It is probably the best purchase I’ve ever made. I’ll got into details of how dope it is a bit later, but I’d much rather share some insanely sexy video I shot with it.

While it does have it’s drawbacks (there are a LOT…maybe I’ll cover them after the redesign), it’s still a solid SLR and video camera. The pluses (so far) more than outweigh the drawbacks.

This is a video I shot at the weekly cipher at Temple:

Also, in between projects I’ve been working on a redesign (yes…a new re-design, lol) that I’m really comfortable with. I’m not sure if I’m gonna roll it out as one huge update, or a gradual update here and there, but I’m excited to have a full out online portfolio.

Most of these are just unfinished thoughts and ideas….but you should get the point.

WWRD
I’ve been reading Tim Ferris’ book “The Four Hour Work Week” and it posed an interesting question. What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? If you knew you were 10x smarter than everyone else?

My kneejerk is of course to say, “Make a lot of money and do whatever I want” until I realized how empty a statement that is. Making a lot of money is great and all, but it’d make more sense to figure out what “Doing whatever I want” actually meant.

So here it is, my WWRD (What Would Rashid Do) list.

I’d:

Produce fun documentaries about performers everywhere. Local cats and big names.
Go to Brazil.
Travel the world, take pictures of everything I found interesting and make short films.
Make a comedy show
Put on HUGE cool Soul Aquaticsesque events
Make really cool websites and web concepts
Freerun
Learn a few instruments and the MPC and make music
Play in some deop concept bands
Start concept bands with my friends
Give lectures on doing cool stuff with your life
DJ huge parties with stuff I wanna hear
See the world
make really cool art all of the time and get all of my friends involved
Start interesting businessess ( I don’t know what kind)

…………….

Douchebag

You have to be a douchebag to get things done. I’m sorry to have to say it, but this is the clear reality that I’ve been presented with time and time again. No one in the world has the same vision and goals that you have, no one in the world is going to do exactly what you want them to do, and no one in the world is going to have your best interests at heart. As much as I want to say that it’s sad…it isn’t actually. Because thats the way its supposed to be.

Ok, maybe douchebag is too strong a word. You can be a very well liked person, who does right by everyone and gets everything they want to accomplish done…but you can’t please everyone; and this can make you feel like a douchbag. I know that’s how it makes me feel sometimes. Everyone has needs and if you feel responsible for someone, then it becomes an automatic burden to you to take care of the person(s) you feel responsible for, whether you actually follow through or not.

I’ve noticed that I place a lot of value in how people feel about both me, and themselves, and while that’s important…it doesn’t make sense to judge yourself from what you perceive others’ perceptions of you are….

…………….

Sponsitility

I have a really bad habit of taking responsibility for things that I’m not logically responsible for.

Naw.

I mean, I think theres a level of responsibility that I feel we have to each other as human beings. You have an ability to effect people around you and with that ability you should at the very least be aware of that. That’s whatever part of most of us that makes us hit a wall instead of another person. Pretty simple concept, right? We all understand the idea of not letting your actions effect someone more negatively than it effects you positively. You don’t hit the person in the face because for that one second of release, they have a hurt face for days or weeks…and that causes problems.

The question though, is how much do you allow that to control your decisions. On simple things it’s pretty easy. You don’t punch them. If you have to punch something you punch a wall. Other situations are a little more complicated. You may not say something you feel because you think that it’s going to hurt someones feelings and you don’t want to be the person responsible for hurting their feelings. (This particular situation is tricky, because sometimes honestly is in the persons best interests)

…………….

It’s…Complicated

I believe you have to accept people for who they are, but challenge them to be better.

…………….

Vulnerability and Submission

So, the title of that post makes it look like it’s some rated XXX post, but really it’s about the same conversation I’ve been having with everyone these last couple of weeks about happiness and enlightenment, and so much of those things to me come back to vulnerability and submission.

I’ve noticed something in the most talented people I know. I’m talking about concert violinists, math geniuses, professional (or cats that almost went pro) athletes and so on. The most common trait is they allow their craft to work on them. They allow it to be a back and forth with what they’ve learned and trained to do…and what they feel…

…………….

