Why We All Need A Mentor, Or Two

As creatives, we’re on nontraditional paths without a template for success. We have an opportunity to design our careers in many different ways. However, without a model for moving forward, we can feel overwhelmed by choice. How do we know we’re making the “right” decision? What’s the best path forward? No one can predict how our careers will unfold, but mentors can provide support as we figure it out. They know what it takes to be courageous in the face of fear, and they know what it feels like to regroup after a failure. They’ve already traversed some of the ambiguous landscape we’ll walk as creatives so their support can help us move forward. 

I’ve had mentors during most of my professional life, but as my career has evolved so has my view of the mentor-mentee relationship. Curious about others’ experiences, I spoke to three creatives about what mentorship has looked like in their lives, the role it has played in their careers, and insights they’ve gained along the way. From support during big leaps to lessons about living with as little regret as possible to encouragement during major life transitions, mentor relationships can become a catalyst for growth and change. 

Dedicated mentors have encouraged entrepreneur Erik Rodin to take big leaps.

London-based Erik Rodin left behind the known to do something big and scary multiple times. The first was when he quit his job in advertising to explore innovation and learning design. Encouraged by Christina, his then-boss and chief strategy officer, Erik took the leap. “It was a tough conversation to have, but she was supportive of me pursuing what I wanted to achieve. She gave me the push because I was uncertain.” It’s been nine years and Christina and Erik still check in by phone every six to eight weeks: “She has been there to give outside perspective that is honest and direct.”

Most recently, Erik left his full-time role with August Public to start his company, Able, which helps create organizational change in startups and companies of all sizes. He looked to what he calls his “personal advisory board” for support. “There was no way to be 100% prepared. As a company of one who doesn’t want to scale, having mentors has given me trust and confidence that no matter what I’m faced with, I’ll be okay.” 

Mentorship provided Erik with support during big transitions. “We all have blind spots,” he said, referencing the Johari window, which defines blind spots as what’s known to others but not to yourself. “Having someone who can hold a mirror up to me and hold me accountable and say ‘I don’t believe you,’ or ‘This doesn’t make sense,’ has given me the courage and ambition to take a leap at times when I’ve been nervous to do so.”

An unexpected mentor helped designer Pavithra Dikshit find reasons to say yes more.

Designer and artist Pavithra Dikshit who works as a Senior Designer at Landor in Mumbai, found guidance in an unexpected place—her home. Jawaharlal Ojha began working for her father as a personal chauffeur when she was 14 years old. “He was a person who was always there. I didn’t really think about it. He was with us through many things that happened—sickness, loss, and moving.” More than her dad’s employee, Jawaharlal became part of the extended family, which Pavithra notes isn’t an uncommon thing in India, but also an inspiration and guide for her.

When Pavithra studied at Rachana Sansad College of Applied Arts and Crafts at the University of Mumbai, Jawaharlal was always available to enthusiastically lend a hand and help Pavithra build out art projects. “For him, no job was too small, he took everything as an opportunity to learn, and he used what he had. He was good at Jugaad, which is an Indian word that means to innovate with what is available and think on your feet.” 

And then, an unexpected turn: Jawaharlal saw a specialist for concerning medical symptoms and was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Pavithra spoke with Jawaharlal on the phone, but never had the chance to say goodbye after he went to the hospital for emergency surgery and slipped into a coma. Jawaharlal left her with one final lesson: Rather than make excuses, she now finds reasons to say yes to the things she really wants to do, like traveling or working on personal projects. “I put the filter on it: Will I regret not doing this? If so, I do it.”

Mentors at milestone moments helped photographer Aundre Larrow move forward. 

Brooklyn-based photographer Aundre Larrow says his mentors have been present for specific milestones in his life, but he hasn’t had one dedicated mentor over the years. Instead, he is open to small moments of guidance that have big potential to shape his work and life. He notes that a variety of mentors have helped him “normalize the process and the ebbs and flows” of building a freelance business over the years. 

As an eager college student, Aundre’s photography teacher John Kaplan helped define his interest in storytelling. “I pitched a commercial campaign, which he told me would be hard to execute. I was setting myself up for failure.” Kaplan suggested Aundre do a project closer to home about the people he knew, which led to more personal projects that evolved into the work he does now. 

After college, Audre worked for Walker & Company, which specializes in health and beauty products for people of color. There he met Mari Sheibley, their then-creative director, who pushed Aundre to develop his talent and wasn’t afraid to say no to work that didn’t measure up to his potential. “Having that guardrail is important. If someone knows you enough to say no, then their yes matters even more to you,” said Aundre. 

In the spring, Aundre experienced mentorship from the other side when he taught his first Intro to Photography class as a CUNY adjunct professor at LaGuardia Community College. When asked what he learned, Aundre reflected, “You have to know when to listen so you can provide a moment of clarity. It’s about augmentation versus trying to take control.”

You don’t need an invitation to reach out. 

Mentors are everywhere, as Pavithra noted. Her mentor relationship was informal and Erik echoed this approach of taking off the pressure to formalize it. He said it’s important to find someone “experienced in life, whether personal or professional, who is willing to be open and give advice. They need to care, but also challenge you.” Who already exists in your life who cares and might be willing to offer guidance? You don’t need an invitation. As Andre said, “if someone shares their work and it’s important to you, reach out to them. The internet is an exciting opportunity to meet people you can learn from.”

Mentor relationships can help normalize the natural ups and downs of navigating our careers, through both the expected and unexpected moments. The guidance of mentors gives us confidence to own and pursue our ambitions. Their wisdom challenges us to be open to new approaches when we feel stuck. Their thoughtful questions can help us shift our perspective and connect the dots in new ways. Whether the relationship is formal or casual, whether it lasts years or just a moment in time, the influence of mentors can leave a lasting legacy in our work and lives. So what are you waiting for? It’s time to reach out.

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Tim Brown: Engage With the Unknown

In this conversation with Courtney E. Martin, IDEO’s Tim Brown discusses the arc of his career, and how creative industries have evolved, from the early socialization of design thinking to the changing relationship between design and engineering to the urgent challenge of design ethics.

About Tim Brown: Tim Brown is the CEO and president of IDEO. Ranked independently among the ten most innovative companies in the world, IDEO is the global consultancy that contributed to such standard-setting innovations as the first mouse for Apple and the Palm V. Today, IDEO applies its human-centered approach to drive innovation and growth for the world’s leading businesses, as well as for government, education, health care, and social sectors. Tim advises senior executives and boards of Fortune 100 companies and has led strategic client relationships with such corporations as Microsoft, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, and Steelcase.

