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Shownotes Transcript
So then I felt that I was in this momentum. I'm never going to have as many opportunities as I do now. I have to keep pushing because this is my moment. And like my moment has lasted for seven years and it's still lasting through this momentum where I have to do it now because I won't get these opportunities later. This pressure that I have to act in the present moment.
I kept having this back thought that once I get there, I can relax. Once I get to whatever. And that's also a huge lie. So the thing is that there is no there. There is no future perfect moment when you can just sit back and relax because you've done your job and you've proven your worth. If you are the kind of person who constantly needs to prove their worth, things won't change. In five years, you still need to prove your worth. Just at a different level. ♪
Hello designers and welcome to a new episode of Honest UX Talks. As always, I'm joined by Anfisa and today we'll be unpacking a very honest and personal and what I consider to be a sensitive topic, which is the need for hustling as a designer and how do you know when you can stop hustling and just relax and enjoy your career path. Myself and Anfisa, you can probably already tell
that we are both chronic hustlers and I'm personally trying to recover from that approach to my career and life. We will be unpacking what hustling means, why designers have extra or very specific pressure to feel that they have to hustle, what hustling can bring you in a positive but also in a negative way, and when you can say enough is enough, I can now just stop hustling and what are things
Let's jump into the topic, but before we do that,
Anvisa, what have you been hustling on for the past week? I like how you started this topic. And honestly, the reason why I didn't talk about it is because we were like brainstorming on the topics which we should pick up. And Ioana was just kind of saying that, oh my God, like, how do you handle all those projects? We couldn't find the time to make a recording of a new episode. And yes, this topic is very relevant one. I feel like we have now, first of all, a lot to unpack, but at the same time, maybe two different perspectives we want to look at, even though we have very similar tendencies with the hustling.
But back to how my week was, generally pretty good. I'm doing a lot, which we'll talk a lot about today. So I'm very, very involved in the community right now because we have just started the accountability groups, which is essentially like me matching people to be the design team for the next four weeks, four months. And each of those groups had to be matched based on multiple, multiple criteria, such as time zone, their current goals, their current feedback need, their seniority level, just preferences, etc, etc, etc.
Some people cannot work in the evening. Some people cannot work in the morning, et cetera. So my brain was really like doing all, it was pretty hard, but very exciting as well. And now I can finally see people are joining in the team, getting to know each other. And I'm just so excited to see how that blossoms because I feel like for the community, even though we have so much educational stuff, events, life events, feed, courses, what was really a missing puzzle is a power for people to stay connected and feel like they're a part of the team. And especially, yeah,
When it comes to like a sort of job hunting story, one big problem that many people experience is that they feel like an imposter syndrome. It feels very demotivating because you don't understand what's your level. So you don't have the design team and it takes forever to find your design team. And while you're doing that, you can be a part of the design team with the accountability group. So yeah, I'm definitely excited to touch, kind of cover that pain, hopefully help people with that feeling. And for the rest, I also practiced the conference talk I'm going to do in the next weeks.
So I'm really getting excited and also nervous. Something we've talked about in the last episode, I practiced it with my community members. And I was so touched because the feedback I got from my students was even better than I got from the conference organizers. Because you can see the difference between the organizers' feedback as well as the difference from the designer perspective, who are much better storytellers, who understand how to shuffle slides around to make a better presentation.
point across and I was just so touched because even though most of the people there are students, it's just amazing because you see people are much better critical thinking. And I was like, oh my God, I needed this. It's super powerful in my opinion. So yes, I am excited. Finishing the slides. Hustling at work because we have a conference coming up where, you know, that type of conference at the company when you have to show new products or changes in the products and everything needs to be smooth and beautiful. There's just the
calendar is packed. So I'm really shuffling a lot of things right now. And I'm managing well, but we'll talk about it in the next 30 minutes, I guess. How about you? How was your last week?