Moses

So, I just found out a friend of mine passed away today. While Moses and I weren’t good friends, he was definitely someone who’s passing means something to a lot of people. He was the co-host of the gathering, a pretty visible person in the Philly hip-hop scene and a prominent person in what I consider the West Philly dope person conglomerate.

We never had the chance to get very close for a lot of reasons, and that made me think about what makes you prone to be close to anyone. I feel like with most people there is a emotional, mental, spiritual connection or a connection of mutual interests, and those are all things to be cherished.

…………….

Maturity

I feel like the more honest I feel, and the more honest I allow myself to be, the more I’m seemingly unattached to things that seem to be unimportant. If anything, it feels more natural to disconnect from old ideas and what I feel like people seem to attach them to and connect to whats honest.

That’s not to say I feel some connection to any higher power, or anything like that, but what feels more natural to align myself with doesn’t seem to look right…or what seems to be a bit unconventional…

…………….

Resolutions

I’ll be the first person to tell you that the idea of New Years resolutions is retarded. Why wait until the start of some new time to develop new habits, and believe that you’ll be a new person because of some date changing. I’ve personally never been good for them, so I resign to make my changes as I go…naturally.

But, there IS something to the new year for me. Since my birthday falls right after New Years (January 3rd…hint hint) it’s not just the year changing, but I get a little older too. What I’ve noticed too, is by choice or not…every year there’s a dramatic shift in something that happens in my life…and it always happens sometime between December and January. It’s either an internal or external shift, often not by my choosing, that pushes me into a new direction in thinking or whatever.

As I get older, I’m starting to notice the patterns that these shifts take…and it’s not just me. I see very similar patterns acting in the lives of people I’m close to as well. The gaps that we all seem to have in growth that life forces us to embrace. Some things notice and overcome them, and other things we struggle with for the rest of their life.

That’s just the nature of things I guess.

While I’m not big on New Years resolutions, I am very big on going into the new year fresh. Since, for me anyway, a new year immediately marks a new age, and often marks external changes, it makes sense to move into it with as little baggage as possible. I think as we get older we get more and more comfortable with the amount of baggage we let clutter our minds and hearts.

So it’s good to make a habit to constantly assess what’s clouding your judgment and informing your expectations.

…………….

Social Networking

Social networking has become a large part of how my generation communicates with each other. In my humble opinion, it’s made and best used to both stimulate and facilitate real life connections. Twitter, facebook, myspace and so on are all amazing tools to meet people, converse and sometimes use to break the ice and get past that awkward initial meeting , “What the heck should we talk about” phase.

For a while I would get annoyed with people that not only have twitter on their phone, but insist on facebooking, tweeting, etc in a group setting. If it’s only to say…”Hanging out with @rashidzakat (follow me) or something absolutely hilarious, ok…but if it’s something not only annoying about sending a play by play of tweets to people, but it’s offensive…and I just figured out why.

To me, tweeting/facebooking is something that you use to stay connected to people, and to make new connections. I tweet to my friends if I feel like I’m filling them in on something…but it’s a partially conscious process…so I have to make the intent to  send a message out to people.

Also, here’s a “sneak peek” at another project I’m working on. I’m trying out some magazine-like interface design.

Needless to say, it wasn’t until I took an internship at O3 World (a really dope branding/web agency in Philly) that I actually took the time to learn HTML. Brandon let me borrow his HTML book, I got another CSS book on my own and read them in my spare time. This was helpful, but what made the techniques stick is when they made me drill through what I already knew and solve problems, learning new techniques everyday and spending hours a day practicing them. Needless to day, I learned by practicing as often as I could.

I use this rather long story to draw a line between learning something technical and learning how to become a better person. There is no real difference in the method.

Another story: If you’ve read my post, or have had a long enough conversation with me, you know that I was raised on a daily regiment of Jesus, Jesus and more Jesus. I spent a decent amount of my life in church, which is supposed to be a place you learn to be a better human being. Church is an amazingly beautiful thing when you boil it down to a regular event that you fellowship with people who want to take active steps in making the earth a better place through trust, spirituality, sacrifice and selflessness.

