Good work advice

Work is not something to be balanced against everything else. It’s one of the many buckets in our life, sometimes the most important one if you’re hardwired that way, and something we should figure out how best to integrate with the other areas in a healthy, supportive way.

It begins to feel as though you’re failing at life, in some indistinct way, if you’re not treating your time off as an investment in your future. Sometimes this pressure takes the form of the explicit argument that you ought to think of your leisure hours as an opportunity to become a better worker (“Relax! You’ll Be More Productive,” reads the... See more

The thing is, we all know that work isn’t everything, but the way we spend our attention suggests otherwise. The constant accessibility of work creates the culture of busyness, not just with our time but also with our mind. Not only are our calendars filled with colorful event reminders, but even the spaces in between them are occupied by scattered... See more

But who are we — am I — trying to be original for? Myself, a client, a boss, a professor, Instagram, my mom, nobody at all? I think that it’s time to really think about who we’re creating for, so that we can strategize who deserves our originality, who deserves our efficiency, who deserves both, and who deserves neither. If there’s one thing I’m... See more

I added a sample intro email to my studio contact page and it’s been a delight to have a few folks use it. (Anecdote, not data, but everyone that’s used it turned out to be a delightful client.) https://t.co/EDxZiwgmW0

Because businesses, especially creative ones, wither under conditions of self-erasure. Creativity cannot thrive in a starved vessel. Liberation cannot emerge from a punished body. When we design, lead, or create from a place of deprivation or performance, the work becomes brittle. When we create from nourishment, presence, and embodiment, the work... See more