Advanced Rituals, Routines, and Habits in Product Design

What are the most important things to consider and to think about when you're getting into product design or product making or just being a world class creator? We're going to dive into those right this second. So without further ado, it is October, so it's time to really understand what are the core things that you should be thinking about and you should be preparing for as you enter in to this next month of performance. The first thing that I'm really just captivated by is product and design high performance habits. So when you think about, well, what kind of habits do I need to consider as a product designer? What are high performance habits and where am I going to focus? I'm going to dive into that really quick today. I'm also going to talk about the weekly roles, responsibilities, big rocks, rhythms and schedules. These are also really important things to consider. We also need to consider like passion and purpose and intentionality and considering what are you feeling, what is important to you? Where is your purpose at, where is your passion at right now? Can we align that with what you're doing? That's really important. The other things to sustain that, we need rituals and routines. Routines help you stay on track, Rituals help you celebrate certain elements and activities. So we want to be able to integrate those into your practice as well. Then we have execution and system excellence. This is understanding the systems in your life and understanding how you're going to get things done with excellence. World class execution is gonna get you where you need to go and that is the playbook. And we're gonna dive into it really quick. So without further ado, let's go, let's get into it. Alright? So as we start thinking about what we're gonna be doing here right now, I want you to think about these four things. Okay? These four things are part of the training map number one, inside of the nextlevel UX training map. This is if you go to next level UX me and you check it out, you can see training map number one. Trademark number one is talking about clarity, goals, action planning and practice. These are kind of like the foundational skills that you're going to need to master over your career. You're going to need to be able to build clarity. You're going to need to be able to execute and document your goals. You're going to need to be able to plan out the things that you dream of and you're going to need to be able to practice. Now this is a foundational section, so we're going to just kind of work through some of these topics. So let's do that right now. Alright, so the first one that I want you to consider when you're going through and you're working through your projects, your goals, you got to think about the things that you are maintaining. So we just started a new month in October. It's October, it's a really exciting month. And you know, we got all these sorts of things that you probably have in your back pocket that you really want to work on, but you might not have time, but you know that you need to continue doing them, you need to maintain them. So what I want you to do is, is get a piece of paper out and write out maintenance. And inside that maintenance sheet you're going to have four or five things that you need to maintain on an ongoing basis. This could be your existing projects, this could be your existing schedules, this could be the existing things that you need to do. Every single day, every single week, every single month, you have maintenance. The second thing that we need to consider is the things that you're advancing, the things that you're advancing are really important because you don't want to stay stagnated with the projects and the goals and the actions that you're taking. You want to be able to advance them. So you need the rituals and the routines every single day, every single week to make sure that you're advancing that. If you're trying to get physically strong, then you're going to be working out a little bit more, right? You're going to be advancing yourself with, you know, two days a week or three days a week, or four days a week, or whatever your schedule is. You want to have advancements set up in the product and design and maker space. You're going to be thinking about, well, when can I push and have two to three hour windows or block time to be able to execute the work that I need to do. So after I have that, then how am I going to make sure that I'm advancing it with my team? Well, what do I need to advance things with my team? I need feedback, I need, I need actual conversations and collaboration to go on. So we'll talk about that too. But maintenance and advancements are the two really big things. And the third thing that we need to be able to do is we have new ventures, new ideas, new exciting things that we need to take on and that we want to push forward every single month. I'm sure you take on one or two more new things or you just are in maintenance mode and you're advancement mode. But There are opportunities as you get, as you level up in your career where you're taking on new things, you're maintaining existing things and you're advancing in between. So today I want to break down these three things. So advancement, how do we first look at advancements? Right, we're talking about the things that you're trying to really move the needle on every single day, every single week. If you start a new goal, you want to be able to advance that goal. You, if you're starting a new project, you want to be able to really advance that new project in a lot of different ways. So we're going to look at that today. But the first thing that we really need to do is understand how we are going to show up for these advancements. And I know this might be something that might seem like common sense, but it's not common practice to really understand. Like how do you want to show up throughout your journey? How do you really want to show up and what does that even mean to you? Well, first for me, it's like thinking about, I want to show up courageous, I want to show up bold. I want to show up passionate or consistent or motivated or encouraging and supportive. Like, how do you want to show up as a creator, as a maker? So I want you to think about that and write down a couple ideas right now. So write them out. Then I want you to think about how you want to interact with other people. How do you want to show up? Kind, generous, thoughtful, compassionate, empathetic. How do you want to show up for people? How do you want to interact with them? When you see them in the morning, see them in the afternoon, see them in the evening, or see your team during their, your stand ups, or see your team during other moments of time, how do you want to interact with them? Then? We need to know for the things that we're maintaining, the things that we're advancing and the things that