The problem is, that changes as soon as people walk out of the door. Everything sounds nice, and you get high in the moment; and for those brief moments you’re in the congregation, you have the courage you believe you need to be the virtuous person the world needs. Of course, once that self-righteous high fades so does the confidence you have to actually make those changes in your thoughts and stick with them.

So what do you do? Well, first of all I think to become a better person, we need to get rid of this notion that self-improvement is a comfortable process. The biggest strides and growth I’ve experienced in life were born out of some of the most painful, often most awkward moments of my life.

It wasn’t comfortable.

It wasn’t always happy. There’s nothing like facing your fears, attacking your preconceived notions about the world to find out reality isn’t what you though it was. If you challenge your norms to prove their validity, no matter what you find, it’s not a process you enjoy. Especially if you have to come face to face with the demons you’ve developed and allowed to attach to you in your life. Humans thrive on familiarity.

Lastly, it’s not an overnight process. My mom used to always tell me that you don’t wake up in the morning a different person. You’re always a compilation of who you’ve been over the years. The bulk of your thoughts are based on habit and perception. Even if you make an active decision to change an aspect of yourself, it’s not a one time decision. You have to live with it and make the choice to affirm that decision every day. More importantly, you have to fight the urge to settle back into whats comfortable. What’s comfortable feels natural because it’s familiar…but natural doesn’t always equate to honest, best, real or productive.

Comfort is the biggest bane to development or improvement.

My point is, you have to take active steps in becoming a better human being…whatever that means to you. It’s absolutely ok to evaluate yourself on a regular basis. To write out your affirmations, to track your progress and most importantly to take very uncomfortable steps to grow. While growth is natural and progressive, I’m starting to learn what natural growth really means….and it doesn’t necessarily equate to being comfortable.

Last story. I was never a work-out guy. While I was pretty active in high school, and I remember going through a phase for about a year or so where I was very diligent about daily exercise, it wasn’t ever anything serious. When I moved back to Philly after moving home for a year, my brother Qadim and I began a serious workout routine. Now, Qadim played sports, and it’s important to him to stay in shape. I spent hours in my room reading and making nerd things….so it’s needless to say that the first few weeks of us working out was a lesson in improvement. But, though working out regularly with Qadim, something happened. I went from 5 push-ups to 15. Then from 15 to 25. Then from 25to 35. My arms got stronger. My endurance increased. With each push up, I felt the lactic acid seep into my muscles, making every push-up more difficult than the last. That would have normally told me to quit and get back to something I was more accustomed to. “Go make a beat.” “Turn the TV on.” “Don’t you have some scripts you need to finish?” I eventually went from jogs around the block to jogs to center city and back. While I’ve dramatically fallen out of shape, that’s a lesson I need to remember to remind myself that nothing happens overnight….physically, mentally or spiritually. EVERYTHING takes time and effort to grow…and the less we can see or touch the change the tougher it becomes to integrate into your life.

To sum it up, becoming a virtuous, honest, productive and well….happy human being takes work. ACTIVE work. It’s something that should be practiced, thought about and maintained on a constant basis. We should all be asking ourselves is what we’re doing a step in improvement, or a cop out because of our level of comfort and “mental lactic acid” that we believe is telling us to quit, but in actuality, that discomfort is our bodies, spirits and minds telling us what we’re doing is right.

*This entry was sparked by this entry I read about design on the Echo Endurance blog: http://blog.echoenduring.com/2009/12/02/the-one-thing-you-need-to-do-to-become-a-better-designer/

For a lot of people success isn’t an option or something they have to work hard for…it’s a given. They just have to go through the formalities, await the outcome and claim what they rightfully deserve. You know someone like that…they seem to work very hard at whatever it is that they do…but everything also seems to come without much effort. I think most of us have experienced this on a relatively micro-level. Think about what you’re the best at and how you got to be as good as you are. Chances are, you didn’t get good at what you’re good at over night, but you probably can’t remember not thinking you wouldn’t be as good as you were.

