Show, Don’t Tell

I’ve read many books on writing, most of which have some good and some not-so-helpful advice. A few tips, however, seem to come up over and over.

One of the most common and misunderstood is “show, don’t tell,” which means describing what is going on is better than just stating the events as they happen.

On the surface, this is excellent advice. And it does work. But, as with many things, it can be taken too far. If all you're doing is showing your characters' movements and physical actions as they progress through the story, you’re missing out on one of the best ways to build emotion, connection, and understanding with your reader. You also need to describe what is going on internally—showing—or telling, in many cases—your reader what your characters are thinking and feeling.

I’ve recently been reminded of this while listening to Savannah Gilbo’s fantastic writing podcast, where she covers this very thing. Her podcast is excellent, and this particular episode encapsulates the good advice around “show, don’t tell” very well.

A Simple System for Planning The New Year

An overview of the system I use to plan and track my personal projects and growth.

I enjoy the yearly ritual of making plans, setting goals and intentions, resolutions, or whatever people do to kick off a new year. I find that, when I do a good job of reflection and planning, I start the year off on a positive foot that, sometimes, I can sustain and turn into a lot of positive action and growth.

But I tend to think, and plan, in much smaller blocks of time and I can’t sustain most plans for a full year. Maybe, more importantly, I don’t think most yearly goals really make much practical sense. So while it’s fun to lay out some ideas for what you want to accomplish in a year, I tend to focus on months and quarters and then try and map out how they might add up to something.

And, of course, there are years like 2020 that can ruin the best plans, so it’s best to be prepared for chaos.

IMO, the best way to approach a year is to focus on projects, actions, and habits, but I do start with some reflection and planning.

Plans instead of resolutions

I don’t generally do resolutions, theme words, or any of that, and I prefer my yearly plans to be concrete, measurable and within my means to achieve. That doesn’t mean I don’t have big goals or dreams, only that I try to avoid things that are overly fuzzy or impossible.

For me, laying out a structure for personal projects and growth is key. I need to do it or I won’t get anything on my “personal” list done. My work—my day job—takes up most of my time and energy, and I’ve got a whole separate process for managing that. Without personal planning, reflection, and a simple, easy structure, I’d probably be limited to fuck-this-shit-o’clock-and-play-video-games when I’m not working. Which wouldn’t be good for my personal life OR my work life, as my side-projects play a big part in my success at work. But that’s another post.

The new year is a meaningful break, but it’s also just a slightly special one of four quarters and one of twelve months to check in on things. Most of my yearly planning is reflection and intention and setting up a few goals, and projects to get out of the break on the best foot and ride it as far as I can.

I usually start big and break things down from there. I do better with structure and I find that a simple framework works pretty well for me and it fits just about anything I’m wanting to do.

A simple system

The harder any system is for me to use, the less likely I am to use it, and the more likely I am to be distracted and all over the place because I have no structure. So, I keep it simple and try to build habits around checking in with it. It goes like this:

1. I review, measure, and reflect

2. I define aspirations and goals

3. I devise plans and projects to support those aspirations and goals

4. I break those plans and projects down into actions

5. I work to develop habits that support everything

6. I review regularly

Not everything maps back to what’s above it, for example, I’ve got goals that aren’t connected to aspirations and habits that don’t support anything else, but they usually fit together.

I tend to revisit this loop once a month and once a quarter. I don’t really do weekly planning, as that’s too much with my day job and all the work that goes into planning there, but I do track things on a daily basis and that comes in handy when I take time to review everything.

Here’s a bit more about the individual pieces.

Aspirations

I like this word, but if you don’t like this word, feel free to skip on down to the “Goals” section, as it’s pretty much the same thing without all the high falutin shenanigans.

