Appreciate leisure; turn screenshots into editable designs, lessons from apple design lead
Edition 8th
“I haven’t got much done today, just lying down, playing with cats, browsing Twitter”
Rajeshwari: “Shivam, you shouldn’t feel guilty about not working, *you should appreciate leisure*”
“Ah! What have I become lately, you’re right”
Have you ever found yourself guilty of not being productive? Not thinking about growth and just resting or having fun? Just walking and not listening to a podcast/audiobook? 😅
I love how
has written extensively about leisure in his essays and book.We mistake leisure for idleness and work for creativity.
This lack of rest is not necessarily adding to productivity. Pang also makes the case that some of the most successful people in history did not work that much. Their lives were filled with leisure, activity, and rest.
Charles Darwin, for instance, did most of his work in a few hours a day in the morning. Here is how his day looked:
8:00: Work
9:30: Read mail and write letters
10:30: Tend to birds, greenhouse, or perform experiments
12:00: Take a long walk
1:00: Lunch & answer some letters
3:00: Nap
4:00: Take another walk
4:30: A little more work
5:30: Dinner
Depending on how you slice it, Darwin did about 2.5 to 5 hours of work on a typical day, took a nap, and went for a couple of walks — yet he still had plenty of time to publish 19 books.
Thanks to the reminder by my Rajeshwari, I’m making sure that I don’t put myself in total work mode. It’s sad that the world around us glorifies “hustle” culture and equates hard work with success. More hours equals more results.
Though things are changing, younger generations are demanding healthier work environments, relationships, +space to be themselves. This will always be scoffed at by the older generations that were forced to sacrifice authenticity and their emotional health. Resentment must go somewhere.
Let's go to curated reads and other pieces for this week.
📖 Read
1 // Tinder for Indian demographic
I loved the insightful UX teardown by
2 // What I Learned as a Product Designer at Apple
Ever wanted to work at apple? Andrea shared the lessons she learned while working as a product designer at apple.
Tweets
Take anything that a big company spends millions of dollars building internally, and “export” that as a stand-alone product for any company to use for a monthly fee.
Example: Facebook built a crazy “feature flag” tool internally, so they could roll out features but turn them off if they broke anything. So a few engineers from FB quit their job and created “Launch Darkly” to offer that product as a service (it’s now worth ~$3B)
The only function of a business is to improve your lifestyle. Period.
🤔 Reflect
“If work dominated your every moment, would life be worth living”
🤖 AI tool of the week
Upload screenshots of apps or websites and convert them into editable mockups in a matter of seconds, all with the power of AI., Checkout UI wizard (thanks Yash for sharing this)
Have a great week,
Peace ✌🏽
— Shivam
May have to adopt Darwin’s schedule! Thanks for sharing Shivam!
Thanks for mentioning my piece Shivam. Lovely curation :)