For example, I’m pretty good at building LEGO’s. Probably not very good now, but in my hey-day I was pretty formidable. I used to build day and night, not worrying about making them “good” or “bad”…just making them the way I saw it in my head. Then bigger….and bigger…and bigger…and eventually better and better. Again, I wouldn’t say I was the greatest, but what some people saw as a gift was just a hobby that I put a lot of time into…and eventually began to improve exponentially.

Now take this same concept and apply it to something a little less concrete…let’s say conversation skills. I think about the people who are my favorite people to talk to, and on a whole…they at the top of the list for a lot of people. I’m thinking of three good friends of mine in particular. They’re all very intelligent, outgoing and charismatic. Whether people flock to them isn’t as important as what they do with they people they come across. While they may not be confident in everything they do one thing that comes effortless to them is engaging people. The common thread I’ve noticed with these particular people is that they don’t think about engaging people as anything special. In fact, their conversation skills dwindle as soon as you make them aware of it. The moment they begin thinking of how well received something is, instead of moving with their instinct to speak and their innate confidence (I’ve boiled it down to a few key factors for each person I’m thinking about, but that’s another blog for another day) is shaken, you’ve thrown a monkey wrench into the process. Now, they’re wasting some of their brains processing power on what they’re saying instead of letting their natural instincts take over. They’ve, in a way, trained to be as good as they are in conversation whether it be through a combination of thinking a lot about certain universal topics, talking to a lot of people since they were a young age, or by virtue of just being very open articulate people. This is more interesting when people HAVEN’T worked on their conversation skills. When you know something is going to work, it’s probably going to work. When you don’t think of something as work, it can’t fail.

I’m very familiar with the effects of positive thinking, and I guess that’s at the heart of my teaching/learning strategy. It’s not that people are born smarter…I’ve never believed that…but some people are more confident; and learning is more about confidence than how much your brain can hold. The less I think about something and know it’s gonna work out, the faster it does. Worrying and over thinking everything causes things to not work out…that’s a fact. You’re then hindered by thoughts of things that you can honestly deal with once they come up as long as you’re not flustered by them.

Now, positive thinking can often be confused with blind faith/arrogance. The obvious difference is if you know something is going to work out, you still allow space to be realistic and cover your bases properly. For example, it never occurred to me for a moment that Soul Aquatics wouldn’t work out. (Soul Aquatics was a really dope jam session my brother Kepa and I used to host a couple of years back). It wasn’t anything amazing, but we knew that if you got all of our friends together to play dope music, people would really enjoy it. Now, there is a lot we didn’t do to make it better, but in hindsight, it was a pretty big leap of faith to get it to work, but we knew that if we planned properly, covered our bases, and had contingencies for our contingencies, we would get exactly what we wanted out of the situation…if not better. It was the largest undertaking either of us had done, but out of all of the conversations we had about it, I don’t think we ever had one about it not being good.

I think if we were more arrogant about it, we wouldn’t have gone to the lengths we went to to make sure people knew about each one, each time. If we would have operated on blind faith, we probably would have over extended ourselves to make it something bigger than we could handle and trusted it could work out. That would have been foolish. I think part of being a positive thinker/doer is knowing your limitations…but understanding that you aren’t your limitations. You as a person are bigger than any limit possible…yet limitations exist to be conquered. But you can’t conquer something you don’t acknowledge.

One of my favorite films is Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump is the picture of confidence and positive thinking. Now granted, this is a Hollywood movie, so our knee jerk is to criticize the idea of learning something from a half-retarded man, but I look at the most successful (in the real way of thinking about success mind you) people I know in certain arena’s and they are Gumps themselves. They didn’t look at their limitations and rationalize it to be a part of them, nor did they pretend these limitations exist. They took a realistic look at themselves and their capabilities and realized what really mattered…whatever that may be.

People are attracted to a certain type of confidence in a person. That’s why some people are magnetic. They have a type of energy about them that means they can do anything, and they don’t think twice about it. Most of them don’t even know it. Now, some people confuse actual confidence with an off putting sort of arrogance that assumes a level of superiority over other people, and trust me…this isn’t the same thing. Having true faith in yourself is recognizing the value of others…while avoiding the mistake of comparing your own worth and value to theirs. True confidence is admitting you don’t understand something, and knowing that you can learn if you only ask for assistance.