So yeah. Aspiration. It’s a fun word and I use it for the lofty, open-ended, or nebulous things I want to do; developing skills, difficult or lengthy goals, things that might require multiple goals, projects, and many actions. Big things. I’ve also tried to use it in place of “stretch goals” which seem almost purposely unattainable. Aspirations should be something doable, even if they’re a bit fuzzy. I like to keep things concrete, but we’re I to aspire to something a bit nebulous like “be exceptionally fit” it would go here. Of course, the more nebulous the aspiration, the more you’ll need to think about how to measure success. I’ve thought a lot about whether or not I even need both aspirations and goals, but find that they serve to push more than goals do, and there are some things I often want to work against that feel either too fuzzy to be a measurable goal or too lofty to achieve outright.

Another way to differentiate aspirations from goals is that they need to have a well-thought-out “why” attached to them. With a goal, I don’t always put as much thought into it. If I want to do it, that’s good enough, but if it’s something I want to put a lot of effort into, I want to make sure I spend some time thinking about why I want to do that.

Some examples: “become a published novelist”, is a good, concrete aspiration would that might be too big to be a simple goal. It’s tough but possible and easily measured. For a more nebulous aspiration something like “Build healthy eating habits” would work, just barely, as it’s pretty vague and a little hard to measure and track. It could work though because you could fold smaller, more measurable, goals, plans, and habits into it.

I like like to start out the year with a few of these, but I don’t spend much time working actively against them with projects and actions, preferring to focus down the chain on goals and projects. Also, they can be hard to come up with and harder to write.

Goals

Goals are similar to aspirations, but much more concrete, practical, and actionable. And, smarter, smaller, and very much doable within a yearly, or shorter, timeline. These are things I like to think I will, for sure, beyond any doubt get done. Assuming we don’t suffer a global pandemic or some other major disruption.

An example of a goal would be to “write a novel”. This is something I can probably do, yet isn’t as aspirational as getting all the way to publishing.

I will start out the year with a few of these, 2-3 or so, but I’ll add to them as the year goes on. For example, in 2020, I didn’t really have much to start with, and when March rolled around and the world shifted I sort of stopped thinking about all of my plans and aspirations for a while, picking them back up again around September.

Projects

The magic happens in projects. This is where the action is, where most of my efforts go. Projects lie at the center of most of what I want to do, smack in between my goals/aspirations and the tasks and habits. These break down goals a bit further into discreet chunks of work that can be planned, worked on, and completed.

An example of a project would be “write the first draft of a novel” or “prep for Nanowrimo”. They can be large or small but should be easy to measure and track progress against.

I generally try not to have many projects going on at the same time, maybe 3 max, but I do expect to have quite a few projects throughout the year. I don’t complete them all, but, generally, I expect to finish every project I start, even if the outcome isn’t what I’d like at the end. Assuming I’ve done my planning well (not as easy as it may sound) finishing my projects is probably the best measure I have for whether or not I’m on- or off-track with my goals and aspirations.

Actions

Actions and tasks are things you’ll need to do to get your projects done, these are tasks that usually role up to a project, but sometimes support goals or aspirations directly. This is the heart of how I try and get what I want out of my year. These are the actionable, trackable, daily, and weekly activities that build towards completed projects and goals and achieved aspirations.

I’ve got many of these. I try to start my projects with a good plan and tasks that support that plan.

Supporting habits

I treat these a bit differently to actions, as these should fit into some kind of cycle or routine and they don’t always line directly up into a project. For example, I’ve got habits I’m working on that support aspirations directly. In some ways, they’re more important than actions, and often I’ll want to work on building habits that support multiple goals or aspirations.

A good example of a habit might be “journal every day” and could map that to multiple writing or growth-related projects, goals, and aspirations.

Planning habits, and working to build and maintain them, is what helps me keep momentum towards goals while also limiting the active projects to a manageable level.

A bit of a side note: habits are also what made my 2020 somewhat of a good year for personal growth. (In addition to and enabled by excellent support, luck, and privilege.) It was very hard for me to focus on my projects or even daily and weekly actions, but I was able to build and maintain some habits that helped me channel energy into a few things here and there, and reflecting on it, I feel like it helped a lot.

