Design Thinking: I think I want to quit.
Perhaps I am being a bit of a negative Nancy today. Let me just say, there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about calling it quits to writing everyday. I often ask myself why I decided to publish daily (like really what was I thinking!) - and the answer to that: to prove that I can be committed. This ties in to other projects that I've taken on and haven't completed to its entirety; either I didn't create the best environment for my projects to thrive or I just didn't give it the love an attention it needs to grow. I tend to jump ship way too early to see successful results. It's one thing to know you can do something, another to believe you can do something and far different to actually ride it out and do the grit work.So, today is day 73. The day after Thanksgiving and I am feeling very lazy. I am more than ready to just knock out and go to bed. I know that pushing myself will help and that I can't rely solely on my emotions to motivate me to accomplish things. However, I know that I also need to work on a buffer. So I've been doing even more research.Research on why I want to quit by asking myself hard questions, and research on the methodology and application of design thinking; how it can be applied in different scenarios, businesses and cultures - and ultimately in the company I currently work for.I've learned that design thinking requires an aspect of experiencing what someone else goes through. It's that aspect of empathy rearing its head again. You can't just learn about someone's problem and design the solution for them. You have to engage in the experience as there are things you may miss that aren't communicated.I want to quit because I am finding it hard to publish daily - and I know I need a bit more structure. I feel like I am running out of things to say - however I listened to an interview with David Kelly. He mentioned that design thinking is like his religion. Hearing that caused a new spark and made me realize I need to look deeper, create my bug list and understand that design thinking is a strategy and requires testing.I know I keep referring back to the book - I promise it's a great read - in "Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All - Embrace Creative Confidence" there are a few challenges posted about how to use a few of the methods.I am certain the "Start Designing Your Life" pushed me to want to make a few changes and test them to see if there is any outcome. It's what pushed me to start writing and doing more research on the topic.Here's what I've noticed so far:
- I am getting retweeted and added to lists on Twitter, thus increasing my visibility.
- A few of my friends on Facebook are actually reading my posts.
- They told me I am cutting my stories to short- note to self work on the ending.
- They enjoy my writing style.
- Most of my traffic comes from twitter - funny because many people said twitter is dead.
- Changing my topic/headlines to begin with "design thinking" is leading me to wonder if I should change my blog site title. (Did a bit of research and all the good ones are taken).
- My about page gets a lot of hits - I need to update that!
In the chapter of"Start Designing Your Life" its suggested to
- do field research on myself by looking for unmet needs in my own daily routine.
- generate ideas about what changes in my behavior that may be viable, feasible, and desirable.
- to record what improvements I can quickly prototype, test, and iterate.
- to be INTENTIONAL about choosing actions I can take right now that might add more JOY AND MEANING to my own life and the lives of the people around me.
- I need to ask:
- How to work within the constraints?
- ask whats working and what's not?
- how can I continue to create a positive impact?
- Think of today as a prototype - what would I change?
And so since I realize I was in a funky mood in the beginning of this post it just dawned on me that yesterday I was saying thanks about all the simple things we take for granted: walking, ability to feed myself, to think and process - all because I think of my grandmother who can no longer do these everyday things. So I end this post by saying I'm designing my life by choosing to do better each and every day, on step at a time - and I am not going to quit learning, reiterating, and practicing design thinking.