My last note is an observation I’ve only recently articulated. The people I categorize as the most confident seem to ask the most questions. I’m thinking of a few people in particular. They always seem to be engaged in whatever it is excites them at the moment…and it’s an intuitive sponge-like absorption of knowledge like I’ve never seen before. They never worry about seeming like they’re bugging someone, and they rarely do…because they tap into people who are excited to share the information and wouldn’t look down upon them for not knowing.

I figured I’d share some of my favorites that I’m going to put in place now…some of which will make me seem crazy to people who don’t know what Im working towards…but I figure since I already seem crazy it won’t make that huge of a difference…right?

The biggest things that will make an immediate difference is batching your workload and limiting your media access. The other huge factor is the WWRD or BHD (Be, Do, Have) list.

1. Batch your workload. There is so much that I do in a day that can be batched, and most of it is communication. In particular (or atleast for me) the cell phone, email, meetings and facebook. I waste so much of my day talking to people, or checking up on my social stature or just surfing the net and posting things I find on facebook. In one sense, it’s really cool to be able to have such great access to people…all of the time, but do you really need it all of the time? Can’t you get the same effects or better by limiting your interactions with people to concentrate on what NEEDS to be done so you can do what you WANT to be doing?

My strategy for the next week is simple. Have 2 set times, probably noon and 4 (they’re the times Tim suggested in his book, but they work for how I’m working too) and take as much time as you need to answer every email (that’s answerable without doing any extra work/research) that comes in. Do the same for facebook, but unless you’re like me and have a decent amount of business that comes from facebook, keep it to 5 minutes. For me, I’m going to re-route any facebook messages about work or anything of the sort to my email. Politely ask people who want to do any business to email me instead of facebooking me. Facebook is an amazing tool for social networking, but it’s built by people smarter than you or me, to be a distraction. Think about what you use facebook for in the most utilitarian terms possible and use it like that for a week. Chances are, even if you’re using it to promote yourself and your ventures, you don’t need more than 5-10 focused minutes on it.

I am a compulsive email checker, so this one is huge. Even while writing this entry, I’ve checked my email 5 times and am fighting to not check it again. It’s a habit. If you can break this habit for a week, you can continue the habit until you don’t think about it anymore.

As far as everything else, I like to do certain things on set days. So I like taking Wednesdays off. New comic books come out then, and I don’t like to rush. As it so happens, Barnes and Nobles is around the corner, so I like to go and read…which makes me look for inspiration. If I’m organized with what I do…then I shouldn’t be rushing around. Unless I have to, I don’t try to take meetings on Wednesdays, and I don’t answer my phone much unless someone wants to meet up to read or walk around the park…and there are very few people who I’ll hang out with on a Wednesday. I like to relax and not talk about anything stressful or unnecessary.

Mondays are good paperwork, planning and follow up days. I usually spend my Sundays with friends having brunch or just goofing off. Mondays I’m a bit more relaxed and have a better attitude towards work, so it makes it mentally easier to plan for the future and check up on the present.

2. Channel as much through to your email as possible. This one is HUGE. I started slowly redirecting people away from my cell phone and to my email, but I don’t do it enough. Most people will take as much time as you let them take, so don’t even give them the chance. Plus, for me anyway, I have to write things down anyway, so the best method I’ve found that I’m going to practice more is

Them: Hey Rashid, whats up?
Me: Not too much, I’m a little busy. What do you need?
Them: I wanted to get you to do some light web stuff. You see, my site is pretty old and I wanted to get it updated with some new designs, and….
Me: Hey, sorry to cut you off, but I don’t have too much time to talk. Can you do me a huge favor, and send me an email with your thoughts and what you need? It’ll make it simpler for you to organize your thoughts and my memory is so terrible that I’d have a hard time trying to remember what you said.
Them: Umm…I guess that’ll work.
Me: Ok great! I’ll be on the look out for that email, and I’ll shoot you something with my thoughts as soon as I can. I’ll talk to you soon!
Them: Ok, bye.