The past week was quite exciting because I launched an AI newsletter. Yay! I'm super happy to share the news in my community. We will be sharing a link to subscribe in the show notes. I will be sending you on, I think, a bi-weekly. I haven't yet decided on a frequency because we're trying to understand what's the best
pace based on the news that and the tools and like how dynamic this landscape is but we will be definitely sharing nuggets about AI the most interesting news the most interesting resources tools how to employ AI in your process as a designer how to use it for research stuff like that I'm trying to keep each issue of the newsletter centered around the topic and the first topic will be how to introduce yourself to generative AI as a designer it's getting sent this week we
We already have like, I'm saying we because I have someone helping me on this project, my assistant, Hannah. Hi, Hannah. We will be sending a lot of interesting stuff. And I know that the AI space is very noisy right now. It's overwhelming for me as well.
I'm hearing a lot of people complain about the volume of information and how it's absolutely impossible to navigate and feel up to date and not feel drained by it. So I'm just trying to offer a platform that essentially cuts through the noise and gives you the only essential or important or relevant parts about the AI industry and the intersection of AI and design, especially tailored for designers, but also tech workers in general.
It's called AI Goodies. And again, subscribe in the show notes and share the news. And yeah, I'm very excited to do this because I feel that I can bring a lot more value in a way than with short form content and that kind of channel. So this is the highlight. And apart from that, I'm a bit tired, existentially tired. So this is the perfect segue into the topic for today. Yeah, so I'm a chronic
hustler. I'm a person who has been doing multiple things for the past 10 years. I've co-founded two startups. One was a design school. One is a legal tech startup. We got funding for it. I have my social media platform. I'm a content creator. I put out content every week for the past six years, almost seven years. I've always had a full-time job. I've had a baby in the
courses. Full-time job, just for a second. Yeah, full-time job, exactly. At Miro, at UiPath, at ING Bank, created two courses, the podcast also. So I'm constantly doing a lot of things all the time. And
And for the past couple of months, maybe one year, I've been reflecting on why is it that I'm doing that? Why can't I just focus on one thing and decide that that's what makes me the happiest and I find most fulfilling and just do that? Why do I feel the need to juggle a hundred things in parallel? I mean, I have some answers because I've also been doing therapy for the past 10 years. But I want to start with a generic question. And to you, Anfisa, being, I think, in a way similar to me, I think you're just handling everything a bit better.
Where does this pressure to hustle multiple things come from for designers? Why do we need to have three projects in parallel? Where does this idea of needing to hustle come from? What's your perception of that? Now, before I answer your question, I wonder if naming all the projects we are working on, it feels to me sometimes weird because it almost sounds like we are praising like
there is this hustle culture, you have to do a lot of things to be successful. And once you're naming all the projects you're working on, it just sounds like, oh yeah, I'm this rock star, I'm doing everything. And I always try to even feel like I should not name all the projects I'm doing because today it might even sound bad for you. Like,
essentially, jack of all trades, probably you're not doing anything well. And so to me, it sounds like today, I don't even want to mention how many projects I'm doing, even though I keep doing them, all the things you just also mentioned about yourself. So I kind of want to start from this point, because I feel like we need to address the elephant in the room, which is there was this very strong hustle wave, I feel like, especially the last maybe five years before the COVID, before the mental crisis, it's probably started happening during the COVID
But before that, I do remember a lot of people were like praising, I'm a hustler, I have millions of projects, I'm doing a lot of money, all that stuff, right? And it was a big topic, which kind of might have influenced amount of projects a lot of people do. I don't think this is a tendency today. I think a lot of people do much less today and start reflecting.
kind of start thinking, what should I do? One, but in depth. And yeah, I think the mood is changing on the market. But at the same time, you're right. So where does the need for the hustle comes from? So if you think about the market or landscape today, I've just established that I think the mood is changing and shifting towards making less, less is more, all that stuff. However, if you keep hustling, then maybe the question is really not that market.
influences you and everybody's telling you you need to have a lot of projects to be successful but if you keep hustling maybe it is more an internal need that you are addressing by doing so many projects maybe for you the reason why you're feeling this kind of overwhelmed is because you realize that it could be more effective if you do one thing but you already by inertia keep doing a lot of those projects I will ask you in a second but even while you're starting this you know new newsletter isn't it another project on your plate but for me if I think back
on the need, why I'm doing so many different things. I think before that, during the culture hustle wave, I felt like I'm insecure and I need to have multiple streams of revenue, honestly.