About Courtney E. Martin: Courtney E. Martin is an author, entrepreneur, and facilitator. She has written and edited five books, including The New Better Off: Reinventing the American Dream and Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists. She is also the co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network and FRESH Speakers Bureau, and has consulted with a wide variety of organizations—like TED, the Aspen Institute, The Obama Foundation, and The Sundance Institute—on how to make impactful, story-rich social change.

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Thaniya Keereepart: Shaping a Better Creative Economy

Patreon’s Thaniya Keereepart is dedicated to helping creatives make a living from their work, a challenging conceit in a world of social media views, and companies replacing paychecks with “exposure.” In her 99U talk, Thaniya explains the changing economics of creative work, and helps creators, clients, and consumers alike understand how they can support a stronger marketplace.

Read more about Thaniya’s approach in this 99U interview.

About Thaniya Keereepart: Thaniya is the Head of Product, Creator Experience at Patreon, where she helps creatives make a living through patronage support from their biggest fans. Her passion lies at the intersection of human-computer interaction, design, and behavioral economics.

Thaniya is the former founding Head of Mobile and platforms and Head of Product at TED, where she was responsible for overall strategic direction, investment, product, growth, and operations on all non-web platforms. Prior to TED, Thaniya led product development for live game experiences at Major League Baseball for seven years. Her work has been recognized by the Emmy Awards, the Peabody Awards, Adobe MAX, the Webby Awards, DigiDay, and the prestigious Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards.

Thaniya has advised on various projects for StoryCorps, National Geographic Learning, Women’s March Global, and For Freedoms.

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Kyle T. Webster: Make Time for Boredom

Illustrator, educator, and design evangelist Kyle T. Webster is just like the rest of us: glued to screens and media throughout the day. But he’s recognized that his best creative ideas emerge when he’s relaxed, focused, and … bored. In his 99U talk, Kyle argues that we’ve lost the art of boredom, and thus the levels of creativity that it can nurture.

Read more thoughts from Kyle on how to stand out in a tech-obsessed world in this 99U interview.

About Kyle Webster: Kyle T. Webster is an illustrator, designer, and author who has drawn for The New Yorker, TIME, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Scholastic, NPR, Nike, IDEO, and many other distinguished clients. His illustration work has been recognized by the Society of Illustrators, Communications Arts, and American Illustration.

He is perhaps best known as the founder of KyleBrush.com, the brand behind the world’s best-selling, and now industry-standard, Photoshop brushes for professionals, used by artists at Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, MTV Networks, and Weta Digital. These brushes were the first of their kind to be officially licensed by Adobe for inclusion in the Adobe Creative Cloud. Kyle also currently teaches Life Drawing, Portraiture, and Digital Painting at the UNC School of the Arts.

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Giorgia Lupi: Finding Humanity in Data

In her 99U talk, ‘data humanist’ and Pentagram partner Giorgia Lupi offers a look into the far-reaching applications of her work in data and design, from corporate (an AR-powered map for Starbucks retail stores) to institutional (a site-specific visualization of a MoMA exhibition) to personal (an interpretation of a child’s life with chronic illness). Giorgia encourages creatives to harness data as a design tool, while respecting human privacy and experience in their output.

About Giorgia Lupi: Giorgia Lupi is an information designer, artist, and entrepreneur. She is the co-founder and design director of Accurat, a data-driven design firm with offices in Milan and New York.

After receiving her master’s degree in architecture, she earned her PhD in design at Politecnico di Milano. Her work is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, where she was commissioned to create an original, site-specific piece in 2017.

Giorgia’s TED Talk on her humanistic approach to data has over one million views. She is co-author of Dear Data and of the new interactive book, Observe, Collect, Draw! A Visual Journal. She recently joined the MIT Media Lab as a Director’s Fellow.

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Dr. Vivienne Ming: Share Your Vision With the World

In her 99U talk, artificial and augmented intelligence leader Dr. Vivienne Ming, explores the often complicated relationship between creatives and technology. AI, she argues, can match a lot of human capabilities, but not vision and purpose. It can, however, make your vision and your purpose a reality.

About Dr. Vivienne Ming: Dr. Vivienne Ming is a theoretical neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and author frequently featured for her research and inventions in publications including The Financial Times, The Atlantic, Quartz, and The New York Times.

Vivienne co-founded Socos Labs, an independent think tank exploring the future of human potential. Socos, her fifth company, combines her varied work with that of other creative experts to expand their impact on global policy issues, both inside companies and throughout communities.

Previously, Vivienne was a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, pursuing research in cognitive neuroprosthetics. In her free time, Vivienne has invented AI systems to help treat her diabetic son, predict manic episodes in bipolar sufferers weeks in advance, and reunite orphan refugees with extended family members. She sits on boards of numerous companies and nonprofit organizations including StartOut, The Palm Center, Cornerstone Capital, Platypus Institute, Shiftgig, Zoic Capital, and SmartStones.

Vivienne also speaks frequently on her AI-driven research into inclusion and gender in business. For relaxation, she is a wife and mother of two.

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The Cottage Design Industry Popping Up Around 2020

A few years ago, Anjelica Triola was an expert in digital and brand marketing for big companies, happily pumping up the volume on campaigns for Adidas, Target and LVMH. The presidential election of 2016 hit her like a record scratch. “We all kind of saw something where we thought, ‘My gosh, Democrats are pretty crappy at marketing, compared to what other sides are doing,’’” Triola remembered. As far as she could see, the most basic thinking she used to build corporate campaigns wasn’t even at play. “There are a lot of best practices that can be leveraged that we use to sell sneakers and laptops and lip gloss, that could work just as well to teach people why it’s important to vote and why every vote matters,” she thought. Looking to offer tips, she started poking around the corners of politics, but hit walls at every turn. No one was warm to the idea of a campaign CMO. “No one was really ready for it,” she said.

“Everyone who was more traditional on the campaign thought it was a disastrous idea.”

Instead, Triola found her candidate close to home. A close friend, Suraj Patel, had been debating a run for office and decided to take the leap with her for the 2018 midterm elections. Meanwhile, Scott Starrett, cofounder of design agency Tandem NYC was teaming up with another upstart campaign, that of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who Starrett now refers to as “the Beyoncé of politics.” Just like Triola, everywhere he looked in the traditional campaign process, from knocking on strangers’ doors to mass mailings, Starrett saw ways design strategy could rejigger the process. “When you get someone in there who has been a field director all their life… they may not be aware of some of the peripheral pain points where they’re losing people,” he said. Analyzing the full sweep of the process and scoping where value might be lost along the way was the perfect challenge for a team of creative directors and design strategists to take on.

