Jude Shingle

Beginning designers often cram as many elements into a layout as possible. It’s as if an empty space feels like a mistake—something not allowed to exist.

But “everything is important” is not a design strategy.

Clarity comes from subtraction. To make something easy to understand means removing what isn’t necessary. And that means the “empty” space is not empty at all—it’s doing some of the hardest work.

A consistent practice is not the same as an assembly line.

When you show up, you still bring everything with you—emotions, problems, fatigue, the sick parent at home, the worry about the state of the world. You’re not a robot; you’re human. Dynamic, distracted, creative, tired, alive.

Consistency doesn’t mean those things disappear. It means you don’t let them block you. You do the work anyway.

Practice can be like falling in love again each day. It creates a container where, for a time, the other things don’t take over. Not because you’ve escaped them, but because you’ve chosen where to place your attention.

You still feel fully. And still—you do the work.

Deciding what to do still leaves room for how to do it.

If you decide to clean the garage on Saturday, there are endless ways it might happen—solo, hiring a contractor, or bribing friends with pizza.

We tend to get bogged down in how something will be done before we’ve even committed to what needs to be done.

First, decide. Then stay flexible on the how.

You don’t want to renegotiate a routine every day. You aren’t debating the merits of brushing your teeth each time you pick up a toothbrush.

But there are different levels of intention you can bring to a routine. Like brushing extra carefully on the morning of a dentist appointment.

Most of the time, you brush without much thought. And that’s fine. A routine supports you even when you don’t bring full energy—it keeps you steady when your focus wavers.

But if over time you notice you rarely bring your full focus, it may be time to renegotiate. Maybe the routine no longer serves you—and you’re just serving it.

I’m always baffled by the person at the checkout counter who is over the moon about their experience in the store.

They tell the clerk how wonderful the last hour was—wandering the aisles, giggling, flipping through the merch, finding everything they didn’t know they wanted.

And then they say: “I didn’t know this store existed. You should really advertise more.”

It feels like they’re blaming their ignorance on the store owner—who literally just helped them by creating a great store!

Why not say:

“Thank you so much, I’m going to tell all my friends.”
“Can we take a selfie together? I’ll post it on Facebook.”
“You made my day. Thank you for starting this store. What can I do to spread the word?”

I often talk about doing work for other people. But the other side of that coin is: if you’ve been impacted by great work, you have a responsibility to share it.

Great things spread when you talk about them.

The best way to finish a song is to start making sounds.

Sitting around trying to think of ideas won’t get you anywhere—because that’s not the work.

The work is trying something, seeing how it feels, responding, and using that feedback to improve or change. None of that happens if it stays in your head.

Thanks to @anthony cascione who turned me on to this phrase.

I saw someone with a banana-shaped flask yesterday, which got me thinking…

There are the Savannah Bananas, a baseball team.
There are boats shaped like bananas.
Banana phones!

Taking an everyday object and assigning it a new meaning is a fun way to spark delight.

Why does that matter? Because delight spreads. People point it out, comment on it, share it. As the kids say, it could go viral.

But the real magic is deeper. These twists remind us of the imagination we once carried easily as children—when the world was wide open, combinations were intuitive, and logic wasn’t the only rule.

That softness slips past our defenses. It reaches something inside us that rational argument alone often can’t.

No one listens to me.
No one takes me seriously.
Their reasons, their delays, their compromises—it’s all garbage.
Fine. Then I won’t listen to them either.

That’s fair, right?

The instinct to abandon an idea at the first sign of trouble can be strong. Why stick with something that feels like it’s failing?

If you did the work to make a thoughtful decision, it’s worth holding steady.

You can’t know the outcome—but you can trust the process that got you here. Stick with that.

In professional life, certainty has to be projected for things to function.

You assume the train will arrive on time.
That the invoice will be paid.
That the class will graduate.
That if you show up to work, you’ll be paid.

But at any time, a client of 20 years could go bankrupt.
A grant you were counting on could be revoked.
Or a global pandemic could upend everything.

You still need to act decisively.
But that doesn’t mean you’re certain.