Deprived of mechanised means of locomotion and without the aid of technology, the majority of urbanites, neither know where they are, nor are capable of getting somewhere else under their own power.
7 things to spend your money on to increase your happiness
Dutch magazine Intermediair ran an interesting article about 7 ways to spend your money to increase your happiness (it was actually a two part article, the first bit is here). For those of you who aren’t fluent in Dutch, this is what the article says to spend money on (and it’s based in scientific research, so it *has* to be true):
- Spend money on others
- Don’t buy things but experiences
- Buy lots of small things rather than 1 big thing
- Spend as little money on insurance as you possibly can
- Pay now and consume later
- Think about the things you don’t think about (e.g. not just whether the hotel you’ve selected is close to the beach, but also how easy it is to get to that beach)
- Watch how you do product comparison (which is now becoming so much easier with the internet: just because something’s got more features doesn’t mean you’ll use it more)
Things I’ve learned in my life so far, part 1
Don’t know where the inspiration for this came from but I thought I’d write down what I’ve learned in life so far, here’s part 1. No idea if there’ll ever be any more parts, but part 1 sounds optimistic, which is good. And hopefully it’ll propel me to reflect more. Actually, writing that word, ‘reflect’ made me realise that maybe this all stems from the excellent Hajj exhibition at the British Museum at the moment, which I visited a couple of weeks ago.
Things I’ve learned so far:
- It’s ok. Really, it is ok. There’s rarely anything that’s worth fussing about the amount of fussing I do about it. And everything tends to turn out ok, and if not, you adjust and cope.
- Things to work on every day: be a good person. Be nice and courteous, look out for other people, be good to yourself. Show little kindnesses, perform random acts of kindness. It’ll make your own life better and more fulfilled. If you feel down, do something genuinely kind and nice for someone else without expecting anything in return.
- Dream bigger than you are now. What seems unattainable now becomes easier once you start taking steps to making it a reality, bringing the goal closer and making it seem smaller. Dream bigger and bigger.
- Related to that: dream big, but start small. Have a big goal in mind is like seeing people reach the top of the mountain: it looks easy, but takes a lot of preparation, luck and most of all small steps to get there. And at the same time it looks like you’ll never get there because it’s so high. Figure out what the small steps are and start.
There are two ways to lead your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
But London’s uneasy alchemy is also what gives the city its propulsion. …“Some things will work and plenty of things won’t work, and somehow that combination of the working and not working is what gives it a particular energy and a particular life. If everything worked, it would be like Canberra. It would be dead in the water. And if nothing worked, it would be a third-world country, like Haiti. But this combination of not being able to get everything to work that we say will work seems to (make London) more appealing, perhaps, than a well-run, efficient city.
Quick and easy
Odd how these two go together like peas in a pod: quick and easy. If something’s quick, it’s gotta be easy right? Well, sometimes no. And this is probably the bleedingly obvious, but I hadn’t really thought about it til I started using the TFL route planner a lot more after the live countdown data for London buses became available* and especially now that we’re about to move to a new location in the city after a few years at the same place.
See, until recently I usually took the tube everywhere, like probably most non-native Londoners who live reasonably near a tube station do. In my mind, tube was the quick and easy way to get somewhere. And no, I’m not daft enough to take the tube between Covent Garden and Leicester Square or Russell Square and King’s Cross, but in general, it was tube all the way.
Now, however, more and more often I take buses and overland trains, sometimes in combination with the tube. Rarely the easiest solution in my mind (involves transfering from one to the other) but often the quickest. And now, quick and easy are starting to be uncoupled in my mind. A quick journey (say under 30 mins) needn’t be easy, it might involve a couple of transfer. And an easy journey (say 1 tube line with no transfers to any other form of transport) needn’t be the quickest way to get there.
I have no idea of why I hadn’t thought of it before, or why it’s striking me so much now that I feel compelled to write about it.
* If you’re not familiar with it: all London buses are now equipped with some sort of GPS signal so you can see per bus stop which bus is coming when. It’s absolutely fabulous.
Thought You Should See This: Rob Giampietro: Ten Tips for Those Starting Out
Rob Giampietro on Design, Writing, and Pedagogy is Justin Kropp’s interview with Project Projects principal, Rob Giampietro, who gives insight into the graphic design process and the evolution of the discipline. Giampietro concludes with a series of advice for those just starting to…
Russell Davies on screens, buttons, behaviours, and what’s on the edges.
What I’m reading (Nov 6th)
I wish services like Mint.com and Simple (formerly known as BankSimple) would come to the UK: making their customers’ lives easier, using great design and well thought out experiences. Hurrah. A nice blogpost from the guys and gals at Simple here to introduce the service.
Whilst we were in Rome a few weeks ago, we sought out Pizzarium, and this article in the Atlantic describes exactly why. Forget what you know about pizza, and head here (great if you’ve been at the Vatican museums, it’s about a 10 min walk). This is pizza by the slice, cut using scissors, with flavours such as peach, duckbreast and foie gras. Easily the best pizza I’ve ever eaten.
What I’m reading (Oct 31st)
Quote of the week from an article in the NYTimes taste-testing macarons in NYC:
Your slacker boyfriend gives you a cupcake; your lover gives you macarons.
You can now fund social projects via People Fund.it, which I think is a great idea. In fact, I co-funded Food Cycle.
The luck surface
“The amount of serendipity that will occur in your life, your Luck Surface Area, is directly proportional to the degree to which you do something you’re passionate about combined with the total number of people to whom this is effectively communicated.”
I believe there are other factors too in serendipity, but the idea of the ‘luck surface’ is a pretty good one.
As a community of designers, strategists and marketers, it benefits us to remember that we’re not only designing (or strategizing) to solve problems, but also contributing to culture by shaping the behaviors and expectations of a collective audience.
We have an opportunity to not only provide improved function and resolution of friction via the use of every product, website, application or campaign we create — but to design and plan for products and experiences that provide a sense of delight and discovery to those that interact with them.
What I’m reading (week of Oct 24th)
Tom Hulme from IDEO put up his presentation he did at the Wired 2011 conference earlier this month. Great stuff in here about launching to learn, looking at the world through your customers’ eyes and designing flexible systems. I saw him speak at Firestarters #2, and this is a good follow on from that presentation.
One of my profs during my undergrad once told the class ‘Everything is interesting if you’re interested’. And you know what? He’s right. Well, 99.9% of the time that is. Everything *is* interesting if you take an interest. So take that attitude and look around you: what can you redesign, make better, recreate? Thermostats. And beautifully done too. We need more of this type of design. A write-up in Wired describes it in detail.
Mary Meeker, having moved from Morgan Stanley to KPCB, is still creating influential online trends presentations, the latest one is dissected here by BBH. Good read.
I love this poster. In fact, I might buy it (from the Baltimore Print Studios).
Found on the Swiss Miss blog.
So that’s us. We’re now a mr & mrs. The novelty of calling him ‘husband’ hasn’t worn off yet and I’m giggling every time I say it. What I remember most about the day (and loved about it) was the fun and joy and love there was. Especially the love and warmth of our family and friends, the joy of seeing everyone happy and healthy and the joy of kissing my new husband.
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