Some people see that as an an absolute dickface way of working, but it’s been my own experience that if you don’t limit communication and coddling early on, it can turn into a really time consuming process for anything that you do. Plus, this forces them to think out and organize their ideas that they’re probably really passionate about and can waste your time talking about. Plus, people are forgiving. If they know that this is the way you do business, then as your relationship grows (provided you deliver on time) they’re appreciate this efficient process.

My career path is inherently time consuming. It takes a while to design great interfaces, it take a while to plan video and photo shoots. As streamlined as you can get these processes, they still consume a decent amount of time. Don’t waste time then on other peoples disorganization. It’ll effect you and since time is finite, you can’t waste a lot of it unnecessarily. Train the people around you…they’ll eventually get it. If not, then is that someone who you wanted to waste time with anyway?

3. Go on a Media Consumption Diet. Take this week to limit your facebook activity, limit your tv watching to one hour a day, or a movie per day. That’s it. Don’t read the news or watch CNN unless it particularly interests you. Instead use this time to plan your life out (number 4) or to interact with people. People are such an amazing source of information, that you don’t really need to read the paper or keep up with the news to know whats going on. Everyone has one expert friend in everything pop-cultural or societal. Use them to keep up if you need to, but you probably don’t need to. You need to take this week to work on your 5 things list.

4. Make your life plan list. This is the most important aspect of it all. Your life plan list is a list of things you want to do with your life, not matter how abstract it is. For our purposes, we’re going to do a list of 5 things you want to do, 5 things you want to be, and 5 things you want to have in the next 6 months. Keep this list short-term. Next we need to take each thing and come up with 5 actionable steps towards it. They should be some first step things you can do in 5 minutes. For example, I want to buy a $4,200 camera, so I need to find places that have it for cheap and figure out how much I need to save per month to get it in 6, or if I can buy it on credit and pay it off in 6 months. I’m not saying my example is the best…but it’s a start. Im going to post my WWRD (What Would Rashid Do) list in my next entry.

5. Avoid Meetings! Ok, so I can’t do this as much as I’d like. In my line of work, meetings can be very critical to brainstorming ideas and collaborating on projects, but this isn’t the best solution all of the time. With the exception of people that I’m already friends with (and even them sometimes) I hate meetings.

Honestly.

90% of the meetings I’ve been to in the past are completely unnecessary and it’s just an excuse for someone to verbally masturbate to you. I go out of my way not to talk to much a lot of the time, not that I expect that from anyone else, but you have to be mindful of your time.

I vote to destroy as many meetings as possible. It makes people feel better, yes, but are the productive? Rarely. Now, I’m not saying don’t meet. It works to meet with people sometimes to just have a dialog. Since I’m doing creative work, if you work with creative people a face to face interaction gets the ideas flowing a lot better. With that said, if you allow time for yourself and people to drag their feet, they will. One entry I wanna write is about the 23rd hour rule. Its basically about how you can get anything you need to get done (and probably already do) in the 23rd hour. I can’t begin to tell you how many papers I’ve written the night before class (Well actually I can…all of them). And while I’m not the best example to follow academically, chances are, you’re the same way.

You can get everything you need to get done in any reasonable amount of time allocated to it. If you only have an hour to meet, then you can easily get everything done in that hour meeting…since you’re only going to have that one. You have to remove the option of having more time and other meetings. That’s incentive for you and the person you’re meeting with to come prepared with ideas that can be worked out. A good practice is to limit the time that can be spent in that meeting. You can only meet for an hour because you have to help Dr. Wilson out with someone important at 4. It doesn’t matter if Dr. Wilson is really Snuggles…your cat. If you give people the option to waste time…chances are, they will. I know I do. And I usually waste time out of politeness (Imagine that).

This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of simplifying your life and increasing productivity. I’ll let you know how this week turns out!

