Steyn Viljoen
@steyn
Designer at CustomerOS. Gardener. Dad. Write at Viljoen Space about product, gardening and parenthood.
Steyn Viljoen
viljoen.space
obsessing over quality often demands that you slow down, as the focus required to get better is simply not compatible with busyness.
Cal Newport • Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout
Gardening is not just a set of tasks. It’s not restricted to backyards, courtyards, balconies. It can, and should, happen anywhere, everywhere. Gardening is simply a framework for engagement with our world, grounded in care, action and intimacy with place. To garden is to care deeply, inclusively and audaciously for the world outside our homes and ... See more
Wonderground • Audacious Gardening: On Daring to Care
Yeah, we don’t believe in a 30-person crew. We don’t believe you should emulate the look of a major Hollywood film. I like the indie game philosophy, where two guys make a whole game with pixel art and pick an aesthetic and a style that matches the scope of their budget and team. We believe in small and slow. Four people over 12 weeks can make a mo... See more
Doug Dillaman • Of Mascots and Men: Mike Cheslik and Ryland Brickston Cole Tews on Hundreds of Beavers | Filmmaker Magazine
To be a gardener is to give a fuck. To be a gardener is to be invested in a place—to know it, to protect it, to be present to it. How can we protect and heal ourselves and our planet if we’re not willing to step into, and value, the role of the gardener?
Georgina Reid • Audacious Gardening: On Daring to Care - Wonderground
Spearman was right that people differ in their ability to solve well-defined problems. But he was wrong that well-defined problems are the only kind of problems. “Why can’t I find someone to spend my life with?” “Should I be a dentist or a dancer?” and “How do I get my child to stop crying?” are all important but poorly defined problems. “How can w... See more
Adam Mastroianni • Why aren't smart people happier?
That linear time is a method of colonial control is perhaps the greatest lesson to be learned in the fight to undo the horrors of capitalism. Before imperialists descended on the United States, there were no clocks. No second hands tick tick ticking our lives away. These are constructions that whiteness created to ensure our lives were ruled by the... See more
That impulse to scour away the messiness that makes life resilient is what many conservation biologists call the ‘pathology of command and control.’
One way to spot people who are good at solving poorly defined problems is to look for people who feel good about their lives; “how do I live a life I like” is a humdinger of a poorly defined problem.
Adam Mastroianni • Why aren't smart people happier?
If you make lists of lofty goals, it can be easy to leave them to accumulate, as happens sometimes, into a mountain of to-do ’s and notes and half-forgotten plans. Dreaming alone is seductive, even a little sweet, since it lacks the pain of trying. So it feels proper to prize attempts more than dreams. You should have ideals, but you cannot only lo... See more