Good design derives from good thinking. And good thinking is highly correlated to how much time you spend. In every place I’ve been though, every designer seems to be thirsty for more time to design. Why does this happen, to a point where it feels like a universal constant? Looking back across organizations and projects, here’s a set of patterns I’ve observed. Any of these sound familiar?

好的设计源于好的思考。 良好的思维与您花费多少时间密切相关。 在我去过的每个地方，每个设计师似乎都渴望获得更多的设计时间。 为什么会发生这种情况，直到感觉像一个通用常数？ 回顾组织和项目，这是我观察到的一组模式。 这些听起来熟悉吗？

重复观察 (Repeating observations)

• Meetings unblock progress, but also interrupt progress.
  会议可以阻止进度，但也可以中断进度。
• From picking up the cursor, each person takes different amount of time to immerse themselves and get creative.
  从拿起光标开始，每个人花费不同的时间来沉浸于自己和发挥创造力。
• Sum of time blocks spread apart≠ Same amount of time in a single block.
  时间块的总和散开≠单个块中的时间相同。
• Designers are scarce in many organizations — Partners can be demanding with deadlines and your expertise.
  在许多组织中，设计师都很匮乏-合作伙伴可能会要求截止日期和您的专业知识。
• Many designers desire to be present at high level conversations — and this often leads to holistic thinking in the design.
  许多设计师希望在高层对话中露面-这常常导致设计中的整体思考。
• Plans change suddenly. Big changes in context can nullify the work done so far and have designers to go back to step 1.
  计划突然改变。 上下文的重大更改可能会使到目前为止所做的工作无效，并使设计人员返回到步骤1。
• Despite the lack of time, you want to deliver a kickass design that will wow and excite the team.
  尽管时间紧缺，但您仍想提供一种可令团队振奋并振奋精神的Kickass设计。

尝试过但是me (Tried but meh)

Unfortunately, this isn’t news and we’ve all tried something. Here’s some I’ve tried, found to be a common practice by others, and end up ineffective over time.

不幸的是，这不是新闻，我们都做了一些尝试。 这是我尝试过的一些方法，发现是其他人的惯用方法，但随着时间的推移最终效果不佳。

• No meeting Wednesdays Hard to enforce. Urgent meetings come up. Sometime compromised to find a time that works for everyone.

  周三无会议，难以执行。 紧急会议来了。 有时为了找到适合每个人的时间而妥协。

• Not going to meetings

  不参加会议

  Meeting minutes lack certain context, ideas evolve during real-time conversations, I prefer to be present in discussions that relate to design or that design has a perspective in.

  会议纪要缺乏特定的背景，想法在实时对话中不断演变，我更喜欢出现在与设计有关的讨论中，或者设计具有视角。

• 9–5 for making myself available to others, and designing before & afterNot sustainable nor productive long-term. Also prevents you from spending your core energy on design — you end up using left-over energy when heads-down

  9–5，使自己可以与他人共享，并且在前后进行设计不可持续或长期无法产生成果。 还可以防止您将核心精力花在设计上–最终您在低头时会消耗掉剩余的能量

• Pushing back on deadlines

  推迟截止日期

  Works well in certain cases, but often dependent on external factors such as launch roadmap and engineering resources. Not something that’s within your control all the time.

  在某些情况下效果很好，但通常取决于外部因素，例如启动路线图和工程资源。 并非始终在您的控制范围内。

专注于可行的东西 (Focus on what’s actionable)

Sometimes, you have to fight for time to do work. Feels odd as I am writing this, because you are compensated by impact from the work you do and the designs you create. In this sense, characteristic of an ideal workplace could be one where you are given enough space to drill down.

