Your round-up of design thinking news and opportunities, to improve your practice.

Welcome to Design Thoughts! I’m Charlotte, a freelance service designer. This newsletter is a little round-up of news and opportunities.

🎵How to get anything done

I use the pomodoro technique a lot when I’m trying to get a task done. In fact I’m using it right now while I’m writing this newsletter!

1. Decide on your task
2. Put a 25 min timer on your phone
3. Work on the task for 25 minutes
4. Then take a 5 minute break

I wanted to share this in this newsletter because I’ve realised recently I can still become distracted from the task, even when using the pomodoro technique, unless I listen to lo-fi beats on YouTube. So to upgrade your pomodoro time, listen to this magical instrumental music. I hope it works!

How to make the right decision

In the past, I have struggled with big decision making at work. A year or so ago I was faced with the most horrible and difficult decision; whether to fire someone at work. I went back-and-forth on the decision so much, I ended up seeking advice from The Decision Coach, Nell Wulfhart. She is actually the only decision coach as far as I know, and she’s developed expertise in decision making from coaching all sorts of people over the years.

Her tactic is to listen to your situation; and understand where you’ve got stuck. She slowly un-sticks you by helping to identify the decision you WANT to make, and ultimately giving you permission to do the thing. She only does one-off sessions, so you get the decision made quickly.

Really we make difficult decisions all time, especially in our careers and at work. The trick is to develop decision-making skills, and to decide and move forward with things, rather than ruminate them in in-action.

Nell has a series of questions that support you in making a decision, which I’ve edited slightly for this newsletter;

1. Which choice is more aligned with your values?
2. When you think about the future you want, which choice will make it easier to get there?
3. Which decision, if you make it, will finally get rid of the nagging feeling that’s been bothering you?
4. Which decision will expand your possibilities and make your life bigger?
5. Fear of people’s negative opinions can hold us back from making decisions we want to make. Which choice would you take if you knew everyone would approve?

In making a tough decision, thinking about the one that will expand your possibilities is an important consideration to make. Something that will grow your life could be the right path to take! It’s also helpful to remember that there is no ‘right’ answer, you’re simply making the best decision you have now, with the information you have available at this moment in time.

I keep these questions in my back pocket when making a tough decision.

🔥 Hot design news

• 🐖A UK Parliament Select Committee has published a report stating DEFRA is in urgent need of digitising it’s services; “14 million transactions per year that still involve paper forms, making them inefficient and expensive.” Source​
• 😢VICE Media, one of my fave media outlets files for bankruptcy. Source​
• 💬Whatsapp has brought out a chat-lock feature, allowing people to lock chosen conversations away, behind a password or biometric data. Source​
• 🌏 Atlas of Ownership - an open, shared map of property rights and obligations; and a library of solutions that could reshape the economy, has launched. Source​

🎉 Opportunities

Mentoring event for women getting into Tech

For women in tech or looking to get into tech, you can join this in-person event in London to find a mentor

Thursday 19th May there is a networking event;

​Get a ticket​

Service Designer, Senior Service Designer at Faculity.ai

Salary: Unknown

There’s two roles open at agency Faculty.ai, they have data scientists and other team members, so they’re looking for Service Designers who are interested in AI, rather than necessarily already experienced

​Both roles here​

Senior User Designer, Royal Borough of Greenwich

Salary: £48867 - £55487

Closing date: 23rd May 2023

It’s a hybrid role online and at their office.

​Apply here​

🏞 Tweet of the week goes to Derrick Reyes

Derrick Reyes is the CEO and Co-founder of Queerly Health, and NYC based company providing LGBTQIA+ healthcare. His tweets are often a lot of fun! This one simply reads; ‘spent an hour at a park without my phone and didn’t miss it. Highly recommend’

When was the last time you left your house without your phone?! I am going to try it and I will report back in the next newsletter!

Till then,

Charlotte