That's for a long time was my driver, even though I started like content creation gig, which was my main thing in the beginning, like 2016, 2019, maybe before I started working full time for companies. So back then it was me freelancing by sharing my journey. And because I was connecting with community, it just felt natural. It felt like the design community or people in the social media is my design team in a way, because I'm kind of keeping in touch with them, drinking coffee together, cheering with each other.
But then when I started working full time, I already had that asset as content creation, a social media presence, and I couldn't let it go because I felt like it's just so rewarding and I want to keep it. Even though I have already two big things on my plate, a full time job and the content presence, I felt like I couldn't let go of that content thing. So I needed to hustle both. And for a while, a lot of people asked me, oh, yeah, how do you do this? How do you juggle all the things? My go to answer was like, oh, I just don't have a baby so I can do this. I have time.
Now I have a baby and I keep having all those things on my plate, right? The content presence, community, full-time job, other courses, mentoring, whatnot.
Now, you're right. It's a very good question today to address because I don't have an answer of why I'm doing those things. I'm slowly giving away, giving up a couple of side projects. For example, I'm not active on social media anymore. A lot of people still reach out and ask, oh, you know, you do this social media and stuff. And I'm feeling I'm dissociating from that persona a lot already since probably two years now, since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. As Ukrainian, it impacted me a lot.
and then having a baby and then making a break for the first maternity year leave. Now back to work, I absolutely have no time for content presence. So for me right now, I always prioritized my projects in like one to three. Last year, community was my number one project. Now I have both full-time job and community. Third project is small content things such as podcasts, etc. But I
The reason why I started it, sometimes a long time ago, it was that I couldn't let go. And then it felt like a financial security since I had like those educational projects which would bring the revenue. And while I was having a full-time job, I was asking myself, do I even need this quantum project? You know, I can focus on my full-time job and not do all those educational projects. It could be good enough, sustainable enough. But I always felt in the back of my mind, maybe because I'm Ukrainian and I work a
economic situation is very unstable. I was asking myself, maybe I should not let it go. What if something happens? What if market is in a turbulence and I need an extra revenue stream, right? So I couldn't let go of my content presence. And I think I was good at this because obviously from 2022, we are in the turbulence and I feel like I'd always have this financial security. So in a way that was the right decision, even though it was full of hustle.
So today, I understand your perspective. You also shuffled so many projects and it's this time when you want to maybe address that, right? Is it still sustainable to have so many projects on your plate or you should let go some of the things? To me right now, I'm also thinking I can fully go into the full-time job or part-time for me right now at baby and that would be enough. But I'm still asking myself, am I
ready to let go the third project, which is community right now? And this is a question that I do sometimes have in the back of my mind when I'm sitting and working in front of the computer for the full-time job. I'm asking myself, I'm tired. Should I even do the community project? But then I joined the community project after the full-time and I have so much energy from people, from talking to people, from sharing, from getting this instant reward by talking to like-minded people who are cross-oriented that I cannot let it go. And so I'm back to the same dilemma. How much energy can I do? How much energy can I
invest and when will I sort of burn out from having all those things? So not sure if I answered your question. It's a lot of things throwing right now out there, but it's the dilemma that three lemma maybe that is inevitable. And I'm happy to have this conversation and try to unpack it. How about you? First of all, I want to say that I resonate with so much of everything you shared, even the point about being born in Eastern Europe.
where there's this scarcity mindset, there's this constant panic, because when the communist system fell, people had to adjust to democracy. And that was a time where our parents became very anxious because you had no stability anymore, you had no security. So there's nothing more valued in our parents' generation than job security. And
My father used to tell me, and he still says that, don't take time off from your job because somebody wants your job and they will replace you while you are out on the beach. And so he was psychotic. I was getting on his nerves when I took holidays from work because I would lose the job. So this is the kind of mindset that I grew up with and it definitely reflects in my life choices now. But also I remember
there was one Romanian actor now that we're in the Eastern European space and he's the most talented actor in Romania or one of the most talented. And he started by playing these very sophisticated, interesting roles where he played in kind of niche productions and he was very cool. And then he became increasingly commercial and took shitty roles at shitty theaters and shitty commercials. And somebody asked him, do you feel that you're selling yourself or are you compromising? And he said, look,
I was very hungry for a long time and I don't think this will last forever. I don't think my popularity will always be as high. So I need to capitalize this moment as much as I can. I'm saying yes to everything. This was before I started my design career, but now I kind of connected the dots that I feel in a similar place. At some point,
My design career was unspectacular for two, three years. Nothing happened. I just had a job. I was your regular designer on a regular role, not super passionate and intense about design, not needing to talk about it with anyone except for my design team. And then at some point when the content creation project randomly picked up because I had no intentions, no plan for it, but it became successful, I got
hooked. Oh my God, I have this momentum now. I'm in a momentum. And this momentum never ends. It don't untangle yourself from it, decouple yourself from it. So then I felt that I was in this momentum. I'm never going to have as many opportunities as I do now. I have to keep
pushing because this is my moment. And like my moment has lasted for seven years and it's still lasting. So there is no such thing. Right. And then through this momentum where I have to do it now, cause I won't get this opportunities later. Now's my, the moment for my career to grow. And so on this pressure that I have to act in the present moment.