有时，您必须争取时间才能上班。 在我写这篇文章时，感觉很奇怪，因为您所做的工作和创建的设计会给您带来一定的影响。 从这个意义上讲，理想工作场所的特征可能是给您足够的空间进行钻取。

Start with what’s in your control and what you can take action on. Make yourself enough space to drill down on design by

首先要控制什么，然后可以采取行动。 为自己留出足够的空间来深入研究

1. Owning your creative time
   拥有自己的创作时间
2. Putting up a ✋ sign with context
   在上下文中放置✋符号
3. Calibrating expectations
   校准期望

1.拥有自己的创作时间 (1. Owning your creative time)

They say Warren Buffett keeps most of his days meeting free. Easier said than done for most of us, especially when there are new requests throughout the day and pressure to accommodate big groups.

他们说沃伦•巴菲特(Warren Buffett)大部分时间都自由开会 。 对于我们大多数人而言，说起来容易做起来难，尤其是在全天都有新的请求以及容纳大团体的压力下。

What you can do is setting a set of principles to systematically assess which meetings really matter, and then find the best time for them. Then, save rest of the day for thinking and executing design.

您可以做的是设置一组原则，系统地评估哪些会议真正重要，然后为他们找到最佳时间。 然后，节省一天的时间来思考和执行设计。

Know when you get your best creative energy flowingIdentify at least one block per day. That’s what you want to maximize and not have compromised with interruptions. Plan the day around it, and find ways to add more time around it to build stronger focus.

知道何时获得最大的创造力每天确定至少一个障碍。 那就是您要最大化而又不会受到打扰的折衷。 规划周围的一天，并找到增加周围更多时间来建立重点的方法。

Triage with yes-or-no questionsIf you can’t answer yes to any of the following questions, discard it or delegate the meeting.

对是或否问题进行分类如果您对以下任何一个问题不能回答是 ，请将其丢弃或委托会议。

• Will the outcome of this meeting change direction of the design?
  会议的结果会改变设计的方向吗？
• Do you need to share input in this meeting?
  您需要在这次会议上分享意见吗？
• Do you need be a mandatory decision maker in this meeting?
  您需要在这次会议上成为强制性的决策者吗？
• Gut check — Will it be hard for you the accept the results of the meeting if you aren’t present in the conversation?
  胆量检查-如果您不在对话中，您是否很难接受会议结果？

Push out, Combine, and PostponeFor the meetings you commit to, propose and shift times so that

推出，合并和推迟您承诺的会议，建议和更改时间，以便

1. …they are as far away from your creative time block as possible.
   …它们离您的创作时限越远。
2. …there will be fewest fragments of adjacent meetings.
   …相邻会议的片段最少。
3. …they happen as late as possible. Effective discussions happen when sufficient context is built up for everyone & you have bandwidth the follow through afterwards. This doesn’t always mean scheduling ‘as soon as possible’. Determine when that is and postpone until then. That can help avoid adding unnecessary noise.
   …他们发生得尽可能晚。 当为所有人建立了足够的上下文时，就会进行有效的讨论，并且您有足够的带宽进行后续操作。 这并不总是意味着“尽快”安排。 确定是什么时候，然后推迟到那时。 这样可以避免增加不必要的噪音。

2.在上下文中放一个✋符号 (2. Putting up a ✋ sign with context)

Spontaneous distractions can be deadly when not managed well. Anything can be considered a distraction if it’s not relevant to the design you are heads down on. After all, focus is a fragile thing. And with the recent shift towards distributed teams and online communication, managing distractions has become more important than ever.

如果管理不善，自发性的分心可能会致命 。 如果任何事情都与您不屑一顾的设计无关，那么任何事情都可以视为干扰。 毕竟，专注是一件脆弱的事情。 随着最近向分布式团队和在线交流的转移，分散注意力的管理变得比以往任何时候都更加重要。

It’s shown to be effective for many people when they don’t react to every notification, but carving out specific time blocks to catch up on new messages and email. Some even suggest turning off notifications entirely and instead checking your messages hourly.