I, like most Americans, am incredibly inefficient. I think about all of the useless meetings I have, how dis-organized my time usually is, how back and forth I am with important decisions and most importantly, how often I not only allow, but expect people to dictate my time line. I think I’ve been blessed to be given the mind and natural attitude that’s a combination of impatience and a constructive/big-picture thought structure.

What that means to me is I like to get things done very very quickly, but am willing to accept how long the ACTUAL time it takes to get something accomplished. Moreover, I can focus on the big picture and plan for what seems like an impossibly long amount of time, and get it done very quickly and what I feel is effectively.

The problem is of course, I either let people get in the way of that with their own time lines and usage of my time, or I procrastinate what needs to get done for whatever stupid reason there is.

The irony in my procrastination is that I procrastinate to complain (internally or externally) about setting up unrealistic deadlines with people. (I know potential clients are probably looking at this too, but it’s an admission and a declaration. No one is perfect). But lo and behold, I get things done (often in the 23rd hour) that I could have gotten done days or weeks in advance (Granted most of what I work on is creative, and I take a clear and justifiable amount of time to read, do research, and create outlines which ARE important, but sometimes it’s just ridiculous).

One of the best things I started doing for a while was not checking my voice mails. I love text messaging for 90% of my interactions because while it’s impersonal, it’s quick and to the point. I honestly hate chit-chat…especially on the cell phone. I’ve put up with it, but I’m not good at it…and I honestly don’t want to ever be good at it. It’s annoying…especially when you have stuff to do and people don’t care that you do because of their perceived self-importance that you’ve fed into.

1. Most of the time, nothing is as urgent as people feel it is. – Unless it’s something hospital related, or a rare (and I mean very rare) once in a lifetime opportunity, it can wait.

2. People will only do what you let them. – I’ve noticed that since I can be very accommodating to certain people, they milk it for what they can. Then there are people who I don’t accommodate at all (based on my standards of course), who get straight to the point.

3. People can be trained. I think about the crap that I get away with on a daily basis with a lot of people. Not to say that it’s good and not to say that I don’t have bad habits, but people are used to them. The problem is that since they are bad habits, they aren’t based on conscious decisions, but people are used to them…and to a degree…accommodate them without much consequence to their lives. Which leads me to my next point:

4. People are very forgiving. If they aren’t then either your suck to the point where you need to change, or they don’t need to be in your life. If you’re providing some sort of service for people for example, and they can’t deal with what clearly works for you, and it’s not worth you changing…then you already have your answer.

Ok.

What works the best for me has been a combination of systems that I’ve had since I was a kid, and stuff I’ve read about and started doing consistently. They are:

1. List everything you have/want to do. No matter what you need to get done in a day month, week, year, lifetime write it down. This action alone will help you define what you want. I think it’s good to do this at least once a day, or once every two days until you have an accessible system of list(s) that you can work from. I think there should always be an ever changing master list that you write your big and small thoughts on.

2. Organize your lists. I think multiple lists are good sometimes (although they can be confusing) because you can rank things in terms of importance. What NEEDS to get done in terms of TIME. And whats actually important. I’ve noticed that my lists usually have things that I can never do, and my life won’t be hurt (in a sense), but I’ll be completely unfulfilled (like going to Brazil), and things that don’t or only partially fulfill me, but are important (like paying bills). Then breaking those lists down into definable quantifiable actions with clear outcomes.

For example: I want to travel to Brazil for 3 months…but before that can happen, I need to learn Portuguese, save money for a ticket, find a place to stay, get in contact with people down there, learn about the culture, possibly find groups that do cheap trips, etc. And for each one of those, I make a list of what needs to be done that I can start working on. There is no task that is so insurmountable that it is impossible. You just need to break things down and research them.

