Sleep on it

No matter how hard a project, no matter the pressures and timelines, I find that sleeping on it almost always helps.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t just ship things sometimes, it doesn’t mean that we don’t do our best and try what we can to get things done.

But sometimes a fresh mind is all we need to really move forward on with creative work.

Recently I was working on a project with the team, and had been running circles, nearly at an impasse, on part of the design. Coming back with a fresh brain the next morning seemed to immediately open up fresh ideas. Instead of churning objects in a sisyphean rotation of Figma layouts, I found myself seeing with clarity how to solve the problem.

Something that feels impossible at the end of the day suddenly seems so simple the next morning. Double that for weekend breaks, or even better if you can come back to it after a vacation.