are new, what success looks like. Success is that kind of that goal at the end of the tunnel. You want to be able to see, see where it is that you want to go and you want to be able to have a map to get there, right? But got to know what success looks like so you can kind of model that and get towards it and work towards it. The fourth thing that we need is priorities. Well, now that we have all these bells and whistles and things that we need to do, we need to know what the priorities are across these three different divisions. We need to know from A to Z, 1 to 5, 1 to 10, whatever the numbers are, you got to know what the priorities are so that you can make sure that you're staying focused. Then we have the opportunities. Opportunities are kind of like the kryptonite or the struggles or the challenges that you have in your life and knowing them, having them written down across your projects, across your personal life, across your passion goals, across all the things in your life and understanding where you need to improve. These are opportunities which we need to reframe those challenges or those opportunities in. We need to reframe the challenges and the struggles and maybe the things that are going wrong into opportunities. That's why it's called opportunities. So we need to be able to do that as well and, and finding out those opportunities so you can get better every single day. Just at least 1% or a half a percent, that's going to get you towards where you want to go. So we got to do that. And then the last thing that we really need for all these advances is we need purpose. Because that purpose is going to be what's helping us drive and build up motivation and excitement and encouragement. And we need a purpose and we need to be able to connect all these things and just take the time to reflect and take the time to journal about these things and understand where you sit across all six of these categories. And that's really important because what that's going to do is create this incredible amount of clarity. And this clarity is what you need in order to really stay consistent and advance the things that matter most to you. So that clarity is what you want to keep coming back to. And building and seeking clarity is one of the biggest high performance habits. And I want to encourage you to really think about how you do that today. And if you haven't yet done these things yet, just take time. Pause the video right now, Go in, write out, how do I want to show up? What does success look like for me? What are the opportunities I have for me this month? What are the interactions and how do I want to show up with my friends and my family and my co workers and my team? All right, what are my priorities this month? All right, write them out, write them out, write them out. And then you have your purpose. What is my purpose this month? If you don't have your purpose, keep discovering it, Keep trying to figure out, try different things, go and try so many different things. And then you will be able to kind of zero in, reflect, journal about it, and then find your purpose. And you don't have to find your purpose today. You could Work towards that and give yourself some grace with that process. So that's the maintenance, advancements and new ventures. But what do we do to sustain this over time? We need those rituals, we need those routines, we need those habits. The habits are the things that we do every day that's going to support the dream, support the mission, support the outcome. The routines are the things that we're going to set up for ourselves in our schedules so that we can stay on track and we can slowly work towards our big ambitions. The rituals are fun because the rituals are the moments in time where you can come together with your team or with your family or with your loved ones and create traditions. And these traditions are going to be what helps you sustain the dream, sustain the passion, sustain the motivation. And I want to encourage you to do all three of these things and consider this. So I know it's a lot, but just because you know about these things doesn't mean you actually practice these things. So I want you to even take a screenshot right now, print this out, or just write out some of these things and figure out how you're going to practice these on an ongoing basis. I have a couple more slots to help you do this, and I'm going to dive in and show you what those are today. So remember, if you're a product designer, if you're a maker, if you're a creator, these are going to be really insightful for you. We have maintenance, we have advancements, and we have these new ventures. So let's dive into this. So as a maker, I'm just going to assume that if you're watching this video right now, you're a maker of some sort. You, you collaborate with engineers, you collaborate with product makers. You, you have content management, and these are all the different things that you engage with. But then every single week, this example is showing Design Clarity Wednesdays. It's in the middle here at this middle slot. Design Clarity Wednesdays is a ritual. It is something that we do where we talk about two to four design topics. We have live reviews and we do recaps and next steps. Like what do we do then? We. We think about as a holistic ritual or a holistic perspective of your product. You might have many, many different products that you have to support. And I have like a to G here as an example. These product pillars are the focus areas and the priorities of the business, right? These all need to run, these all need to work, these all need to be successful. You might have one that you're responsible for. You Might have two that you're responsible for, but check these out and use them as you can. Then we have actions. The things that we need to do, we need to facilitate, we need to have workshops, we need to research, we need to execute things, we need strategies, we need weekly posts that share information and knowledge. These are the things that I'm going to do every single week. And these are what we would probably call routines, right? I have a routine to facilitate, I have a routine, the workshop. And these are turn into habits. The more you do them and the outcomes and what success looks like is we're delivering things, we're learning things, we're getting insights, we're achieving things, right? This is an example of how you can focus in on a lot of stuff and really kind of dial it in and think about how you would fill in your blocks here, how you would fill in your time as a maker and who are the people that surround you and how could you build clarity for all of these people? The other one is about Mapping to Learn. Now Mapping to Learn is one of our signature courses here at Next Level ux. But it's really important because it helps you define the and simplify the complexity of pretty much anything that you want to take on. Whenever