 

Triola’s focused Patel’s campaign on simple and inviting messages that activated voters.

As both campaigns buckled down to the David and Goliath task of winning congressional seats held for years by incumbents, they also wrestled an even bigger hurdle: how to bring design and brand strategy to a field deeply allergic to innovation in order to deliver a great experience from the moment a customer (ahem, constituent) walks in the door.

The process for shaking up a campaign is remarkably intuitive for these creatives entering the field for the first time. In a world dominated by the iconography of stars and stripes, designers start by bringing a holistic brand approach to a campaign. Starrett said a common mistake in politics is to stop short at defining the candidate. “The politician, while important and ultimately the person to take office, they are the logo or the representation of the brand itself,” he said. Starrett pointed out that the brand message must be tuned to a complicated maze of target audiences: not only netting voters, but also inviting the right people to volunteer and help out. Triola takes a similarly inclusive view of brand identity that extends beyond the candidate. “That brand is an extension of who you are, and who your team strives to be and behave like, and the feeling you deliver every time to a customer or constituent intersects with your customer journey,” she said. Old school politics boil their “who we are” down to a slogan. Triola pushed back on that idea. “We didn’t have a slogan,” she said. “It was a feeling. And that feeling was: I belong here.” 

Patel’s volunteers were decked out in campaign merchandise emblazoned with the message: “New Blood.”

For, Triola, newly anointed Chief Strategy and Creative Officer for Suraj Patel for US Congress, that feeling started at the campaign’s headquarters. Most campaigns rent out office space, where they can keep their strategy confidential and their materials proprietary. Bucking tradition, Triola took over a bar and turned Patel’s HQ into a clubhouse, decking it out with chalkboard signage and colorful illustration. “Our campaign manager and everyone who was more traditional on the campaign thought it was a disastrous idea,” Triola said. “The biggest concern was this idea that your ideas are proprietary and private,” Triola said. “And we deeply, deeply believed the opposite.” Far from worrying about spies from the opposition, Patel and Triola conspired to build the experience of a welcoming and porous environment. In addition to an office, the HQ also served as a venue, not just for Patel’s rallies, but for other like-minded or social impact projects. Ocasio-Cortez even hosted events there. Triola worked to create a space that felt like it belonged to everyone, including people who had never voted, didn’t care about politics, and didn’t know what Congress was. “We wanted you to walk into that space, have a positive experience, learn something, be entertained, make a new friend, and walk away feeling like politics is absolutely approachable, inclusive, and interesting to you, even if it wasn’t before,” Triola explained of the overall experience goal.

“The politician, while important and ultimately the person to take office, they are the logo or the representation of the brand itself.”

What Triola tapped into was a larger grassroots campaign focus on experience design. Learning from Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign, Scott Starrett of Tandem said that experience design is one of the silver bullets that traditional campaigns are totally missing. The biggest wasted resource, according to Starrett? Volunteers. “Inside the volunteer experience is something that people overlook—because it’s not quantifiable— and that is the idea of word-of-mouth and brand ambassadors,” he said. A campaign that only sees how many envelopes a volunteer can stuff in an hour is leaving an enormous amount of power on the table. “That is a misappropriation of the true resource that a human being is when they walk through the door and offer you their time…If you can step back and invest a little more time to make sure that they understand what the campaign is all about, who the candidate is, and why they should go out and evangelize, there’s no telling how many touchpoints they make out there on their own in the world and how much they might spread the word,” said Starrett.

Tandem believes volunteers are some of the most powerful and overlooked assets of a campaign.

Triola applied the same thinking to Patel’s campaign, explicitly working in terms of “brand ambassadors” and “micro-influencers,” terminology germane to the marketing world, that needed explaining in politics. As she often did, Triola mimicked the success of a brand’s strategy, in this case that of the beauty company Glossier. “The way that Glossier inspired peer-to-peer, rather than stranger-to-stranger contact is a really big thing for me,” she recalled. Looking at the tradition of canvassing, where volunteers will go door-to-door to try to get out the vote, she saw a square peg and a round hole. “It doesn’t make sense that we do only do door knocking and call banking and things like that, where you first have to accept a stranger and then that you want to have a conversation with a total stranger. We don’t do enough with using people’s existing network.” Glossier wasn’t the only company that inspired Triola. Thinking like a partnerships team, they set out to find constituents where they were: partnering up with Soul Cycle, doing events and meditation studios, registering people at WeWork, and asking Shake Shack employees to remind everyone the election was around the corner. Taking a page from Sweet Green’s book, Patel’s campaign codified a set of core values and placed them prominently in their HQ. They included values like, “Small Biz: Opportunity”, “Free Press: Critical”, and “Empathy: Essential.”

The Tandem team is back on the ground, designing for 2020.

For any creative interested in dabbling in campaigning, the similarities to companies doesn’t stop at ambassador networks and craft salad-inspired strategy. Campaigning is remarkably similar to working at a startup. “You’re constantly building the plane as you fly it,” she said. “Nothing is really set in stone. You don’t know how many resources you’re going to have because you’re constantly fundraising, constantly expanding and trimming down your team based on the emergency you’re responding to that week.” On top of that, a candidate is basically a prototype, a test model of the future politician they’ll become. “You’re kind of running a minimum viable product and you don’t even know if you’re going to go to market,” said Starrett. Going to market, of course, in this case, means getting elected.

While Starrett is back on the ground, selecting his slate of upcoming campaigns with care, Triola has taken a break from the road to focus on something else designers are great at: scale. She’s joined the team sourcing platform Wethos, which creates custom agencies from a pool of creative freelancers. Her goal? To build up the political campaign vertical. “The problem in politics for so long is people that people don’t own up to the fact they’re just very bad at marketing,” she said. She expects more upstart campaigns in the coming years, inspired by the new class of freshman in Congress like Ocasio-Cortez. For a designer thinking about offering their services to a campaign, she suggests just diving in.  “Don’t be surprised,” she said. “You know so much that it seems too obvious to you if you’ve been working in advertising, digital, social. The things that you know are completely new information to this world.”

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Zach Lieberman: What Could the Creative Career of the Future Look Like?