I kept having this back thought that once I get there, I can relax. Once I get to whatever. And that's also a huge lie. You never get there. There is no proverbial there. There's no getting there. You can constantly go in the next level, in the next place, in a different place, right? You can even move horizontally.
Now I'm in this mindset where I want to create art. Where did I get to? I didn't get there. I'm going to a different place probably, right? So the thing is that there is no there. There is no future perfect moment when you can just sit back and relax because you've done your job and you've proven your worth. If you are the kind of person who constantly needs to prove their worth, things won't change. In five years, you'll still need to prove your worth just at a different level, right? So you might be VP of design. You're still going to feel unsure. You're still going to feel ambiguous about your
worth, right? And so it doesn't change. Just the context changes. So what that leads me to believe is that the culture, like you very well said, sets us up for this and content creators are also very guilty of that, right? So now I think in the last couple of years, the public discourse has shifted. So we're not talking as much about get up.
at 4 a.m. and go for a run and then start working at 6 so you can do more stuff in a day than humanly possible. That's not the discourse anymore. People are starting to talk about mental health, finding balance, redefining success. I love this quote that goes around Instagram. Success is...
a regulated nervous system. So this is what I'm also trying to, like, if I'm feeling well when I wake up and my day goes nicely, I'm successful. I'm successful. That's what success is. For me, success used to be, I have to talk at South by Southwest. I have to do this. I have to get the job at Merrill.
It was just because these are moving targets. It's never over. You will always want the next thing. Yeah. So this is what I've been doing for the past couple of years. There was this culture pressure, like you need to hustle. You need to do this. You need to do that. Gurus sharing all sorts of recipes, right? So the ideal place you have to get in is where people see you as this authority that they respect.
and they want to like all sorts of bullshit that went around, especially on social media. And it's really interesting to think that as designers, we are designers in the age of social media. I think people had a much better time designing before social media was so prominent, right? And I am
very well aware that I'm also guilty. I've contributed to this. Creators are contributing to this. Even if you try to reframe everything, even if I'm here to say, don't do 10 things and I'm doing 10 things, I'm a hypocrite at best and
Probably not helping a lot of people, but at least I speak from an honest place where I say I don't think that this is the right way to live and to build a career. I remember Tanner Christensen was saying on one of his podcasts that he has side projects that he never turns into his full time role because he would lose joy. So there is a joy.
in doing things on the side. And I really feel that as designers, we need to switch contexts between two, maybe three things. But this intensity, this performance, the status that we're looking for, the recognition that we're looking for, and I'm, again, very guilty of it. I think we can all discard that and reaffirm
redefine what a good career looks like. And so we've touched a bit about our experiences with hustling. How do you know when you can stop? I used to think that once I get there, I can stop. Now I realize there is no there. So how do you know when you can pull the plug? How do you know when you can just decouple? And
I also have an answer that I'm very keen on giving, but I'm going to let you... Go ahead, go first. Maybe I'll have to think about this question yet. Perfect. So I think the time for hustling and the time for stopping have a couple of things in my head.
