Last week I had one of those days. There was nothing urgent on deck. Not that there’s not a lot of stuff hanging around. It’s just that I was stuck waiting for a lot of things that I don’t control. So rather then bang my head against a lot of stalled projects I took the day off to explore.
It’s good to once in a while take a day off from the current work, and pop my head up above the cubicle walls. (No i don’t really have a cubicle — the Magpie center for world domination is much better provisioned that that.)
I have an ongoing list of ‘cool’ and ‘interesting’ and ‘not urgent but try to find’ things.
I looked at some job interview stories, played with Eclipse, and browsed Etsy, and read a ton of sewing machine reviews. (I have a bad feeling … )
And what ever else passed my way. Because sometimes it’s important to have look around at the world beyond the walls of the fort. You know?
I caught up on all the stuff I’ve not been reading in the feed-reader. I ended up ditching another set of feeds. I think weeding on a regular basis is important. Often a month or two or reading a blog is sufficient to figure out what the author’s main point is and what issues you are going to want to follow in that blog. Then when a particular topic is circulating you can go back and check in with that writer and get their take on it. But you don’t have to read it everyday. Does that make sense?
Smashing Magazine continues to impress. List blogs are often dull and uninformative. But these guys (gals?) do it right. Pick a topic — go look at as many of the tools, resources, posts, what have you, as they can find. Give each one a good looking over and write it all up. Not just a bunch of links but insight comments about what you’re looking at — comments informed by experience in the field. For a design newbie like me it’s invaluable.