I recently listened to an interview with Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb. Brian is a designer and is constantly advocating for the highest standards when it comes to design. He makes sure to incorporate great design in everything that Airbnb does. In this interview, he talked about Airbnb’s company culture, and he said the team made it their mission to design the strongest possible company culture. They thought about everything from the company's values, their office space, hiring methods, and even the text on employees’ key cards (which reads “Champion the Mission”). Brian made the point that when you think about everything from a design perspective, you realize that anything can be designed and reinvented, including systems and processes like company culture.
It’s interesting to think about what design even is. Here’s a simple definition of design from google:
To plan and make decisions about something that is being built or created.
The key word in any definition of design is “plan.” Design requires planning and forethought. The better plans you have, the better the design will be. Everything we see around us, from buildings to cars to our silverware to our rules and laws, has been designed. Some are excellently designed, like your iPhone, and some are poorly designed, like the DMV. The difference between an excellent and a poor design is simply the plans that led to its creation.
Many people are currently discussing resolutions for the new year, myself included. It’s a time when you can assess where you’re at in life and think deeply about how to design a new and improved life.
Reflecting on my 2022, I spent too much time-consuming content on Twitter, Youtube, Hacker News, and email newsletters and not enough time writing code, writing blog posts, and journaling/reflecting. Consuming content made my days unstructured without much focused time creating things. I also spent a lot of time and a significant amount of mental energy thinking about things like what to eat for my meals, what kind of exercise to do (and when), and what social activities I’d like to do. So, my resolution for this year is to design a daily plan that allows me to accomplish my goals. I’ll create a plan each night which will include my exercise for the day, the meals I’m going to eat, and the most important work tasks that I need to accomplish. I’ll then set my calendar to reflect my plan.
The following tweet inspired me:
A well-designed system needs to include specific strategies to make sure the system is operating well. The obvious question when designing a daily plan is how will I make sure to stick with it? Here are some specific mechanisms I will include in the daily plan:
Accountability buddies to work with.
Writing and coding partners to make sure I’m putting in the time.
Time trackers + payment penalties.
I’m currently building a system that will charge my credit card if I don’t reach certain productivity goals.
Avoiding distractions
I have a phone lock box where my phone will be locked during work hours. I’m also using the app Opal, which blocks distracting apps.
My focus this year is to design an ideal day and constantly improve on it. By having a really well-designed day, I’ll be able to accomplish my larger goals.