orbit dating for the past months. One of them is last year when I was on South by, I attended this panel and one of the women in the panel said something along the lines of there's a busy season and a rest season. Every year I have a busy season and I have a rest season and I never had a rest season. Like all my seasons were busy seasons for my entire life. And then I realized that a time to stop is just planning a
Or breaks, like just plan for it. This year, I'm going to be very active doing multiple projects or things between January and May. And then I'm stopping for three, four months. And then maybe I will restart in the autumn. Let's see how I feel. This is one idea that stuck with me. There's a busy season and a rest season and you can plan for them. So one is just being intentional about taking breaks. Similar to this, when I was coming back from South by this year, when I was a speaker there, I
I randomly sat near an acquaintance I just made in the airplane. And it was funny that we just met at South by and then we were assigned seats and we had this very long philosophical, super interesting conversation all the way back. So one of the things that he said, he always sets aside
runway money so he can take one year doing nothing to reflect on what he wants to do next and for me this concept of runway money I could afford taking a couple of months off to think about it but I'm not producing I'm just spending and like my finances are going down not up like this is why would I ever do that it's so counterintuitive but it's not all about producing and making and creating and
doing right and he said that every couple of years he takes one year where he sustains himself from the money he put aside and then thinks about not even actively thinks about just sits with himself and then something comes up and he realizes what would be the most fulfilling thing he can do next
Of course, as a luxury, many people can't afford to not work for a year. I am very well aware that there is a privilege that you get once you reach a certain level, once you get there in your career. But it was really interesting for me to think about runway money, to just sit for a
for a while and it could even be I think one month or two weeks or a longer holiday where you just reflect on what's next for me and what's next for me should never be the definition of what society says that you need this new title you now need to be a manager or you now need to be the chief design officer it's like what's next for me in terms like for me it may be not design at this point
It may be just doing art installations. I have a lot of projects. I'm looking for a place where I can start building them and so on. So the answer has to be, what's the next thing for you personally? What's your choice for the next thing? Not what the best possible thing, optimizing society and career growth and so on. And then,
My last two points on a time to hustle and a time to stop. I think there are positive signs and negative signs. Let's go through the negative signs. A time to stop is when you're starting to feel burnout creep in. So at some point, your mental health just tells you, dude, you need to change something. This is unsustainable. And you're constantly drained.
You have no energy, you have no drive, you have no motivation, you're going from one thing to another, there's no space to reflect, there's no space to recharge, you're just on autopilot doing things that you're mostly frustrated about. I mean, adulthood is like that in a way, right? So I'm not trying to say that life isn't like that. Life is like that many times. But I also feel that
Our body tells us when something's wrong. Our minds kind of plant the seeds that we should be moving towards some sort of break or some sort of change of scenery, change of pace and so on.
Or, of course, there are dramatically negative signals like you're in burnout now, so you can't get out of bed. You don't want to get there. Don't wait until your body says, I'm not doing anything anymore for you. I won't support you in this shit. So a time to stop is when your body starts giving you signals that it's too much. And also a time to stop intentional planning and planning.
listening to your body language, but it's also when you start feeling inspired by new things. So for me, this was also the case in the past year. I've gone to a lot of galleries. I'm seeing a lot of art. I'm starting to think about other things that make me happy. Maybe design was a 10-year journey for me. Maybe now I want to do something else with my life.
Maybe I'm going to fail. Maybe I'm going to be a beginner. Maybe it's going to take me another 10 years to get somewhere to get there. But I don't know. A time to stop is when you're becoming increasingly curious in a new field or a new direction or a new just lifeline. So those are my thoughts about this topic.
And I'm very excited to hear yours. So many amazing points. I was like making almost, what do you call it? It's like when you're a student, you're writing down all the bullet points from the trainer. I was like doing that. So I don't know. It's just so many things I unpack here. Honestly, I don't have the same well-structured answer as you do have. I have a couple of things I want to pick up from where you left. And I will start from...
I guess the comment on your runway money thing. Actually, two things. One of them is also back to your post-communism sort of father story when you will be replaced and all that, right? I was really curious, I remember, when you were switching the jobs last summer and you were going to start work at Amiro and you didn't have any breaks and I asked you like,
Aren't you taking any breaks? It's summer. It's like August. You should probably take a little break, like at least one month. And you essentially finished the job on Friday and started a new job on Monday. And I was so shocked by that. Like, why aren't you taking breaks? I was having like three months between the jobs. Why? Now it answers my question. Why? And I understand that it's a psychological thing for many people, not only for you, for many people. It's just this just can't stop.