Zach Lieberman’s career spans a range of mediums, projects, and workplaces, but the throughline is his ability to seamlessly merge technology and creativity in fascinating new ways. In his 99U talk, Zach explains how he forged his unique creative process, and how he’s helping other artists do the same through experimental education and unlikely sources of inspiration.

About Zach Lieberman: Zach Lieberman is an artist, researcher, and educator with a simple goal: he wants you to be surprised. In his work, he creates performances and installations that take human gestures as input and amplify them in different ways: making drawings come to life, imagining what the voice might look like if we could see it, transforming peoples silhouettes into music.  

Zach has been named one of Fast Company‘s Most Creative People and his projects have won the Golden Nica from Ars Electronica and Interactive Design of the Year from Design Museum London, and have been listed in TIME‘s Best Inventions of the Year.  He creates artwork through writing software and is a co-creator of openFrameworks, an open source C++ toolkit for creative coding.

He helped co-found the School for Poetic Computation, a school examining the lyrical possibilities of code.

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Joel Beckerman: Designing With Sound

In this 99U talk, Joel Beckerman, a composer and the founder of Man Made Music, reveals how fundamental sound is to our everyday experiences, and why it’s crucial to think about sound design at the outset of creative projects — not as an afterthought. Joining Joel to demonstrate the power of sound is the choir from the Kaufman Music Center’s Special Music School.

About Joel Beckerman: Joel Beckerman is an award-winning composer, producer and the founder of Man Made Music, a global sonic studio. He is the author of The Sonic Boom: How Sound Transforms the Way We Think, Feel, and Buy and is dedicated to solving human and business challenges through Sonic Humanism, the power of music and sound to make lives richer and simpler.

As innovators in their field, Joel and Man Made Music have partnered with global brands such as AT&T, Disney, Deloitte, Abbott, Hulu, Nissan, QVC, IMAX, and Subway to craft unique sonic experiences. His work began in network television creating themes for Entertainment Tonight, HBO Features, CBS This Morning, and The Super Bowl on NBC, and has evolved into pioneering new musical approaches for sound in products, brands and environments.

Joel is a leader on the subject of sound, business, and the future of humanity. He has been featured on stages around the world including The Wall Street Journal D.Live, SXSW, Cannes Lions, London Design Week, C2 Montreal, Fast Company Innovation Festival, and Future of StoryTelling. For his work, Fast Company honored Joel as one of their Most Creative People in Business 1000. He is a PROMAX board member, helped found the New York chapter of the Society of Composers and Lyricists, and proudly serves on the ASCAP board.

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Ashley C. Ford: Imagination Is a Creative Superpower

In her inspiring 99U talk, writer Ashley C. Ford explains how significant life experiences opened up her ability to expect things she didn’t previously think were possible for herself and others. The lack of imagination, Ashley tells us, is what holds us back as humans. But nurturing the superpower of imagination within yourself opens up endless possibilities for your work, life, and impact on other people.

About Ashley C. Ford: Ashley C. Ford is a writer, podcaster and educator who lives in Brooklyn. She is writing a memoir entitled Somebody’s Daughter, which will be published by Flatiron Books under the imprint An Oprah Book. Ford is working on a collection of interviews (B-Side Chats) with her husband, Kelly Stacy.

She was also the host of the first season of Audible.Com’s literary interview series, Authorized. She has been named among Forbes Magazine‘s 30 Under 30 in Media (2017), Brooklyn Magazine‘s Brooklyn 100 (2016), and Time Out New York‘s New Yorkers of The Year (2017).

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Kat Holmes: Rethink What Inclusive Design Means

In her work at Mismatch.design and Google, Kat Holmes is helping other designers to rethink inclusive design not as a remedy for “personal health conditions” but as solves for “mismatches” — moments where human interactions are hindered by an absence of appropriate design solutions. Her 99U talk takes us through her journey to this approach, and how it can help us all recognize and combat everyday mismatches in the world.

About Kat Holmes: Kat Holmes, named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business in 2017, is founder of Mismatch.design, a firm dedicated to inclusive design resources and education. She served as the Principal Director of Inclusive Design at Microsoft from 2014 to 2017, leading the company’s executive program for inclusive product innovation.

Her award-winning toolkit was inducted into the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper Hewitt Design Museum. In 2018, she joined Google and continues to advance inclusive development for some of the most influential technologies in the world.

Kat is the author of Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design.

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Michael Ventura: Empathy Is Your Best Creative Tool

Entrepreneur and author Michael Ventura has dedicated his career to exploring how empathy can make us better leaders, collaborators, and contributors to society. In his 99U talk, Michael explains that the practice of empathy “isn’t about being nice” — it’s about deep understanding, and learning to apply that understanding to incredibly effective ends.

About Michael Ventura: Michael Ventura is the CEO and founder of Sub Rosa, a strategy and design firm that has worked with some of the world’s largest and most important brands, organizations, and start-ups, including Johnson & Johnson, Pantone, Adobe, TED, Delta Airlines, and The Daily Show.

Michael has served as a board member and adviser to a variety of organizations, including Behance, the Burning Man Project, Cooper-Hewitt, and the UN’s Tribal Link Foundation. He is also a visiting lecturer at institutions such as Princeton University and the United States Military Academy at West Point. In addition to these pursuits, Michael leads a thriving indigenous medicine practice, where he helps patients address illness and injury of all types on the road to better well-being. A passionate entrepreneur, he also owns and operates a globally recognized design store in New York’s West Village with his wife, Caroline.

Applied Empathy, his first book, was published by Simon & Schuster in May 2018. 

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A World Class Mediator Shares 7 Ways to De-escalate Your Office Tension

We’ve all been there: the tense meeting, the adrenaline-spiked email, the feeling that we’ve hit the same speed bump a thousand times before. When tensions rise at work, we tend to subsume, get passive aggressive, or maybe plain old aggressive. And then just use our fallback coping mechanism to get through the rest of the day.

What if there was another way to handle those recurring moments when fight or flight kicks in? Brad Heckman, professor at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs and founder of the New York Peace Institute, has brought a mediator’s mindset everywhere from NYPD trainings to the postwar Balkans. In between diffusing global crises and intergenerational animus between astronauts, we asked Heckman for a few of the meditation tricks that help him loosen the jam jar of stuck conversations.

From asking open-ended questions to remembering that everyone is better than their worst self, Heckman had more wisdom than we could write down. Here are seven tactics for when things get tense at the office to help you diffuse the war at the water cooler.

