From "Is this good enough?" to "Can I do it better?"

As a designer, how you approach a problem is the hallmark of the trade. We look at things from a different point-of-view, often bringing insights from other disciplines to enrich the wisdom of our own methods. It's this point-of-view that differentiates us, too, from other designers.

Today, a former student posted this video to his Facebook timeline, citing wisdom from his father... who has been a profound influence on his own POV, even if it took a while to sink in. It's also from a fairly different field: the military...

In class this week, we had a very similar discussion: Changing your POV from "Is this (just) good enough?" to "Can I do it better?". In other words, are you just barely trying to fulfill objectives (often for the sake of simply checking off boxes more than doing good work) ... or are you truly trying to engage with the assignment — the design problem — to come up with unique and innovative solutions?

As young professionals, good habits picked up now can go a long way later on. In the classroom, we reflected on the truism that — even as a 2nd-semester graduate student — there's more free time to establish good habits than you'll ever have again... and establishing them now will help you to be a more efficient and higher-performer later on. In a competitive profession, the attitude of "just enough" will not get you very far — but being the person who will always take it further will make you indispensable.

There are endless aphorisms about excellence, but the above story from the front lines (literally) has a special ring to it because it starts off at the beginning of the day: waking up... which is something that we all do. And it closes with the reality that not everything will go as planned, but coming home to something that you've accomplished is, at the very least, something to reflect on and be proud of.

As we've said before, you have to start somewhere — and getting a feel for what small successes are made of and how to build on them is crucial. Making your bed is a pretty simple start, no?