And it's very interesting to hear right now, looking back, it's a much more deeper story, in my opinion. But back to the runway money, I feel like I just wanted to reframe it, maybe say not to save money, but to invest money. I think it's a great thing anyone can do, because if you earn money, you can always invest like 10% of your salary, 5%, 2% of your salary. And you will be surprised that in one year from now, you'll not only have saved money, but also have some sort of percentages added to those. So you will also at least match the inflation. And that's my kind of little passion topic.
Look, right now I'm very excited about investing. I'm doing this on my side. It's almost like a hobby project for me. Looking where to invest. Because I don't have the same amount of money as I used to when I had this momentum. You talked about momentum and I feel like it's such an important highlight today, which I didn't touch base on. But I had momentum during the COVID. It was like I had so much money. I never ever in my life earned this much. And now I don't have it. And because we're all in a tech crisis and I'm also working part time. So my income is just...
insanely smaller. And now I have to be more smart about the money. So runway money is investing money. And I really, really think it's an important topic. Anyways, back to another point, to the burning out. And I think it's a very important topic as well. I think that's just like, I guess, the general umbrella throughout this whole conversation today. Because I think you're right. Typical when we stop is when we are feeling the first signs or not even the first signs, but the signs of the burnout. And I think we're
Officially, we started talking about the mental health crisis during the COVID. Now it's full on, like everybody's talking about changing the life, right? Changing the way how we operate. And I'm happy to have this conversation today. I was always curious why I'm not burning out by handling so many projects.
You know, with the baby, people ask me, oh, right, you have baby now, you basically don't have any time. I don't have any time yet. I've managed in like two projects at least. And I think the hardest part is not to find time, honestly, because you can always find time during the nights, 2 a.m., happy, all that stuff. Hard task is not to find time, but to find energy in what you are doing. And especially with the baby right now, I'm having the
under one year old baby. So the hardest year is still on and we're going to be one year in a couple of weeks. But so far, it's the first year and it's the hardest year of all of what I'm hearing from everyone. Essentially, when you're very tired after the whole day with the baby and other projects you've been trying to pull off, every day feels like a journey and you finish the journey with very low energy.
Every next morning I'm asking myself, oh, I'm so tired. I need to have extra kind of two hours to sleep or something. But I can't have this because I have a baby, right? I have to run to my baby. I can't just sleep and see what happens with the baby in two hours. I can't do that, right? So the hardest part for me is to always be able to refill that energy tank and always...
have the reward from what I'm doing. Why I think I'm not burning out even by doing so many different things is because I do have that energy. The closest I've ever been to burnout, it was before COVID. It was during my times at the startup when I was doing the startup for almost three years, 24-7, no money.
no results, nothing. We kept building and breaking stuff. It was always no light at the end of the funnel. And I believe in the middle of the second half year of doing that story, there was literally no progress. That's when I felt closest to the burning out. That's when I found myself laying in the
and not being able to stand up at all. Like I was just, I'm done. I'm done. I'm so done. I have zero energy. I can't even get up from the bed. And that's when I realized I know that feeling and I reflected why it happened. And it was because I was never having any results from all the energy I'm putting into. I naturally have a lot of energy, but because I have no energy
reward from what I'm doing, my body was telling me I have to stop doing this. And now I realize that if I don't get any fuel back from what I'm doing today, or at least in the next month or something that is instant reward or close to instant reward, I know I'm getting back that fuel and I will be more close to burning out. And I'm very well of those signals to date. So nothing compares to working in a startup and not having any progress.
For me, that was the biggest lesson. And I like their point about the fuel or the joy from Tanner Christensen. You were referring that he has this quote, like, if something gives you a joy, you don't want to turn this into your full time. And it's because, you know, you don't want to break the joy. As soon as something becomes commercial, something becomes a grind that you have to commit to, then it might take away the joy, take away the fuel. For me, having those side projects, I'm asking myself if I should continue doing this, for example, with the community.