***

1. Know your brain

Our brain isn’t at its best when it’s in a conflict situation. “Our response to difficult conversations is neurologically the same response to fear: the fight, flight, or freeze response,” says Heckman. In that caveman state of mind, we resort to primitive protective behavior that sees everything as a threat. Sure, it’s natural. But you operating at five-alarm fire level isn’t going to help you navigate a nuanced conversation. When you feel that internal escalation, Heckman suggests using high-level executive functioning by thinking, “‘Oh this is really interesting, what’s happening is my reptilian brain is taking over.’ Just that awareness itself can be helpful,” he says.

2. Assume good intentions

When we’ve got our knickers in a twist, we think the other person is on a mission to screw us over. We start to read every action through that pessimistic, self-preserving lens. “When we are in conflict, our view of the other person becomes so narrow that we only see them as a disruptive jerk and not a fleshed-out person,” says Heckman. Take a beat. Try to assume that the other person is acting in good faith. That baseline assumption can get you through plenty of instances of misplaced tone and timing.  

 

 

3. Good communication is a full body experience

Body language speaks volumes. In his recurring role working with police officers, Heckman coaches them away from nonverbal habits like aggressive gestures or getting in other people’s faces. “Yes, the person will quiet down, but more so because they’re scared than because they’re respecting you,” he tells them. “Good communication is a full body experience,” he says. “It’s how we breathe. It’s our tone. It’s our gestures.” Your body language isn’t only talking to the other party; it’s sending a message to your brain as well. Cultivate habits like keeping an open expression (Heckman says to replicate big cow eyes), avoid defaulting to crossed arms, and taking deep breaths to help change the tenor of an interaction. It’s a reflective mind game, says Heckman, because the other person will likely start to mirror your behavior too.

4. Repeat, repeat, repeat

“Every person I’ve ever met has said things they didn’t mean or in a way that didn’t match their intentions,” says Heckman. Repeating or summarizing their words back to them in a form like, “What I’m hearing you say is…” creates a feedback loop that allows someone to course correct or dial it back. It’ll save you both from a heck of a lot of miscommunication.

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Reflect, reflect, reflect

In practice, reflecting is a mediation tactic that looks exactly like repetition. But it’s doing something possibly even more important: It’s telling someone that they’ve been heard. If a colleague says they’re feeling underappreciated, don’t skip right to solutions. Pause to recognize how they’ve been feeling. It may feel dumb to parrot back, “I hear that you’ve been feeling undervalued”, but taking a moment to acknowledge tells the other person that you get where they’re coming from. “We hear from our clients all the time,” says Heckman, “that people value being heard and understood more than they value a detailed agreement. Agreements and resolutions are important, but being heard is a necessary step for that.”

6. Ask open ended questions

A mediation mindset is a place for trying to get to the root of an issue. That might mean proceeding without an agenda and just trying to learn more. In recent years, Heckman was called to NASA to help build accord between astronauts and engineers from the Apollo years, who were not getting along with the new crop of millennials. One group came from a hierarchical military background and one was birthed among the ping pong tables and bean bag chairs of Google and Facebook. “There’s a lack of understanding that translates into one dimensional stereotype about ‘old fuddy duddies’ and ‘entitled kids,’” recalls Heckman. Heckman’s approach was to use open-ended questions: “So, you want to have a fun and creative environment. How do you see that helping your workplace?” And on the other hand: “Order and hierarchy are important for you. Can you tell me why?” Keep the questions to six words or fewer. And don’t think too much. Just be curious. Ultimately, at NASA, Heckman struck the bedrock of a shared desire for a kickass space program: a common vision both parties could respect. (It’s unclear if NASA ever ordered bean bag chairs…)

7. Go towards the heat

One of the traps of digging into hard conversations is a desire to get to a copacetic place where everyone feels better. “Sometimes, we’re so afraid of going toward the heat, that we end up being falsely polite or even passive aggressive with the other person,” says Heckman. Instead of aiming for the easy offramp, head for the fiery core of the issue. “An agreement that’s reached in haste is not likely to be sticky or durable,” says Heckman. So, dig in. Find the pain points. And, before getting wrapped up in resolving, acknowledge how they’re affecting everyone. The ultimate goal of mediation, after all, isn’t agreement. It’s understanding.

Brad Heckman is also an illustrator and artist. In addition to illustrating his trainings and lectures with his drawings, he produces daily “sketchquotes” that capture the essence and words of inspiring people from across all walks of life. They have been shown in numerous exhibitions, with his self-portrait and some others included in this article. 

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Anna Pickard: How to Make Brands Sound Human

In this insightful, funny 99U talk, Slack’s director of brand communications Anna Pickard explains her approach to giving the workplace chat app its voice, endearing it to millions of users. From finding unlikely places (like error messages) to show authenticity, to the significance of naming product features, Anna shows us why words matter in product design, and how to choose your moments to wield them.

About Anna Pickard: Anna Pickard makes up voices for a living, then teaches other people how to use them. As the first writer at Slack and holder of the voice and tone, she’s been in editorial, marketing, product, design, customer experience, brand, and communications. Because who knows where the gravitational center of writing belongs? Anyway. She now works across them all as Head of Brand Communications at Slack, working out how to create a community of practice across a distributed cross-functional writing team, in an industry and a time when people expect brands to deliver a consistent quality and voice … and to sound authentically human while doing it.

Before Slack, Anna worked in education and in games, writing dialog for pigs, trees, and evil prime numbers. Before that, she worked in advertising, where she gave voice to polydactyl cats and “the concept of butter” on social media; in journalism, where she live blogged cultural milestones for the Guardian newspaper. She trained as an actress and holds an MPhil in Dramaturgy, which everyone said could never turn into a successful career. Turns out they were only partially correct.

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Launching a Diversified Freelance Career, Thanks to Intuition and Formal Arts Education

Truly successful creatives know how to tap into their intuition when making decisions about the direction of their work. In a way, the path a creative career takes can be art itself.

Laura Chautin has nurtured her burgeoning success by listening to her intuition when deciding what work will make her happy. She is undaunted by the challenge of a new frontier, trying her hand at textile design, screen printing and custom ceramic mobiles. This freedom and willingness to experiment can be traced back to a structured, formal arts education where she built the tools and skills that ultimately gave her the confidence to branch out and take on a multitude of creative tasks. Her work is imbued with a playful spirit thanks to her tendency to create and experiment across mediums.

