certain stigmatism about copying other people’s ideas? Really, our society and technology wouldn’t be what it is today without copying other’s ideas. This is one reason I feel very dark about patents and copyrights. I understand the business logic for them, but despise them based on my more altruistic motives.
So, without further delay, I give you Everything is a Remix – the elements of creativity.
Everything is a Remix Part 3 from Kirby Ferguson
Added bonus:
this video exemplifies how drastic differences(smoke signals vs video chat) are more obvious than gradual changes(PC vs Apple). This should make you giggle a little bit, if you have any humanity in your soul. 