“Daddy, do you want to go shop for Hatchimals?” inquires my five-year-old.
Indignant, my eight-year-old across the room replies with, “Wait! You were going to look at the Greninja XL in my Pokedex!” The six-year-old, meanwhile, is telling me about the glow-in-the-dark fidget spinners he traded with his best friend, Avi A., as I'm doing my best to make sense of the new spelling program I just downloaded to help him with his homework.
Look, until recently I had no idea what a Hatchimal or a Greninja XL might be (or a Greninja medium or large, for that matter). Last I heard my six-year-old’s best friend was named Justin and I still cannot for the life of me get this spelling program to work on my new MacBook.
I’ll admit there are days when the never-ending stream of new information flooding into my house threatens to overwhelm. New friends my kids have made, new gadgets they love and need, new shows and books and characters whose names and intimate backstories need to be at my fingertips. Add that to new school technologies, after-school activities and keeping up with their social lives, let’s be honest, half the time I wish my kids came with tutorials for their constantly adapting new “features.”
Now, imagine how I feel when it comes to the constant churn of new technology and updates, plug-ins and features being added to my very favorite design programs.
My inbox virtually sags under the weight of cheerful and inviting new toys I can add to Sketch, and upgrades bolstering Creative Cloud. It seems like every day I learn about another useful tool at my disposal or bettering the ones I have, helping me grow and flourish as a designer and art director. Toss in the new frontier of designing for emerging technologies like VR and Voice UI and there is a lot to cover, a lot to learn. And that can sometimes seem daunting.
Full-time creatives have a rather unique challenge in that most of their waking hours are spent focusing on the research, the exploration, the craft and systems in front of them. The sprint or deadline staring him in the face, balancing it with responsibilities to and constant communication with other members of his team — developers, copywriters, marketing, etc.
It seems like every day I learn about another useful tool at my disposal or bettering the ones I have, helping me grow and flourish as a designer and art director. And that can sometimes seem daunting.
Sure, there’s time to share new ideas and explore new techniques in the course of her day, but much of the time is dialed into the task (more often, tasks) at hand. The onus of staying abreast of new features, new plug-ins, new technologies and programs lies on the creative finding the time to master it on her own time.
But where do we find that time?
Sure, not everyone has kids or a family, but plenty have significant others and perhaps freelance, volunteer or after-work responsibilities. Everyone’s life is different. I’m out the door at 730 to get kids to school, then working from approximately 930 to 6, then home for dinner, homework, baths, etc. I get a little time with the wife, maybe a jog, and then I have either work or time to do research or read in the evening before hitting the sheets around midnight (okay, 1am). Weekends are family time, and there are a million other little demands on my time throughout the week. And so little sticky notes or reminders to check out the new Craft Prototyping tool begin to gather dust as I wistfully stare it them from across the room, promising myself “when I have the time.”
Here’s the thing; unless I schedule that time, its never going to happen.
Sure, I may seamlessly be able to learn a new feature or plug-in as I'm working on a project—perhaps adding a small buffer to my time budget because I know it’s going to help make the visuals or prototype so much better. But for the most part, I have to budget the time specifically to master the feature, separate from the pace of my working sprint, giving myself the time and bandwidth to not only play with the plug-in, but actually absorb what I’m learning and make it part of my toolkit. And that means no distractions; clear and defined focus so that I understand what’s going into my head.
So here’s what I do:
1) FIRST OF ALL, GET EXCITED: I mean, you're going to learn something new. You're going to begin an adventure and become master of something you didn't know before, something amazing and cool that's going to help you get better at something you love. It's like learning a new magic spell—think about the new skill you're about to add to your infinite bag of tricks, and realize that you live in an age where new techniques and tools are filling that bag on a regular basis. Even better, there's an entire community of like-minded wizards out there excited to learn, share and talk about these new tricks with you, evolving together as an industry to MAKE. NEW. THINGS. If you can't get excited about the adventure on which you're about to embark, take a moment and soak that in. Look at where you are; think about where you're about to go. Like ol' Doug Adams plastered on the front of his revolutionary mobile device: Don't Panic. Now smile, relax and let's figure out how to make the journey to learning Cool New Things together.
2) SCHEDULE THE TIME: As I said, I actually put the time on my calendar, blocking out all other demands upon my time. If I’m scheduled to learn how to use Zeplin on Thursday night from 6-9pm, nothing else can overturn that calendar event.
