Thank you for sharing this with us, Matthew. I recently discovered your channel and all the educational resources The Futur offers and I can’t wait to read all of them. It’s amazing to learn from real experiences and real people rather than learning from a book (which is an one-way conversation).

For me, the ‘staring at a screen’ time is in the evening, after my kid goes to sleep (more silence in the house, heh); I either watch an episode of The Futur series (it’s a new habit) or read recommended articles — it’s a good moment of the day to learn something new as a designer and to go to bed with new ideas about my career.

Question: Have you ever had a time in your career when your daily routine started with the critical thinking hours? I’m asking this because:

According to psychologist Ron Friedman, the first three hours of your day are your most precious for maximized productivity (article here).

Some of us might choose their ‘critical thinking’ hours based on workspace, like when you have to share the room with other co-workers (or simply work in an open space) and you use the hours when your co-workers have not yet arrived (or are already gone home) as ‘quiet hours’.

Which brings another question: How the ideal workplace for designers should look like? Many digital companies seem to prefer open spaces in order to facilitate communication between UX designers and visual designers (and developers). But I’ve been there, done that, and it’s hard as hell to concentrate while you do ‘critical thinking’. What should we ask for from our bosses when it comes to workspace?

Thank you!