Sunday, January 21, 2007

Designers aging gracefully

Time marches on; all designers grow older, and our relevance shifts from design to our knowledge and wisdom (in theory, of course!)

John Maxwell has some poignant perspectives on aging:
I'm 40 and Counting

When you celebrate your 40th birthday, you’ve supposedly gone “over the hill.” You’re past your prime and beginning to show signs of age. When I crossed “over the hill,” I gave a lesson entitled, “I’m 40 and Counting.” In it, I recommended 10 things you should have in place before turning 40.

  1. Know Yourself
  2. Settle Your Family Life
  3. Determine Your Priorities
  4. Develop Your Philosophy
  5. Get Physically Fit
  6. Learn Your Trade
  7. Pay the Price
  8. Develop Strong Relationships
  9. Prepare for the Future
  10. Find God’s Will
I recommend his excellent book Today Matters. I'm not a huge fan of self-help books, but this one is worth the read for prioritizing.

The 40's aren't so bad... Trust me!

2 comments:

paulkdesigner said...

As a designer approaching 30 I wonder if I should even be thinking too closely about the things your post suggests, but then I realise I must for the ten years before I reach 40 are so short ... but my question is this, how long can a designers career truly be? Do we all have to have our own small agency? or do we continue to try and fight our way through the corporate ladder of life? These are the things I don't know and as I approach 30 I wonder if being a designer is a career that one can maintain... I hope it is!

paulkdesigner said...

As a designer approaching 30 I wonder if I should even be thinking too closely about the things your post suggests, but then I realise I must for the ten years before I reach 40 are so short ... but my question is this, how long can a designers career truly be? Do we all have to have our own small agency? or do we continue to try and fight our way through the corporate ladder of life? These are the things I don't know and as I approach 30 I wonder if being a designer is a career that one can maintain... I hope it is!