Fresh Starts
Some people like them, others could not care less -- and that is important
Both Solar and Lunar New Year have traditions around cleaning up and making a fresh start. Not everyone is into cleaning or fresh starts, though. Me, I like it. I am a minimalist and I love having everything organized first, before I move on to creating stuff. Yes I know that’s not actually how creation works, but being organized just makes me feel really good. The feeling is so good that I end up cleaning and reorganizing several times a year, which tips my joy a bit into “obsession.”
But it does feel good. Mike Montiero just wrote an essay about what feels wonderful. That’s what made me think of this obsession of mine. I have a desk with only the essentials on it. My kitchen does not have appliances on the counters. I like empty tables. If we have to keep things on a table, they go on a tray. Books look gorgeous together when they are on their shelves in the tiny room of our house devoted to books. I love wall space where it meets the floor with nothing to clutter the line. Even better are empty room corners, where you can see two walls and the floor meet. You might relate to this.
More likely, you do not relate to this. And that statement is actually the core of my professional practice. We all don’t think alike. Our emotional reactions range across spectrums. And people’s personal rules exhibit beautiful variety. I am always thinking about the variety of approaches people have to a thing. And it takes work to create solutions that support this variety, rather than solutions that focus on a process or on a mythical average.
At home, my partner is not a minimalist. My partner is a just-in-case-ist, which means “buy little extra just in case.” It’s about being prepared for unexpected futures. The majority of our arguments revolve around this theme: me asking if we can put all the extra supplies in a group together on a shelf or in a drawer, or if we can Craigslist the extra thing that went unused for years.
This year it’s two blue blown-glass watering bulbs, the kind that have a long neck that you stick, upside down, into a pot with a plant. Every time I see them in the garage, still nestled in their protective styrofoam container, it irks me. They’re pretty, but useless. My partner bought them for like $3 at an estate sale back when our part of California was in drought. Yes, we will return to drought at some point in the future. Why not keep them for that just-in-case future? Because I came up with a better way to water our outdoor potted plants in a drought. In fact, we use this technique now in non-drought because it has become habit. It involves bowls in the sinks to collect non-harmful water, poured into a big bucket that lives in the kitchen. Every day or so one of us totes the bucket out to water the pots.
I think my partner is okay with ejecting the blue blown-glass watering bulbs for other reasons, though. It’s not because the bulbs are useless, but because they’re made of glass. And glass things tend to get knocked over and break, slicing my partner’s skin. So Craigslisting the glass bulbs is a solution that supports each of our very different personal rules.
Luckily we both have a personal rule about appreciating things that last. My appreciation manifests as things that were made to endure. My sewing machine is 105 years old and works great! It’s wonderful to see how all the pieces still fit together, and how they were built to endure. I have a vacuum cleaner from the ‘70s that my mom named Pig. It has a vaguely pig shaped body that we drag around the house on rollers.* Much of my clothing I bought over 20 years ago, which makes me proud (and maybe not fashionable). The rest of my clothing comes from the local thrift store.
My partner’s approach to things that last involves constantly looking for deals on good, useful stuff at local estate sales, garage sales, or on Craigslist or eBay. There’s no specific thing in mind, just finding things as they come along. With this approach we have not had to buy new towels in decades, nor wrapping paper, ribbon, cinnamon, nor plant fertilizer.
My partner is a plants person, which is not about things that endure but about helping uncommon cultivars grow thrive. Our yard is full of interesting flowers and beautifully-shaped leaves. Me, I would pick a few plant types, like boxwood, vines, and herbs, and keep my landscape to just that palette. (Aside from the veggie garden.) My partner goes wild. In the past few years when I come home it is a marvel to see the variety of shapes and colors, greenery and flowers, around our house. This is wild-ness that I can work with, because it gives my partner joy.
So, being organized is not for everyone. There are many ways to face a new year. There are many ways to purposely ignore it.
This awareness of variety is core to your team’s approach to idea-generation and direction/strategy. It’s the way to open the door to growth by improving existing solutions. It’s how you can generate wonderful ideas for a broader set of thinking styles. And it’s how you can direct your career toward more specifically supportive products, services, programs, and policies.
You make a difference. That difference is built on awareness of variety. It’s built on understanding what others are doing in their own careers, applying versions of this philosophy. To make this difference, focus on your core as much as possible given your situation. Present your ideas.** Scrounge in interesting places for budget. Make time not by promising your manager to work weekends, but by promising to spread ideas and joy for this work. Attend meetups to learn about the variety among our profession. We are people who come up with ideas, in support of people in the real world who are trying to address something in their own lives.
In person or remote, whatever works for you. Do it for yourself.
29-30 January 2026 (online) - Throughline Conference - A new gathering with a new goal. I am seriously excited about this one. This one is about influencing your company, navigating change, and deciding what you want our next era to be like. I am looking forward to hearing from Farai Madzima, whom I actually got to meet in person, talk about what to say to your manager to make room for your professional sanity. Save $50 off your ticket using the code INDI50.
14-18 April 2026 (Philadelphia, USA) - The IA Conference - This is the 27th iteration of this conference that is no longer just about Information Architecture. (Didja get the IA reversed to AI? I do that all the time!) I’m looking forward to several of the speakers, including Pavel Samsonov, who has been writing about philosophies close to my heart in his Product Picnic newsletter. There are workshops, talks, a poster night, a career center,, and a warm community of people who have your back. Save $100 off your ticket in January. There are also scholarships.
Make your own group. - You know a few people, and they know a few people. No one is stopping you. Set a date to meet and chat, maybe over lunch hour, online or in person, once a month or once a week. An hour and a half is a useful amount of time to go deep and share a lot of approaches. Just do it. (Am I allowed to use that phrase out of context of shoes?!)
See you there!!! ❤️
* Here’s more to the vacuum story. When my partner and I decided Pig was too heavy for me to use, we purchased a Dyson from Costco. I was amazed at the power and the lightness and the lack of cord! However two years later the damn thing is broken! The wheels on the cleaner head are made out of plastic. In fact, the whole thing is made out of plastic. 😒 Very irksome. I have become an inadvertent stockpiler of broken plastic things because I don’t want to throw them in the garbage, since they will just end up as microplastic washed up on a beautiful beach. And no, our recycling service works on awareness, and little broken plastic things are not recyclable. And no, I don’t want to buy another Dyson.
** “Present your ideas” doesn’t have to be a talk at a conference. It can be a short video, essay, or longer form paper or poster. It can be on a social platform or on your own website. The point is: we want to know what things you’ve faced in your work, so that we can do better in our own situation! When I was just starting out I was strangely attracted to the idea of presenting at a conference, even though I was so shy that my educational history was littered with teachers saying, “Speak up! I can’t hear you.” Understandably, I was reluctant to present, but wanted to do it. Strange, right? A friend of mine encouraged me. When I said that I had nothing to talk about, he replied, “You don’t have to present something unique. People will be interested in your approach just because it is different than theirs.” He was not wrong. Our profession is very supportive of its speakers. We want to hear from you. (Reach out to me at indiyoung.com if you need more encouragement!)
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