So, there it is. I’ve been planning for the last several days and excited about some things I want to tackle in 2021. Hopefully, if you made it this far, there was something interesting or helpful in there for you too.

Building Confidence in Your Work

Unsolicited advice on how to build confidence as a designer, and how to build confidence in your work.

If you've ever talked to me about design work you might have heard me talk about how it's kind of like being a lawyer. You do a lot of research, ask a lot of questions and slowly, through whatever process you work with, you build a case.

Along with your case, you'll be building confidence. Your own confidence in your work and decisions, both individually and as you grow as a designer. Your team's confidence in you and your solutions. Your customer’s confidence in your company and products. Etc.

You'll need that confidence when you come to present your work, and you'll use it as you shepherd that work through to completion. You likely won't start with it, I know I rarely do. That's expected and it's perfectly normal and good.

There is no bulletproof way to de-risk design work. There is no such thing as the perfect design or a single best way to do something. On the early side of the design process, it can very much be about the subjective reaction to the work. That's an ok place to start. But as you go through the process, as you explore, workshop, iterate, test, and validate, you remove uncertainty and subjectiveness—you build your case. That's design. But there are some other things you should be doing along the way to make the process more effective and to build confidence in the work and in the process itself.

As someone who feels uncomfortable with not knowing things, and not feeling confident, I struggle with this. I started keeping this list to remind me that it's ok to feel that way, and there are things I can do to make that feeling go away, and at the same time, ensure the work is as good as I can make it. I think of it as kind of a reference for myself, and for others who, less rare than I would have ever expected, come to me for advice on things.

1. Get started. That's it, sometimes the biggest confidence builder you'll see on a project is the once you'll get just by doing that first step.

2. Share your early work. And then keep sharing. This can be a tough one, but regardless of how good you feel, and I know I usually feel pretty shaky at the start, you'll need to get outside opinion of your work to move it forward. I've found the best way to do that, and the best way to establish momentum, is to share as early as you possibly can.

3. Come prepared with rationale. When you do share, be prepared to explain why you've done what you've done. It can be surprisingly easy to lose your rationale along the way, and just let the work build upon itself. Sometimes you'll even land in a good spot that way. And, honestly, it can be a great feeling to just work through a problem. When this happens, go back and interrogate your work and find that rationale. You'll need it to explain to others when they have questions.

4. Come prepared for questions. You should always be expecting questions, and, frankly, if you don't get any, especially early on, you should probably see that as a red flag. Questions are core to design work, and you should want them. They can sometimes seem like a negative inditement of your work, but that absolutely shouldn't be the case. Prepare for them, get comfortable with them, but don't feel like you need to have all the answers. If your work uncovers more questions than answers, that can be a good thing. An opportunity.

5. Come with questions of your own. At the start of the design process, you'll likely have a lot of ideas, and a lot of questions. It's a designer’s job to try and answer those questions with ideas. When presenting your work, when looking for feedback or validation, you should also be bringing along questions you're looking to have answers to.

6. Come prepared to defend your work. Don't be afraid to push back. As you're bouncing ideas around, sharing your work, and asking questions, you're bound to generate some friction. For the most part, this is good, but occasionally you'll be challenged. When this happens, one option that you should keep open is to challenge back and you should use that option if you feel strongly that what you're doing is good or has truth or merit to it. Too often good work is compromised, or worse, because of a strong opinion or challenge to it. If you think there is something to what you're doing, stand up for your work.

7. Don't fake it 'till you make it. I know some people disagree with this, but one thing I love about my work is that, when you really do it well, you uncover the truth. You uncover problems. In my mind, being honest about your lack of confidence, and being vulnerable with your work, is one of the best ways to raise confidence in the end.

Hopefully, something in here is helpful to you, even if it’s just a timely reminder of something you already know.

Not all of this advice is relevant to all people or situations. Most of it isn't strictly relevant to design, but I'm fairly confident that you can make all of these things work for you, and they can help you build confidence, and, most of the time, make your work better.