3. Overestimate time, but stick to your deadline. This is one I’m getting better at. I’m late for things for 2 big reasons. I don’t have a good gauge of time, and I get sucked into things by other people, so to combat this, I’ve started to time how long certain things usually take like a train ride to South Philly, or a bike ride to Temple, and I over estimate by about 10 minutes to make sure I get there on time. But once I’m there (even if I’m late) I have to be out by a certain time. If you go into a situation knowing you have to be out by a certain time, you’re more likely to not be a dick and show up super late, and you’ve already created that expectation so people don’t waste your time.Even if you don’ t have anything pressing to do, chances are…you probably do have something better to do than have someone masturbate to you in a meeting…which gets me to my next point…

4. Get to the point. Plain and simple. Lets assess the problem, figure out the solution, and keep it moving. Most problems don’t have more than 3-5 outcomes. Usually there are only 2 desirable ones. So, whichever one has the higher benefit for the lowest cost is usually the best solution, which is not very difficult to deduce. Don’t waste time on unrealistic outcomes, sometimes it’s worth it to shoot for the dream, but not as often as people want to think.

5. Be prepared. It’s easier to get to the point when you have an idea of what the variables are. Do your homework, and you’ll be faster and more prepared.

6. Do the most difficult task you have to do as early as possible. If you’re moving, move the couch, bed, and big stuff first. Then come back for the boxes… you’ll be more motivated, you used your initial energy on the toughest thing, and be more prone to keep moving instead of moving the small stuff for 3 hours and realizing you still have a couch to move. Generally the task more likely to be procrastinated is one of the more important ones, or you’d just not do it. But since you have to do it, do it early and get it out of the way.

7. If you’re doing someone a favor, put it on your time…no theirs. Chances are no one’s going to ask you to do them a favor that can’t wait. If it’s important to them, they have to respect what important to you and allow it to file in. Honestly, this isn’t just applicable to favors, but it sounds nicer that way. Most people are not only incredibly inefficient with their time, they’re also incredibly selfish with it too. I’ve notices the most inefficient people are prone to be more selfish, and selfish people wrap others up in their web of wasted existence, so why would you want to be caught on that. Put them on your time with a set amount of time you’re willing to dedicate to it. It’ll force them to be more efficient with how they at least deal with you.

And yes, this is being selfish with your time. But you can’t afford not to be. Time is probably the most important factor in your life, you can’t be bothered with giving it away to people who are unappreciative of it.

8. Record your processes and look for improvement. There is ALWAYS room for improvement. It’s a good look to evaluate what you do after it’s already done, but it’s a better look to pay attention as you do it. Often your emotional state plays a HUGE role in how things turn out, so to be aware of that while it’s happening and record it in detail in the moment is sometimes the best way to improve upon what you’ve already worked on.

I’m still working on becoming more effecient in everything I do in life. What do you do to me efficient?

Ok, lemme back up. For those that don’t know, Kep and I used to host this really dope event called Soul Aquatics. We gather a bunch of really talented people, throw them in a room…and see what happens. We did our last event about a year and a half ago and since then, a lot of stuff has changed.

Fast forward to today, and I’m working on getting the Soul Aquatics Sessions started again, so to promote it to venues and eventally to people, I’ve been building the site, which I decided to try a couple of different new processes out in my design.

For one, I planned everything meticulously. Now there are still a few key elements missing from the design that I want, theres still not a lot of pop, but thats coming. One of my favorite things about being a designer and working on your own projects is that you can grow things a bit more organically. I like to build what I need for the time being, and add on as I go on. There are a lot people that don’t agree with this process, but I personally like it.  I think for small fries like me, I don’t need all of the bells and whitles to start with. There are somethings that I can integrate before I need them, and other things that I’ll let the demand force me to adapt to.
Well, and I’m not gonna do this very often, I’m gonna reveal the comps for the new Soul Aquatics site. Bear in mind a lot of things are gonna get upgraded as we need them, but this is to show venues and possible sponsors what we’re about. Yay!

This is the homepage. The idea is that you land here, you get a bit of context about what Soul Aquatics is, and you can click to see a video pop out in a lightbox for that particular performance.

This is the about section, which has a brief history of the event and some links to people who have helped us out/been a part of the event along the way. I know I can’t get everyone in here, so maybe it’ll change or we’ll have a more thing that loads in the same section.

As you guys can see I’m really excited about it, and maybe I’ll do a whole blog about the design of the site. Even though it’s incomplete in terms of full functionality and very minimalistic (even for me) I’m happy with it and would appreciate ANY and ALL feedback on the design.