Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Lucía Bustamante

We designers, are in general workhaholic, this means that we spend hours and hours, even after work, thinking and doing design. Is something we enjoy (really) but at the end we know that may affect us in many ways.

Which ways?

Physically: spending hours at the seat, sometimes in bad positions, eyes tired, back pain, stomach pain, neck pain, muscles, etc etc.
Mentally: our mind barely rest, which converges in stress.
Socially: sometimes we avoid spending time with people or pospose opportunities of being with humans because we are working in our last amazing creation.

Added to this, other consecuences of stress.

So, I will tell you how I do to connect with reality again.

I always have a book to read (possibly not related to design)
It doesn´t mean to not read about design, but personally, I choose that reading that opens another areas of my brain like adventure, science, cooking, travelling, art. And when I´m finishing my current book, I think in the next one. This forces me to dedicate time to be in silence and put the imagination in service of the reading.

I don´t use my smartphone as alarm clock.
This is a decision that, it seems to be insignificant but believe me, it was a big improvement in my sleeping and in my awakening. We do not realize that besides being sleep, any little sound or screen light can wake us up at any moment and we are unconsciously alert. Adding to this, we wake up relaxed and not pendint on the new messages we may have.
So I got back to the old and beloved clock, away from slack, skype and hangouts.

I cook (always that I can)
Cooking is a task that forces me to be focused, and relax. When I tried to cook and work at the same time, It has never ended well, food burned, overcooked, risk of fire, etc. So, I cook, and only cook in that moment.

I play videogames
Yes! And if Im a fan of the videogame, the better, more time I play.

I do Yoga and meditate
Maybe one of the best desitions I ever made. I go to yoga classes and also practice at home. The benefits of putting the mind in zero (difficult at the begining) are plenty. Yoga bring me benefits for my mind and body. Gets the anxiety away and improve my relationship with people around me.

I write
Yes, I write about design and living. Sometimes I write things that I will bever publish, but I write my thoughts, and is very relaxing.

No matter what you do, you will always love being hours and hours designing, but you will enjoy it more if you spread you mind to different things too.

Keeping your mind healthy will help you get the best of yourself.

✌️

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How I deal with a Designholic personality. was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How I deal with a Designholic personality.

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