当许多人不对每个通知做出React时，对很多人来说，它是有效的，但是他们划出了特定的时间段以赶上新的消息和电子邮件。 有些人甚至建议完全关闭通知，而不是每小时检查一次消息。

Design a sign with contextTake a step further by allowingothers to see what your priorities are right now. This is different from avoiding work, and people can then determine how timely it is for them to break your workflow. It’s similar to how people get a sense of how occupied you are by seeing you in meetings or being heads-down. Designing a sign to show this can help trim the intake of interruptions.

根据环境设计标志进一步允许其他人了解您当前的优先事项。 这与避免工作不同，然后人们可以确定他们中断您的工作流程需要多长时间。 这类似于人们通过在会议中见到您或头脑清醒来了解您的忙碌程度。 设计一个标志来表明这一点可以帮助减少中断的发生。

For a sign to be effective, it’s important to

为使标志有效，重要的是

• clearly communicate what’s on top of your plate right now,
  清楚地传达您现在盘子上的东西，
• when you expect to be back,
  当你期望回来时
• when you check back on messages,
  当您查看邮件时，
• and a way to reach you for urgent items.
  以及联系您紧急物品的方法。

For example:

例如：

Heads down on P0, P1 items, and back on Slack at noon. For items time critical items, please call me.

下到P0，P1项目 ，中午回到Slack。 对于时间紧急的项目，请给我打电话。

Communicate these through status updates or even autoreplies. There’s even been experiments around composing autoreplies based on knowledge to tackle trivial replies on your behalf.

通过状态更新甚至自动回复来传达这些信息。 甚至已经进行过一些实验，这些实验围绕着根据知识来组成自动答复以代表您处理琐碎的答复。

3.校准期望 (3. Calibrating expectations)

Everyone has a different way of working and quirks that directly impact their output. Make it a culture to share what these are, learn about each other, and calibrate expectations with your team. No individual or team is exactly the same.

每个人都有不同的工作方式和怪癖，直接影响他们的产出。 与他人共享文化，互相了解并校准期望，这是一种文化。 没有任何个人或团队是完全一样的。

What matters is sharing an honest picture and finding a fit to best work together — an honest picture includes both positive and negative traits. Here’s a number of aspects I’ve found helpful to share when finding that fit.

重要的是分享诚实的形象并找到最佳合作方式的合适人选–诚实的形象既包括积极特征也包括消极特征。 找到适合的方面后，我发现了很多方面的分享。

1. What you find helpful to iterate on design
   您发现有助于迭代设计的内容
2. Your work rhythm
   你的工作节奏
3. How frequently you check each communication channel
   您检查每个通讯渠道的频率
4. Areas you know you can improve in
   您知道可以改进的领域
5. Quirks that may cause a misunderstanding
   可能引起误解的怪癖

Here’s an interactive template you can use with your team to learn about each other and build towards a team working style.

这是一个交互式模板，您可以与您的团队一起使用，以相互了解并建立团队合作风格。

It’s a constant struggle to find a balance between heads-down time to design and heads-up time for everything else. That’s because heads-up time also helps us see beyond what’s right in front of our eyes and feed back into what we design in our heads-down time. Because we want our designs to stay relevant and be meaningful to others, there’s an innate desire to achieve both. Despite the challenge, it’s worth striving for a better balance.

要在设计的精简时间与其他所有事情的平时之间找到平衡，这是一个不断的难题。 这是因为平视时间还可以帮助我们超越眼前的视线，并回馈到平时所设计的内容中。 因为我们希望我们的设计保持相关性并对他人有意义，所以人们天生就有实现这两者的愿望。 尽管面临挑战，还是值得争取更好的平衡。

If you have ways that’s worked well for you, I would love to learn about them.

如果您有适合自己的方法，我很想了解它们。

I share my reflections as writings on Medium, visual inspirations on Instagram, and bite-sized thoughts on design & work on Twitter.

我在 媒体 上 发表 自己的看法， 在 Instagram上发表 视觉灵感 ，并在 Twitter上 分享一些 有关设计和工作的想法，这些都是我的看法 。