Design Workflows at Work

To be honest most of the time I let my state of mind dictate when I do my creative working and thinking. In essence I just sense it coming on and switch gears accordingly. Having said that, I find that either absorbing things I find inspiring (music, a good book, a movie, etc.) or clearing the decks to write or doodle helps.

For example; I'll often spend 10-15 minutes drawing before a long session of problem solving, brainstorming or designing. But, again, my best work kind of jumps on me unexpected.

To a certain extent I have a daily workflow. I'm a big proponent of GTD (Getting Things Done) and, as I mentioned, I sort-of play creativity roulette which means I need to be ready for when inspiration strikes. I try to maintain a constant state of liquid mindedness so that I'm ready and can easily adapt to what the day brings.

To do that I usually clear the decks (and the desk) in the morning, taking care of e-mail and the like before I even hit the office. I also try and leave my work day with an empty inbox every day. This really helps as I'm able to handle the small distractions that show up throughout the day quickly and easily.

The idea is to keep things from piling up and keep distractions low so that you can dive into a problem when you need to.

Good question with no easy answer. It depends on what I'm doing and the mood I'm in. I find that sometimes I need other people to bounce ideas off to best get to the solution for a problem. Other times I just need to be left alone to think.

I do like to mix it up a bit. There are days when I need to focus and I find that staying home, turning up the stereo and hunkering down with everything else off is a great way to create. Then there are days when, going outside helps -- one of the beautiful things about a laptop.

It all depends on how I'm feeling and what I need to get done. The point being that change can be just the thing to get you going.

A quick workout, an empty inbox and a cup of Genmaicha.

Well, I make extensive use of lists. Right now I've got a program called Scrivener that I use for writing. WIthin that I also keep lists of various things I need to do. I also use hand-written lists for less important things.

I'm in the process on working on a GTD-centric Web application (aptly titled Liquid Minded) with a client of ours that I think will take the place of that stuff as soon as it's up. There are a few good web-based list applications out there now, but none of them seem to be right for my workflow.

For most client-facing tasks I use a combination of Basecamp and an issue tracking program called Mojo Helpdesk.

I'm pretty good at minimizing distractions. When I sit down to work on something for any length of time (I work in 3-4 hour blocks usually) I'll close my e-mail, turn off the phone and IM. In essence I don't allow myself to be distracted. That usually works. When I'm not in that heads-down mode I've found that IM is probably my biggest distraction because it's not as passive as say, e-mail. I feel like I have to deal with it.

So, as you might guess, I hardly ever use IM. Aside from that I've found that most times simply choosing to ignore what's going on around me works fine. Seriously I used to get more distracted by my own lack of discipline in tuning out noise and activity. Simply making a conscious choice to not let it bother me often works well.

Well, up until I came to something I felt really comfortable with, all of them. I used to be someone who was constantly tinkering with my processes and workflow. I spent as much time working on my process as I did actually working. I think this is pretty common. At some point I realized that what I had was pretty damn good and while I still make minor adjustments now and again, I've kind of taken a vow to stick with it.

So far, so good.

Well, I guess it depends, again, on what I'm doing. I'm not sure if you can call it a discipline, but as I've mentioned I've taken a whole lot from GTD and that's been a real help. Especially when it comes to dealing with all the stuff I need to do in addition to being creative. GTD keeps me in a state when I can focus on being creative and let ideas flow unobstructed.

When it comes to creativity and design I think I've learned and taken a lot from learning how to write. The writing process is in many ways the same as the process of design. It's communication and problem-solving.

I've probably learned the most from my own mistakes, but I've also learned a lot through my peers and comparing their process to my own. I've been in the some what unique position to have had to redefine the design process for a team several times, in several different roles and seeing how others work, and adapting things that work for them to my own process has really helped.

The key to learning from others when it comes to process and workflow is to realize that what works for someone else may not work for you.

I'd say the biggest thing I do to stay focused it to eliminate distraction. Aside from that I feel that taking a good bit of time to immerse myself in a problem by really understanding it though lots of thinking, discussion, research, exploration, etc. will often help. Often times I'll be asked to do a rush job and while I can do it, I feel that if I've got that extra time to, I don't know, really dive in and understand the root problem, I do much better work.

I wonder if that's why designers seem to always do their best work for themselves.

Speaking of which, when it comes to client work, I've found that if I can get to know my clients and develop a good relationship with them, the more focused I'll be on their work. I'm a designer that really enjoys working on my clients problems and if they treat me well, and trust me to do my best for them, I've found that it's much easier to stay focused. Again, it probably boils down to eliminating distraction -- a rough client relationship is certainly distracting.