Some “Real World” Lessons, presented as an unordered list

• Keep emails short; 20% of your words contain 80% of the content (Seth Godin’s brevity is something to aspire towards)
• There is a lot of overlap between “design” interviewing and “business” interviewing (HCD processes)
• Simple is better – use data viz features/lessons for presenting information and making ppt decks not so butt ugly
• Good design is just as pervasive as bad design– a lot of things are made for stupider people than you (e.g. threading sewing machines, fixing keys on a keyboard) – try using intuition when dealing with something you don’t know
• Most managers/senior managers really don’t expect much from interns/analysts so use the opportunity to ask questions and learn
• What happens on the small scale happens on the large scale (e.g. managing workflow as a freelancer vs. enterprise hiring for consulting model)

Human Psych/Emotion/Life Perspectives

• Frameworks/patterns are a natural extension of human tendencies (see: apophenia)
• The “Now” self makes better decisions for “Future” self than the Future self will (in the future) — set your future self up for success by doing the things you don’t want to do now
• Mental heuristics/biases/logical fallacies abound (see: Predictably Irrational, You Are Not So Smart)
• Everyone moves at their own pace, don’t be afraid to stay still if you need to
• Advertising relies on mental priming and an element of self-delusion; sometimes that is okay
• Getting perspectives of people outside your generation (of a different vertical context) is super important
• More of a memo to myself, but think about horizontal vs. vertical identities
• At some point people will make “adult” decisions like moving/leaving/committing/changing and that’s pretty scary. It’s kind of terrifying because my life was so good and cushy and happy. But even if you don’t change, the world changes around you. It’s easier to be reactive because you can rationalize away the negative side effects but at the core of it, unless you act, you have even less say in how the changes come about. But this could get real metaphysical with determinism and nihilism and just world fallacy and what not.

Pro Life Tips

• Southwest lets you refund for full flight up to 10 min before flight
• Carbs are very caloric; breakfast is a nutritional landmine. Haven’t figured out what’s “good” for breakfast but have settled on a lot of yogurt so far.
• Sleep in 90 min REM cycles (7.5 hrs works better than 8 hours)
• Late night salty eating will make you bloat up like crazy
• As James Hwang told me over Jenga and bubble tea yesterday in Seattle, humans have animal instincts that will make you realize fish eyes are a source of water when you don’t have water. If I am ever that dehydrated, will I know this because of animal instinct or because of James?!
• Take 5 minutes to try to fix something before you replace
• I need to blow-dry my hair forward to frame my face
• A lot of the time when you think you’re hungry, you’re actually thirsty. Hydrate!!!!!!

Something Really Cool

• Qualia describes the philosophy around ineffable, personal, indescribable phenomena that must be experienced personally to truly know. Like “red” — no one else can experience red as you. I started tripping out when I read about qualia because I was excited there was a word for it, but also — is life a qualia? Whoaaaa.