So What's It Like To Run a Design Studio?

I thought you’d never ask, and frankly I was beginning to feel a little hurt that you weren’t. I’m glad we’re BFF again. Let’s liveblog a typical day, shall we? And, yeah, I’m totally aware that this might be the lamest idea ever, but it’s a leap year, so why not?

6:00 AM Wake up. Make Coffee. (Yeah, I capitalize Coffee. I have THAT much respect for it.) Take a shower. Drink Coffee. Check nytimes.com to see if Castro’s dead. Not yet. Was excited that he might die on a leap year. How would you celebrate that? There’s a lot of time left in the day though.

6:30 Wake up the boy. Carry him to the sink. Put toothbrush in his mouth. Splash cold water on his face. Make his lunch.

7:00 Out of house and headed for school. Boy asks me 73 questions during a ten minute cab ride.

8:00 Drop boy off and catch bus across town to the office. Two women across from me are having an animated conversation about Brad, presumably a co-worker, and how much weight he’s lost recently. Really large teenager sits down next to one of them and proceeds to pull a bag our Sour Cream and Onion chips from her lunch bag, eats the chips, then rips the bag completely open and licks it clean. Heavenly.

9:00 First one in the office. Make more Coffee. Check nytimes.com again. Castro still not dead. Check Flickr. Still down. Check Twitter. Still weird. Decide internet wants me to liveblog my day. Of course it does.

9:30 Asking Dave if this is a stupid idea. Dave says it’s funny, which makes me think I don’t really trust Dave as much as I thought I did.

9:35 Wondering how feasible it is to grab the names from the Mitchell Report and make a “<$player name> IS ON STEROIDS.” single-serving site. Wonder if that amounts to libel? Calling Gabe the Lawyer.

9:38 Raisin Bran is like magic.

9:45 On the phone with Dave about super secret project stuff.

10:00 Other people are starting to trickle in. Discussion of last night’s Lost episode should start fairly soon. They’re beginning to turn the lights on. I better pick the office music before someone else does. Klezmer = productivity. See? You’ve already learned something.

10:15 When Erika and I started this place almost seven years ago I knew everything that was going on in the shop. We’re now at six people, growth of a person a year, and I think for every person we’ve added I’ve been able to let go of about 10% of what’s going on, which seems about right. So by my barely mathematical estimate I know about 30% of what’s going on. In three years I’ll be clueless. The goal of running a business isn’t to become indispensable; it’s the exact opposite.

10:30 Morning check-in. Ten minutes to go over what everybody’s doing today and how much of other people’s time they need for various things. Secret stuff.

10:45 During the check-in I declared that I’d rather vote for McCain than Clinton. Everyone is now angry at me, which means more time to focus.

11:01 The real reason for doing this just occurred to me: Throughout the day thoughts pop into my head and I think they’ll make a good blog post, but they never get written down. Over time they become albatrosses as they grow in complexity, but as theories. This way I’ve got an open window going. Sometimes stupid things become smarter than you’d have thought.

11:10 Design review. Super secret stuff.

11:19 I like design reviews. They remind me that I’ve hired smart people.

11:26 Promised myself I wouldn’t buy any more words today, but steroid was available.

11:42 Trying to finish a case study. Second only to style guides in the list of things I don’t like doing. Tricking myself into it by deciding I can’t go to lunch until it’s finished. Oh, did I mention that at the check-in meeting we all decided which women from The View we all were? I can’t wait until baseball season. So says Starr Jones!

12:13 PM Case study finished. They always remind me of all the things I wanted to do on a project that got killed because of time or budget. Considering joining a fantasy baseball league. Maybe I’ll just tell people I’m doing it. Seems to have the same effect. Twitter still weird. Flickr still broken. Castro still not dead. Nader ridiculous. Time to get some lunch.

1:32 PM Apparently my company has marketing meetings. This is part of that 70% I try not to know about.

2:30 PM If you ask someone what the goal is and they tell you that it’s to generate a to-do list you have a problem. No one’s goal is to generate a to-do list OR to check things off a to-do list. This is my whole problem with the inbox zero cult. You’re creating an illusion of productivity without really accomplishing anything.

2:38 There’s a hyperactive chocolate lab puppy running circles around my desk. It’s pretty awesome.

2:48 Flickr’s fixed.

3:00 Just told a client that I’ve got magic inside me.

3:13 How often must I explain to a client that cropping the top of someone’s head off an image will not actually decapitate the person pictured? At least once more, as always.

3:37 This is the greatest design I’ve ever done.

3:42 This is all wrong. Totally wrong.

3:57 This might be salvageable.

4:03 Nope.

4:13 Leaving angry comments on other people’s photos as a way to vent my anger about my own inadequacies.

4:25 This is the greatest design I’ve ever done.

4:45 Note to self: Mrs. <$name> Obama. Can make this tomorrow.

5:00 I’m outta here. Time to pick up the boy and have a weekend. G’night everybody.

Written by Mike Monteiro on February 29, 2008 |