Now I'm back to work. Definitely work brings me much more money than my community project. My community is like, I don't know, a quarter or even less than that. And so I'm asking myself financially, rationally, it doesn't make sense. I should give it up. But
Every day sitting in the meetings with the community members, hearing their thoughts. Even that example that I started today with, that I was doing my conference talk presentation and they gave me a very, very actionable, such a great constructive feedback. It was like those moments of joy. Then you realize it's all worth it. And I have that feeling.
fuel and something that excites me. And after the presentation, for example, instead of being overwhelmed with all the points and being afraid that, oh, I don't know where to start from, what should I do now? I will probably go to sleep. I was full of energy and I sat until 2 a.m. working on my presentation, updating my slides. And that's because they give me that energy.
My point is, I guess, burnout is definitely the most dangerous animal today, but you need to be very aware what brings you there. And I realize in my story that it's the joy that I'm receiving from the project. If I don't receive any growth, any joy and the reflection, anything that...
gives me something to move forward with, then I should stop doing this. And I should let go all the projects that don't give me that in return. And that's maybe one of the reasons where I stopped doing the social media projects. So no social media right now for me at all. Not even essentially no projects. And I just want to invest in whatever brings energy back. And that's probably this maturity. You're 35 now, I
believe I'm 33. I think that's just after 30 kind of thoughts. Very typical. And yeah, I think that just comes with like reflection and some sort of looking back on your life. And I don't know if we can call it maturity, but something along those lines. My question to you, Ioana, right now, as we're in this wave of side projects and everything,
Why did you start the newsletter? Why you chose to do this? I love the question. And I also have an end question very soon, but let me answer the newsletter. Yeah, well, you would say a friend of mine texted me, dude, you're drained. You're almost in burnout and you launch a new project. What are you?
thinking it's exactly the thing you were mentioning like it's two things one is because at some point when you go far enough in your career and you're old enough and tired enough it's worth having someone start helping you hire someone to help you you're gonna make less money sure
but you're going to be healthier and hopefully more productive. So one very practical reason is that I now have a wonderful assistant and this is the first project that we've started doing together. So I have, let's say, new resources, newfound resources. It's like the investment, the runway money. I'm not spending them on treats for myself. I'm spending them, I'm investing them in a new project. This is one thing. And then the other thing, and probably the more important one, is the one you were mentioning.
It just gives me energy. It's a completely new field. I have this beginner mentality. How do you set it up? How do you send it? What should we write here? So it's just learning something completely new and doing something that I've never done in my life. How do you promote a newsletter? How do you communicate it? How does it work? How does this beehive tool I'm using work? And so it's just exciting to do something new because...
Part of burnout is just a repetitive, mundane, menial things that frustrate you again and again and again and again and having to deal with the same struggles. Now, at least I have different struggles I have to deal with. And that in a way gives me energy. And I also feel that I'm not very excited by Instagram. I'm completely not excited by TikTok. I liked LinkedIn for a long time. I'm getting drained by LinkedIn as well.
So is there a channel where I can productively do things and enjoy it and help people and continue this mission of creating content, but in a new frame? So these are the reasons for which I started a newsletter. But mostly it all comes down to the fact that I'm supported in this journey because otherwise I'm in burnout almost there. So I got there, but not the there I was hoping for. Anyhow.
And my last question is, do you feel there's a difference between knowing when to stop and deciding to stop as a senior designer with a lot of hours and a good career and a nice path on their CV like we are now and stopping as a junior with two, three years experience, but still drained and struggling with their mental health like yesterday?
are juniors more prone to having to hustle or feeling that they need to prove themselves? Are they having a harder time and can they stop realistically? Like if you're in your fourth year as a designer and your career is just taking off, is that a good moment to pause? What's your take on that? I mean, yeah, we're in a place where we can decide to just take a break because I kind of feel like I've proven some things. Absolutely. Find me a person who says Ivana is not successful. Come on. Yeah.
Me. I'm that person. Always the biggest enemy at racing. Do you feel it's different for juniors? And this is my last question. I love this question. It is so natural. It's definitely a question that is a highlight of this conversation, I feel like.
And the reason why I feel this way, because you touched on a very important topic. Starting a new project with the beginner mindset, being excited about new things. But then what seems to be happening with a lot of us and our stories reflected is that we forget to untangle or plug off the projects that don't bring us that energy back, right? Either it is money or is it the resources or energy or whatever it is. That momentum story that you have shared, I really love that.