3) STICK TO THE SCHEDULE: It’s very tempting, because you’re doing this on your own time, to let that calendar event get shifted around if something else comes around that you or others deem more important. But once you start to play with that schedule—the first time you give in and move it to make room for something else—you’ll have given yourself permission to keep adjusting your schedule more and more. If you’re serious about setting the time to master a new feature, a new plug-in, a new program, then you need to be serious about sticking to the time you’re allotting to absorb and retain it. It’s like losing weight—if you’re supposed to run three times a week, don’t skip out or you’ll give yourself permission to do skip again next week.
Don't Panic. Now smile, relax and let's figure out how to make the journey to learning Cool New Things together.
4) DON’T BITE OFF MORE THAN YOU CAN CHEW: This is the key—being a rounded, versatile designer isn’t a race. Don’t schedule two hours to better your skills and feel like you have to master EVERYTHING at one sitting. You won’t. It’s impossible. In fact, you may not even be able to master one thing in a sitting. What you should do is choose one thing you want to learn and master. That’s it. From the great, wild, wonderful world of the industry and vocation of your choosing, select the one thing you think would help make you that much better at what you love to do. If you’re a designer like me, it could simply be mastering a Sketch or Photoshop feature or plug-in. Or perhaps spending a full day playing with and getting a handle on Invision. Or a myriad number of tasks or training you can set for yourself to help grow your personal knowledge base. Start with one. Set the time. Advance from there.
5) GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK: Don’t be hard on yourself if you don’t master what you've set out to accomplish in a single sitting. Don’t worry that all your pals know how to spit out a design system or understand the best way to do user research and you don’t. Yes, you want to get to the place where you feel confident about using the new tool, plug-in or program…you want to be someone people can rely on for answers and training. You want to MASTER EVERYTHING. But here’s the kicker: there’s always going to be something new to master, so even your pal who spins design systems of solid gold or is the Queen of the User Story, even that colleague or confidant has something new to learn. And I guarantee that they’re making the time, creating their own method of budgeting a schedule to focus and absorb. You’re just one person, and there is a lot out there to learn. No one expects you to master it all at once. You shouldn’t either.
I’ve split my week up in such a way that one day of my week is dedicated to learning and attempting to master one new thing. This week’s plan is to master Invision’s new Craft Prototype plug-in for Sketch. But I probably won’t master it all in one day. So, that’s my goal for the next two weeks. The following week, I’ll schedule something else to learn and absorb on Skill Day. And the next.
6) KEEP ALERT(S): Once you’ve actually scheduled your time, stuck to it and learned something new, make sure you don’t fall behind on new updates or features to the thing you’ve just absorbed. Programs, plug-ins and tools are constantly being updated — make sure you’ve set the thing you’ve absorbed and learned to notify you when there’s something new to master. You want to be ahead of the curve, and even if you don’t have bandwidth to learn the next new thing, you should ensure you know it exists and make a date in the future to spend time wining and dining it. Subscribe to newsletters, follow developers and the makers of your favorite tools on social media so that you know when something new is coming down the pike. An informed innovator is a timely innovator.
Don’t be hard on yourself if you don’t master what you've set out to accomplish in a single sitting.
7) GET YOURSELF A POSSE: Most creatives work and thrive around other creatives. But if you’re a freelancer or the lone designer at your firm, trying to stay on top of the latest tools and trends, it’d behoove you to seek out fellow designers (either in person or online) with whom you can share tips and techniques, as well as use as a source of information for new tools and features. Most of the tools I’m attempting to absorb didn’t just show up and present themselves to me — I learned about them because of the designers I follow on social media, or thanks to the people I work with and surround myself. How will you know what you want to master until you know that others like you are using and find value in it? Sure, it’s great if you are the innovator and trendsetter, discover and evangelize something new to the masses, but take heart knowing there’s someone else out there using you as the source of information, teaching them the next thing they need to absorb and master.
It seems pretty self-explanatory, but I know plenty of older designers who find themselves struggling to keep up with the leaps and bounds design has made over the last few years, and the shiny new tools and programs at our disposal. When you’re working full-time, especially if you want some kind of work-life balance, carving out the time to master the new tools and features can seem daunting. But if you take a breath, focus on one thing at a time, set a consistent schedule that works for you, and establish some kind of “office hours” for training yourself to grow and learn, I promise that over time you’ll stay on top the ever-evolving, constantly changing stampede of new technology designed to help us elegantly and successfully satisfy both user and client needs.
Unless, of course, that need is a pink spinning Hatchimal. Because, apparently those things are completely sold out.