The xkcd comic above caught my attention when it was originally published a while back, and it came back to mind as I mulled over the usual year-end thoughts about New Year resolutions. There’s a kernel of truth in that thing. So often we are carrying around things that we don’t need, either physically or more often mentally. In the traditional New Years resolution sense, it could be 10 extra pounds. Mentally, it could be a false set of assumptions, or an outdated outlook.
In design projects, if we don’t go far enough back to first principles or ask enough questions, we can end up carrying unnecessary criteria or constraints. These are the things that can complicate or confound our efforts to come to a simple, elegant solution to the core problem. For 2013, I think that’s going to be my resolution — to try more often to leave the wolf behind.
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