A pattern has already emerged in Chautin’s young career – motivated by curiosity and the desire to explore an idea that won’t let her go, she will initially make work only for herself without worrying about commercial viability. These experiments have been spotted by people who want in on her distinctive, colorful designs, who then commission similar work from her. That is just how several of her projects have been born, including the Bum Tees with their playful floral motif. The success that she has had with these ventures speaks to the value of respecting your ideas, listening to your creative impulses and giving them the necessary space to thrive.

Chautin has spent time working in London (where she lived until she was 16, and again for her painting degree) and New York (where she moved four years ago) and values the creative influences each city has on her process. “When I go back to London, I feel very much at home, I feel cozy, it’s the comfiest city in the world, and I feel inspired by the people I know there.” Being surrounded by artists, designers and creative thinkers has led to multiple collaborations that grew out of organic connections. Among these are window designs for Otherwild, custom illustrations for Ladurée, and one-off mobiles for clients.

Here, Laura talks about the logistics of launching a creative career, balancing creative output and money-making gigs, and the validation of recognition from the artist community.

***

Q. How did you get started with your art and design work?

A. I always wanted to do something creative. In high school I was only interested in art and history and that was what I was focusing on in college. When I was 18, I went to Chelsea for a foundation degree in painting at the University of the Arts London. The teachers weren’t really around and I thought maybe I wasn’t really an artist because I didn’t know what I was doing. Luckily, I had gotten into an art fair before I moved and met the people at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). They looked at my portfolio and kept my place for a year.

“I’ve learned through all these jobs that I love working for myself.”

London was a one-year foundation degree and a lot of people love it, but I just wasn’t ready to be let go at that point in my life, I needed structure. Being at SAIC really gave me freedom to explore things, and not be that scared of going into different realms I started to feel like I could draw and paint and printmake. And that’s especially valuable for me now because I do a lot of different things in my current career. I learnt how to stretch a canvas, paint with oils, things I hadn’t learned before.

 

Laura Chautin works across many mediums, including t-shirt and tote design.

Q. After graduating, you took on several assistant roles in the interior design and retail industries. What did you learn working in an assistant capacity that has been helpful to you as a freelance artist and designer now?

A. I also do assistant prop design right now, so it’s still in the creative field. The set and prop design world is really intertwined in New York, so if a friend can’t take a job, she’ll tell me to do it. I work with a couple different prop designers and set designers here, and I never really turn down those jobs, because that’s a good source of income. For example, next week, I have a full week working for Macy’s and that’s obviously super helpful.

I’ve learned through all these jobs that I love working for myself. When I first moved to New York, I didn’t do any work for myself. I was an assistant at an interior design firm, then I worked on the windows for Barneys, then another interior design firm. I thought that seemed like more of a path I should do because I’ll make money doing this. But I didn’t make any artwork and I was so sad.

My first job out of college, I was meant to work under the assistant to the boss, but she quit in my first week, and I was expected to fill the assistant’s role. I learned a lot but it was so stressful. I knew the boss liked what I was doing, but I always had this doubt, and that pushed me to say that I needed to work for myself. I was still working toward his vision. Pretty much immediately, I was getting to work early and building my own website, thinking that it was what I needed to do to be happy. Before that, I hadn’t been making work for myself and I was miserable. I was too stressed and all of my creative energy was going towards this job.

 

Chautin’s whimsical mobile projects started out with a request from a friend.

Q. How did you sustain yourself financially while you started making art for yourself again?

A. When I quit my first assistant job and started at Barneys, I had a bit more freedom. It was a four-day job doing their windows, so I could start painting again. At that point I was still confused. I felt like I had to get a full time job again, that I couldn’t just be an artist. And that was mostly from not having confidence in myself. I had no confidence and no friends who had moved to New York to pursue being an artist. I had this idea that things need to be done in a certain way. I’m super English like that – I follow the rules.

Q. You are now a part of a diverse creative community here in New York. As you met more people through your work, did it help to expand your definition of what being an artist looked like as a career path?

A. My friend Katie Kimmel was hugely helpful to me, we met at school. She was working at a ceramics studio and making her own stuff and people started recognizing her for it. She also makes animations and at school she would work non-stop on her own stuff because she found it fun, and that was really inspiring to me. She made these bags and said “it’s so cool and so easy, you should just do it.” I painted this big painting and so I took a part of it and printed it on a bag. I was actually wearing that to a Group Partner sample sale and one of the girls who works there thought it was cool and wanted one. That was the first time I realized that people want what I’d been making. It felt so validating.

Making more art, getting more recognition, more people being like “this is cool, keep doing it” has been encouraging. My partner Masami (Masami Hosono, creative director at Vacancy Project) has been so supportive. It’s so inspiring, she didn’t start in New York, and she is of the mindset of “just do it.”

“I really like taking on projects when someone comes to me with an idea.”

Q. Tell us about the different mediums you work in now, and how you came to work on such a diverse range of projects. You seem to do everything.

A. I’m still at the point now where I accept most jobs, because I think I should be accepting most jobs. I think it’s good for me to try different things. With projects like making mobiles, no one initially asked me to do that. My friend had a baby, and I just thought it would be cute to make a mobile. It made sense because I like small things, and I like painting, so it was just fun for me to do that. I had a client who started following me on Instagram and she was having a baby, and she asked me to make this very custom mobile. It was a collaboration, but she wanted specific, personal things included. That definitely gave me more confidence.

Chautin often illustrates whimsical storefronts in New York City.

I really like taking on projects when someone comes to me with an idea. I’ve learned through doing custom illustrations that I like having a project, I like making something happen based on an idea, even if it’s not something I’d usually do.

The first time I did food drawings, I was working a part-time retail job and a designer was having a launch at Ladurée. It was the first time I’d ever made art that wasn’t just for myself. I was asked to make an invite and a menu for the event. I only had two nights to do it, I was working all through the night. If you think that something’s right, you have to do it. All I could think of was “I love it.” I had so much fun doing it, it made me so happy.

As for the flower t-shirt design, I thought about making it a planter, but it didn’t quite work out. I still thought it was a cute illustration and that it would be a fun t-shirt to have embroidered just for me. I just bought a t-shirt from the Gap and made a one-off for myself. When I wore it, people thought it was funny and cool. I got some orders just from wearing my one-off and then started producing it in small batches.

Q. What’s next for you?

A. I’ve been looking at being part of an agency for illustration, so I can have someone help get me more jobs [Ed. Note: this is a popular debate!]. I enjoy having the push of an illustration assignment, even if it’s something I’m uncomfortable with, like portraiture and drawing people.

