How can designers design their own time and life?

Recently participated in a few weeks and design review, the biggest feeling is: many times, designers in the project is not the problem of the design itself, more is the management of time.

Designers have some kind of "craftsman plot", they love to have their own independent space and time, look forward to a no one bothered to immerse themselves in the hobby of the cabin or at some seaside to take a book empty ... but think about how many of these dreams we have now completed? (as sad as the song sings) why is it that so many things are always done? Obviously I feel physically exhausted, but there is no time to exercise?

Some say time is the fairest thing in the world, but there are always people in the world who spend 20% of their time accomplishing things that one person uses 80%. So the former people are busy thinking about how to spend their leisure time, the latter kind of people with red eyes to endure the night.

If you make a table every day to keep track of how much time is spent per hour, what is the form of spending? Focus on work, meaningless waste of time, or real rest. In the end you will find that there is really not much to do with the business. Most are stuck in meaningless waste, these waste is called the time of the black hole.

Common time black holes are: supermarkets, televisions and internet time black holes.

What is a supermarket time black hole? For example, in the afternoon and wife go to the supermarket, want to buy some fruit, estimated to spend 10 minutes. Go into the supermarket and think, what fruit to buy? It's nice to see the apples-wow, the bananas are on sale! What do we do? First go to get a shopping basket, put in bananas and some apples and then found next to the Apple and the import of jam, looks pretty good, not always eat fried food in the morning, instead of starting from tomorrow morning toast, sandwiched with jam, drink milk. But before that, replace the shopping basket with a shopping cart ....

TV Time Black Hole: Originally wanted to do a PPT, has been 1 hours, work and rest, first break, turn on the TV, is playing "Dahua West Tour" although see countless times, but each time can not miss. After watching the change, this is not who to participate in this program, to see what the gossip .... It was meant to rest for 1 hours and the results 3 hours later.

We now encounter the most is the network time black hole: Morning came to the office, water, open the computer, start a new day's work, but do not worry, first open QQ to see who online. Open micro-blog to see the latest news, see someone send a new film trailer, and the Internet to find the download address .... It turned out that the morning had passed when I thought of working.

The common features of the above examples are: to provide a lot of relevant information (supermarkets Apple = Pear = Jam, etc., the Internet provides a lot of browsing information) to attract our attention, so that the time spent unconsciously inflated. This stems from our brains like creative thinking, not good at memorizing laws, boring, purposeful, not initiative. The brain's ability to form a strong stimulus can be stored. People are especially vulnerable to loss of space and time in the network. (On the other hand, content-type Internet products can take advantage of this and provide more relevant information to increase user viscosity.) )

There are many ways to avoid the black hole of Time:

Try to isolate yourself.

Set task Deadlines

Do things prioritize, solve the most important and urgent

The last point is very effective, first remove the largest stone, do the urgent and important things, believe that after the body and mind will be much easier. When designing the page, we often follow the priority, for the main function of the page optimization and layout, such as important content in the first screen, important operation to do color key distinction. Time management is the same. If you differentiate things by urgency and focus, you can divide them into four dimensions:

About the fourth quadrant-unimportant and not urgent things, such as watching boring TV shows and so on, which is acceptable as an adjustment other than the other three quadrants, but immersed, the value of time is greatly discounted. First quadrant important and urgent things: For example: Project time point Designer to deliver the document, before the release of the bug. These things must be done at once, or the consequences will be serious.

For the first quadrant and the fourth quadrant we are well understood and easy to move. But for the second and third quadrants, we often make false judgments. Are you going to deal with the more urgent but unimportant things in the third quadrant, or do you prioritize the important but not urgent things in the second quadrant? A lot of people don't hesitate to choose to do urgent things first. The answer is wrong. Many people will be fooled by the illusion of the quadrant, that urgency = important, in fact, there is no relationship between urgency and importance. Why not? Before we find out, we'll look at a picture (GIF format, need to click to view):

I think the designers have not met a sudden one day to receive a friend functionary, to do a design such a thing. Although I don't understand why many people think design is a matter of minutes, and often a "free" lunch. (Helpless ah ...) these all belong to the third quadrant urgent but unimportant matter. The time spent in this quadrant is rather regrettable and helpless, busy for a half-day may have no effect, but delayed important things. We should think about how to reduce the business here. One way is to get rid of the monkeys. From Bill and Unken's monkey laws, he likened his work to a monkey who was alive and ready to jump on you. Try this situation: one day in the corridor to meet the product manager, he said that the design of a project when there is a problem, can I talk to you? So you began to listen to him with concern. The result is really troublesome, you listen to half an hour to figure out what's going on, and still can't give advice, so, you say this problem is very complicated, I now have no time to discuss with you, let me think, we will talk about later. The monkey was back on the product manager's back in the hallway, and you didn't even know it existed. Then you start listening to what he tells you, and the monkey's foot creeps up on your back. After listening, you said to think about it and discuss it. The monkey has been completely transferred to your back, and the product manager has become the supervisor. After that, he would run around and ask, "How did you think about that?" There are many such monkeys in life, such as wife asked: Tomorrow afternoon can accompany her shopping, parents suddenly want to buy new appliances ... how to get rid of these monkeys, here also give some reference to answer:

The standard to solve these problems is to get rid of the monkeys or put them back on the master. Gradually out of the third quadrant. The importance of this is no more than the little Shang shoes on Weibo:

"The value of the designer in the project is embodied in the details of the system, which requires dedication and even ecstasy." At the same time to attend and or manage a number of project designers, the basic value can not play, do not covet more. Quality is good, basic impossible, do more, quality general, that has grease no credit, do less, quality general, that is unqualified; So, there is only one way for designers: to do less, to do fine, to ensure quality. ”

So designers try to learn to unleashing monkeys and do more important things.

Out of the third quadrant, for the second quadrant-something important but not urgent: for example, learning a tool software, making common axure prototype components. These seemingly not urgent things, once not dealt with will one day eventually develop into the first quadrant. So plan to do it.

If you're just like me, you're delaying syndrome, one day you're going to have to do a PowerPoint presentation and coffee, turn on the computer, how to write it ... yes, the last such information may be useful, online search information, oh right today there is a big bang, open the Web page to watch the video bar ... it's hard enough to write, where to start. That's 40 minutes later. Why is that? The main thing is to take the project as action.

For example, for some key projects (big revision, new products) design strategy, a possible unprepared. Would it be easy to find a feeling if the question of thinking changes to "define product definition"?

These are all about GTD (getting things done), from David Allen getting things done:the Art of stress-free productivity ("Do it: the art of work without pressure"). It is then extended to the broader meaning of time management.

In short, good designers not only to deal with the priority of the page, but also to design their own time and life ~ empty everyone can continue to study the next time management, and finally recommended two books, "Tomato Work Act" and "Xiao Qiang promotion notes."

Author: @ Ya Qiu http://www.zhangyq.com/when-design-meets-time/