And I feel like what happens to a lot of us, we keep adding more things to our plate and we forget to reflect back on the things we already have on our plate and throw away things that don't even make sense anymore. And that's what happens. I feel like for us right now, we have this like grandma perspective because we were adding projects on our plate for a very, very long time. And yet we struggled with it.
removing the projects from our plates. That is the question that maybe people in their third, fourth year of practice might start asking right now because in the early stages, in the early journey of something new, for example, transitioning to New York design, you're right. There is this, not to say pressure, but I think the expectation
that junior designers need to be hungry, excited, want to learn, gross mindset, sort of learn from their mistakes, learn as much as possible, as early as possible so you can grow faster. And for sure, I mean, this is the expectation from, like, even if you're searching for a job today, a lot of the design managers, hiring managers, they would look
for somebody who's hungry, who wants to learn. And that's the key thing. Junior designers are being hired for their potential. That means that sort of junior designer expected to be hungry and constantly trying to learn and never stop and continue trying new things out. And then if you're in the third, fourth year of that kind of journey, what could happen is that you start feeling tired, essentially burning out from all the things you were just putting in, putting in, putting in. And you just maybe feel naturally tired. You need to take a break.
And that is also relevant to our stories. Like if you are in this journey, what's the time you should kind of realize you already have enough in your plate and maybe start looking at like kind of removing something, some layers from your journey. Because now as you're a little bit more experienced, you have this strong fundament. You have built it by putting so much energy in. The hardest moment is to realize when it should stop, reflect and start removing those layers that were added to your plate.
For example, if you're maybe somebody in your first year, third year, maybe you should stop taking extra courses. Unless, of course, you really want that. That is absolutely understandable. But you should start thinking, okay, what are the things I was doing so hard right now? So I know, for example, for you, Ioana, you were doing the UX goodies, the Instagram project for so long, for so consistent. You're adding so many value there. You're learning constantly and sharing the value constantly with the people.
And I think at some point you had to stop whatever you're doing to learn. You have to stop and start realizing maybe I'm not enough. Maybe I just need to take a break. What are the things I should remove that don't bring me the same reward as it was given in the beginning? I think the hardest question that should be asked by somebody else outside, in your example, why are you taking an extra new project? Somebody who is close to you probably should ask you, isn't it enough? Shouldn't you maybe take a break? You are already...
successful. You're good enough. You have a strong fundament. Take a break so you can reflect on your current journey and start understanding what are the missing puzzles. What are the puzzles that need to go from your plate? What are the puzzles that if you want, if you're excited about those, maybe with the new beginner mindset that you shared today, could be still added, could give you energy and joy in return for your time and energy investment. And so, yeah, I don't know if that answers the question. I think
Definitely the hardest part is stop for a second and reflect. And somebody has to shake your shoulders and say, hey, you, stop.
hustling, stop grinding, stop doing all the things. You have to look back for a second. Take a moment. What do you think? I completely agree with that. I think support systems are so important. And all the happiness studies have shown that relationships and your surroundings, the people you spend time with, like your family, friends,
Those are the most rewarding things in life. And I think that if you have a somewhat rewarding relationship system, then that relationship system would help you decouple yourself from all the noise and hecticness and insanity. And yeah, I've been getting that message for a long time from my loved ones. Maybe you should kind of take a break. I mean, I think you're doing enough. I think you are enough. But I mean, if you don't hear it internally, you can...
perpetually ignore it when it comes from external voices. But yeah, on that note, I think we can wrap up. I think it was one of my favorite episodes. It feels like it's so universal. I think it's just not necessarily about designers in general. I think it's a disease in the tech industry in general.
And yeah, I can't wait to publish this and share it with everyone. Yay. And if you want to support us, send us ideas for podcast episodes, what we should discuss, what we should unpack. I'm in this very honest state of my life, more honest than usual. So just tell us what you want us to get vulnerable about and we will. Rate us on Spotify or any platform you're listening on. Follow us on Instagram. Bye.
We also have a LinkedIn page now. We have a LinkedIn page, Honest UX Talks. And yeah. Good for the listeners that you're in this mood. That we are finally like, not finally, but we are adding extra honesty layer to the Honest UX Talks, which is very good. How honest will we get? Yes. Okay. Thanks everyone for tuning in and see you in the next. And you can also check out the past episodes. Enjoy. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
so