I would love to make big sculptures, and explore types of printmaking, etching, or lithography. I’m also taking a ceramics class, as I do want to learn new skills.  

At the moment, I’m making a book of foods for a client. For Christmas, I made Masami a book of her favorite foods and posted it on Instagram. The client saw it and asked me to make him a large scale book, which is new for me. It’s going to be a full meal, with a check at the end, and it will be professionally bound.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

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Treading Lightly: How a Fourth-Generation Shoemaker is Changing the Trade She Once Resisted

Phrases like “slow fashion” and “conscientious consumption” are starting to become household terms. And while some companies are looking for a way to wedge themselves into the trend, others have been built from the ground up on those exact principles.

One such company is Coclico, a New York City-based shoewear brand founded by fourth-generation shoemaker Sandra Canselier. Growing up in Pays de la Loire, a region of western France, Canselier was surrounded by shoemaking. “My father ran the family shoe factory, as his father and grandfather had before. We lived and breathed footwear production in our home.” But despite such immersion, young Sandra had no interest in following the same path—though that might have been more about location than trade. “Being gay in a small French town wasn’t exactly easy and didn’t lead me to think that the family business was the right place for me,” she recalls. “I didn’t know what was right, but that much seemed clear.”

After earning a business degree in Paris in her early 20s, Canselier moved to New York City. It was there that things started to click. “I fell madly in love with the city. Being accepted here for whomever I was helped me find clarity in my identity and a path forward,” says Canselier. “I discovered that whether I liked it or not, shoemaking was in my blood.” In 2000, relying on a small loan and a wealth of generational knowledge, the entrepreneur began work on Coclico’s first collection.

Sandra Canselier is a fourth-generation shoemaker.

Once Canselier had come around to the family business, she had some rules: “My father was full of help and advice, which I dearly valued, but this was only going to be done one way: my way.” From the beginning, the goal has been to create shoes that are ethically made and ecologically considerate, that prove that substance and style are not mutually exclusive. “Part of the idea of ‘slow fashion,’ as far as we see it, is that regardless of how it’s made and by whom, the item has an aesthetic value that lives beyond the singular moment in fashion. We are at our most successful when our shoes feel aesthetically relevant years after their first purchase.”

“I don’t want the ethical choices that we make at Coclico to set the brand apart—I want it to be the industry norm.”

Coclico opened its first store on Mott Street in New York City’s Nolita neighborhood in 2001. That space served as their shop, office, and wholesale showroom. Earlier this year, however, the brand opened a second storefront and moved their operations over the bridge to Williamsburg. Canselier has called home the Brooklyn neighborhood home since 2003, where she lives with her long-time partner and their daughter. It’s a very lean organization—there are six full-time employees, including Canselier, three or four part-time sales associates, and a handful of freelancers to fill in the gaps when needed.

Here, Canselier discusses how she’s molded her take on the family trade to reflect her values, and how individual choice and living your truth can have beautiful and impactful results.

***

Q. You initially resisted learning the family trade, what made you come around?

A. It was the process of shoemaking that really captured my imagination in all its complexities and intricacies. My grandfather learned the shoemaking trade during World War I by making boots for soldiers. In peacetime, his attention shifted to more workaday items. By the time I was a child, the family factory was producing a couple thousand pairs of shoes per day for major French retailers. To this day, production remains my forte. I have an amazing partnership with long-time Coclico designer, Lisa Nading, whose passion for the aesthetic beautifully meets my passion for getting it made. My father has since retired and sold the factory. I’m the last shoemaker in the Canselier family.

Canselier’s goal was to create shoes that were ethically made and ecologically considerate.

Q. Coclico works hard to minimize its environmental impact and prioritize sustainability. Your designs are meant to live above trends, your materials are responsibly sourced and minimally treated, and you carefully monitor your carbon usage. Why is sustainability such an important part of your business?

A. From day one, traditional craftsmanship has been front and center for me. From the start, knowing my makers and their suppliers was of immense importance if I was going to produce shoes of the highest quality. This commitment to traditional ways—one that led me to keep production in Europe—also made embracing the concept of “sustainability” much less daunting. But the idea of sustainability came into focus as part of our decision-making process when Lisa read Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by Michael Braungart and William McDonough. From that moment on, we began to tread a little more lightly, thinking long and hard about every design and production decision.

Q. Have you always been an environmentalist?

A. To be honest, I don’t know that I would classify myself as an environmentalist even now.  There are so many people doing real, world-changing things. I’m not in their sphere. I’m just a woman, with a child, thinking of the small improvements I can offer to help create a better future for her generation. At best, I hope that Coclico has set an example over the couple of decades that fashion doesn’t have to be such a dirty business. I don’t want the ethical choices that we make at Coclico to set the brand apart—I want it to be the industry norm. I’m pleased that in the last few years there seems to have been a real shift towards thoughtful production. I hope it’s not a flash-in-the-pan trend.

Coclico recently opened a new shop in a historic building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Q. It’s hard to read climate news and not think of the next generation. How does your daughter motivate you in your work?

A. She is a constant reminder that decisions that put profit margin first are a false economy. She helps keep me grounded in the big picture.

“I think we ought to take less joy in buying something cheap and poorly made, and more pride in supporting a healthy economy.”

Q. How does prioritizing sustainability change how you make business decisions?

A. The most obvious thing is that our meetings are about a million times longer than any of us would like them to be, and that the number of times we circle back to rehash even the smallest element of one shoe can be countless. Sustainability is a really subjective term and my team is full of very opinionated women. We are always hunting for consensus, always looking for the best way for beauty, function, and care to all live happily within our product.

Large picture decision-making is a little trickier. We are taught to seek certain benchmarks of success that normally include growth, expansion, deeper coffers, and more of just about everything… These don’t really seem to be goals that jive with prioritizing sustainability, so I have to work daily to challenge these ingrained ideas and push past them.

Coclico tries to rebalance the weight of for-profit drivers like growth and deep coffers and prioritize ethics like sustainability.

Q. Your company has a saying that goes: “We believe that luxury isn’t the ability to purchase endlessly, but the privilege of choosing wisely.” In an ideal world, how are your customers acting to broadcast this message and way of thinking?

A. That phrase really encapsulates what we are trying to do. In an ideal world, we would all take time out to really contemplate everything we consume and to make sure that it brings us joy and has a real, concrete place in our lives. We take special care designing our shoes so that they can win what we believe should be a coveted and selective spot in our customers’ lives.

