[via Savage Chickens]

Most companies are looking to “wow” with their products, when in reality what they should be looking for is an “of course” reaction from their users.

— CHRISTIAN LINDHOLM

[via Quotes on Design]

I think most programmers spend the first 5 years of their career mastering complexity, and the rest of their lives learning simplicity.

— BUZZ ANDERSEN

[via Quotes on Design]

Solve one problem at a time

and that untied me.

We look at big pictures too much. In order to make the big picture great, you just have to work on one thing at a time.

Lots of people think simplicity is the opposite of confusion (“It’s confusing, let’s make this simpler”). It’s not. The opposite of confusion is clarity.

Like McDonalds proves, popular doesn’t necessarily mean good. I’m not particularly interested in what’s popular; I’m much more interested in what’s good.

–Kris Sowersby

[via Quotes on Design]

The excessive has eclipsed the essential. And, along the way we forgot a simple truth — the tools through which we live should improve life.

We create physical and digital objects that possess the qualities we expect of the world. We clarify the confused, illuminate the mundane, and humanize the technological. This simplification is not easy, with idealism and passion for the everyday we will make this vision possible. When we are asked to create, we reply with honesty and hard work.

It’s kind of meta-ironic though given that it’s being ironic about how multi-tasking doesn’t work yet most of its viewers will be multi-tasking when they watch it and throughout the rest of their day.

Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal importance, is NOT laziness. This is hard for most to accept, because our culture tends to reward personal sacrifice instead of personal productivity.

- Timothy Ferriss

[via SwissMiss]

The Business Roundtable study found that after just eight 60-hour weeks, the fall-off in productivity is so marked that the average team would have actually gotten just as much done and been better off if they’d just stuck to a 40-hour week all along. And at 70- or 80-hour weeks, the fall-off happens even faster: at 80 hours, the break-even point is reached in just three weeks.

And finally: these death marches take a longer-term productivity toll as well. Once the crisis has passed and that 60-hour-a-week team gets to go back to its regular 40, it can take several more weeks before the burnout begins to lift enough for them to resume their typical productivity level. So, for a while, you’ll get significantly less than a full 40 out of them.