No. 72 | Seven habits I formed the hard way
Some habits come easier than others. I’m still working on “go to bed before midnight because you wake up at 6am no matter what, dummy”, but life is about the journey, you know?
I have blogged intermittently since the mid 90s. Thankfully, much of the early teenage angst is lost to time. This collects my writings from this site, an earlier personal website, and some newsletter projects over the years, in mostly chronological order. I also publish new writing here. I publish somewhat more formal writing about content strategy and design careers at Content Career Accelerator.
No. 71 | Seven things I worry about
Here, in no particular order — except the order in which they occurred to me — are seven things about which I worry.
How do you estimate the time needed for doing the writing?
The project managers turns to you and asks: “How long is it going to take to write this?” Hoo boy. It’s time to proceed very, very carefully.
Nothing unfamiliar (Tools I used to write a book)
My book advises designers to be intentional about the tools they choose and use to do the writing on their projects. For writing a book, a thing I’d never done before, I ran a few experiments to see if there was any good and smart tool I hadn’t tried before that would make it easier. … continue
Expert Ding-Dong
I keep seeing LinkedIn profile headlines with the word “expert” in them. Good grief. The surface-level reaction is: “Haha, look at that try-hard.” But that’s a defensive coating on the deeper response: “Oh shit, should I be doing that? I’m more of an expert on [Topic] than that guy!” I’ve built my share of expertise … continue
I acknowledge the absence of the sun
Just heard on the radio that it’s the cloudiest January on record here. I believe it. It’s required attention, that’s for sure. I take my Vitamin D supplement (a gummy, of course — treat yourself). I have a clinical-looking daylight lamp that kicks on automatically when sunrise is supposed to be. I try to stick … continue
Tomato paste provenance
It’s disorienting, sometimes, the way objects slip in and out of our lives — what ever happened to that red shirt? Don’t I own more coffee mugs? Where on Earth did this book come from? I used to be very focused on momentos — my teenage bedroom had a meticulously arranged display of every chotchke … continue
Long paragraphs
“So often the long paragraphs I write in life are responses to Facebook posts, or reply letters to someone, or … I can put together a three-paragraph letter that burns the hair off of your eyebrows about almost any topic.” – John Roderick on the Road Work podcast I like this thought technology: Where do … continue
Should UX Writers use Lorem Ipsum?
Using placeholer text like Lorem Ipsum can help you visualize and consider what impression the form your content will have on your reader. It’s a pencil sketch before laying down ink, a hummed melody before writing the score.
Islands and icebergs
Spent all week working on something and I just trashed it. Wasn’t coming together. Hate to do it because you never know if you were almost there. Sometimes you’re hating it and hating it, and you keep sailing on, and then blam-oh! There she is! I see land, boys! But maybe you stopped just before … continue