“The responsibility of a company is to not ask that its employees check their values at the door.”

Q. Your shoes are made in a family-owned factory that pays a living wage and cares about the safety of their employees. Why do you think it’s so important for people to learn about—and use their purchasing power to support—slow fashion?

A. I think we ought to take less joy in buying something cheap and poorly made, and more pride in supporting a healthy economy. Those savings cost someone, somewhere. Buy fewer, better things and pay fairly for the work that went into them. If we all did this as best we could, within our ability, it would make a difference to the way the workforce is structured and do away with wasteful production.

Q. What role or responsibilities do you think companies have as activists and change-makers?

A. In short, I believe that the responsibility of a company is to not ask that its employees check their values at the door. Those of us in leadership need to make space for our colleagues to be activists, and in pushing ourselves to improve, hopefully, we each take the company along for the ride. As far as the end-consumer is concerned, I learned long ago that what sells my product is its aesthetic and craftsmanship, our ethics are merely a bonus for most. Sustainability might not yet be the force that moves our business forward in the traditional sense, but it’s worth an untold fortune that because of our efforts toward constant improvement, we can sleep well at night.

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How Productive Creatives Manage Their To-Do Lists

There are a handful of things I’m constantly striving to perfect that I know I’ll never fully master: my ice-breakers at parties, my banana bread recipe, and my to-do list. I have a fairly good memory for the minutia of work and life tasks, but I’ve long been on the hunt for the perfect system—one that’s easy and maybe … even … enjoyable to use. This dream system endows me with Big To-Do Energy: the superpower of knowing that I’ll never, ever forget to file my expense report, schedule my dentist appointment, get artwork to the printer on time, and buy a birthday present for my niece.

I’ve tried apps on apps (Basecamp, Trello, TeuxDeux, iOS Notes), spreadsheets in a range of configurations, and have recently landed on an analog system that combines a bullet journal-like usage of a lovely little Snow & Graham grid pad and—for mustn’t-forget items—yellow Post-its rimming the edge of my monitor (a method endorsed by productivity expert and 99U speaker Dr. Sahar Yousef.)

Like managing our finances, tracking tasks is something that we all must do, but  seem to keep rather private. The privileged have assistants, but for the rest of us, we wondered: Is digital better than analog? How much dedication is required? Is there a perfect system? I spoke with some of the most productive creatives we know to find out.

***

Keeping up a bullet journal and Google Calendar system
Simone Noronha, Illustrator and Art Director

“I use a mix between a bullet journal and my Google Calendar. The bullet journal is a central place for all my to-do lists, so that things don’t get lost. And the Google Calendar is useful in setting up my priorities during the day. I can allot blocks of time to specific tasks on my list. A bullet journal needs daily upkeep so unless I’m regular with it it can easily get out of hand. Dependency on these tools and practices is also another downside, I sometimes feel lost without it.”

Loving the Notion app, even for the features it doesn’t have
Jared Erondu, Head of Design, Lattice

“I’ve been a die-hard Notion user for the past year. I love it because its flexibility allows me to map out my plans the way they’re actually organized in my head. It’s the closest thing to pen and paper. Notion is just as powerful for teams, so I’m able to keep my to-do list and my team documents in the same tool. Although I’m a fan, I’ll be the first to admit that [the app] is not a list-first product. I can’t set reminders on a task level or even assign due dates to them. However, I can also argue that as result of these missing features, I review my tasks often and nothing ever creeps up on me.”

Tracking daily tasks in an email draft
Josh Gondelman, Writer & Producer, Desus & Mero

“I use a paper calendar for the macro organization of my life, one with each page spread having enough empty squares to fill in a whole month. I write down appointments, trips, assignment due dates on the calendar. I feel like there’s something trustworthy about writing things down on paper. For the day-to-day, I open an email to myself in Gmail, and I keep a running list of daily tasks (chores, errands, correspondence to which I have to respond). An email draft is good because it will open on any of my devices (personal laptop, work laptop, phone) and I can update it from anywhere as I complete my obligations. The downside is that it keeps me tethered to screens and internet to navigate my day.”

Keeping different notebooks for different tasks
Nicole Katz, CEO, Paper Chase Press

“I keep two notebooks and a pad of Post-its in heavy rotation. One notebook is for larger to-dos like updates to our deck, partnership proposals, and campaign and product ideas. The other notebook is for more deadline-oriented tasks like pending quote requests, project management details, and scheduling sales meetings. The sticky notes are for the urgent items that I literally need to see in front of me at all times until they get done. I try to tackle items from each every day. I’m certain my system would work better if I had nicer penmanship.”

Serious dedication to the Todoist app
Khoi Vinh, Principal Designer, Adobe XD

“I’m a longtime, diehard user of Todoist. The app has projects, contexts, tags, views, but mostly I just use it to pin tasks to dates. So every day I have a list of things to do and I check them off. Some things I need to postpone further out. And whatever I don’t finish today, I’ll move forward to tomorrow. Incredibly simple, incredibly effective. I’m not a big believer in complex productivity methodologies—in essence, what I do is just write down tasks and move forward the ones I don’t complete. But sometimes I’m so busy crossing off items from my list that I’m not addressing the bigger picture. Or sometimes I find I’ve whiled away two hours on penny ante tasks like paying bills or setting up returns or whatever, when I could’ve been using those two uninterrupted hours for much deeper, more creative work. So I have to be vigilant about balancing the micro and the macro.”

Approaching handwritten lists as a form of meditation
Stephanie Pereira, Director of NEW INC, New Museum

“I try and start a new list every morning, but sometimes that slips to once per week. I currently have one of those very thin Muji notebooks, but really any paper will do—the less-fancy, the better. I’ve found it to be incredibly soothing just to simply write a list. I don’t get distracted by other things when I am writing my list, and—this is weird or maybe totally on point—but I feel like the cognitive and emotional load I associate with my computer and my phone is just so heavy, so interfacing with a simple paper list is just really nice. [Though] if I forget my list at work, I don’t know what is on it.”

Our takeaways:

• One catch-all to-do system is rare: feel free to use different systems for different types of tasks
• Paper is still essential: almost everyone we spoke with still finds the practice of handwriting tasks helpful, and the kind of paper or notebook they select is important
• For apps, Notion, Todoist, and Google Calendar were cited
• Most important in achieving to-do mastery is finding something you’ll actually commit to, and can access easily: overthinking or overcomplicating your to-do system might make you less likely to keep up with it

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