I start a new project, I'm mapping to learn. Whenever I need to learn and research about a new area or new town or new thing, I'm going to map to learn. I want to understand the platform, I want to understand the thing, I want to understand the location, I want to map it out. And that's literally just writing out and putting circles and blocks and shapes around things that I'm unlocking, I'm figuring out, I'm learning about. So you can pick a focus area, you can workflow, you can do diagrams and then also like what environments maybe are you supporting? Well, I'm supporting all these different environments. I'm thinking about the opportunities to do these different elements and then I'm thinking about the strategies that I could do inside of the facilitations, the workshops, the research, coaching moments. And then all of these things are just examples of things that you can do when you're trying to learn and get build more clarity. Here's a look at when you think about your team or your people, your people in your just organization. There's two things that you're going to have to work with when you're building and maintaining and advancing your new ventures and all the things that we were just walking through. You have people and you have processes. People are the important parts, because you're going to need to work with other people and the processes are supporting these people. So as you step into your roles, your priorities, your ambitions, the things that you need to do, you got to have some plans. You need to think about craftsmanship, you need to think about knowledge transfer, collaboration, communication, clarity. And then you need to bring those things into the people environment so that you can support them to hitting the milestones, hitting how you intake information and knowledge faster and then doing this on a consistent basis will help you advance faster, it will help you advance smoother, and it will give you confidence and courage on how you're approaching your team and your people because you're prepared, you're aware, and that's really important part of this. The other thing when, when I was talking about getting feedback is you do need to think about the needs of your business and builders, your designers and creators, your product thinkers and your developers, your leadership in your business. How are you setting context, how are you getting the type of feedback that you're looking for and really explaining what that is, where are you at in the current process, what type of advancement are you looking for? And then progress, values, principles, advancements, like what are the things that you're trying to really stay true to in your product, your projects and your work and how are you working towards advancing those things forward? The other thing that we're going to try to master here in this process is understanding our growth loop. How we reflect, learn, train and take action. These are how I would fill it in. But think about, pause this video and think about how you would fill these things in. And then when we think about leadership, leadership's an important part of the stage too, where you can create rituals, rhythms and, and high performance habits of leadership so that you can really master all three of these categories and get better over time. This is a really, really essential thing when you're trying to develop yourself. You know that weekly growth loop, what does that look like? Those weekly practices as a leader, as creating rhythms in your company and creating really like stability and how people are getting things done and feeling safe and confident with these rituals and what they're doing. And then that leads us to like the systems architecture where really what we talked about today was kind of like training map number one, like understanding your clarity, understanding your goals, understanding action planning and practice and getting in a cycle of doing these things. But really when we look at the whole entire framework of next level ux, we really want to connect you to your passion and purpose, your wellness, your Communication, your collaboration, how you execute and system think, and then working through all those things is an important part of it. And coming into the next level training map, this is what we are doing, right? We're trying to just build that foundation so that when you get into the flow and the rhythms in this next pillar, like right here, you can start building better harmony with your staff, with your team. And I know this is a lot, but this is the breakdown of the steps that are most necessary when you're coming in, you're trying to grow and strive for yourself. It's so important, so connected. And, you know, I just wanted to leave you with that today. I hope you enjoyed this. And when you start thinking about your training rhythms and the things that you're trying to do on a reoccurring basis, you know, there's this, There's a really simple framework I want to leave you with. You know, reflection is the. Is the gateway into more clarity. So if you haven't yet been journaling or you haven't journaled or reflected much in your life or you're trying to get a little bit better at this, I want to encourage you to get out a notepad to open up an, to open up a journal. And if you don't have a journal, you can, you can use the Growth Day app. It's a product and service that we built over@growthday.com you can go check it out. But reflect. Reflection is one of those things that help connect you to your emotions and it helps connect you to your greater, like consciousness and intuition. And when you can reflect on the things that are happening in your life, you can get a little bit more clarity around what's going on in there. And so you can know when and where and how and what these sorts of things, like when do you need to train or when you need to practice and reflect. And then you can focus on what it is that you need to reflect on. Then you can bring in tips from all the beautiful training platforms out there. YouTube, you can go to LinkedIn Learning, you can go to growthday.com youm can go to masterclass.com youm can go to these programs and platforms to help you get tips and train and practice. Then you got to give yourself homework, you got to give yourself advancement homework so that you can build momentum and that so you can begin the process of growth. You know, it's okay to be a novice. It's okay to not know everything when you're first starting out, but you got to be able to set up a training regimen and a rhythm that's going to allow you to do this five step cycle, right? We're reflecting, we're focusing, we're getting tips, we're doing homework, and then we're reflecting after we do that homework so that we can advance our goals and our dreams and the things that we're trying to create. So that's it. That's gonna be. That's what we're doing today. I hope you enjoyed this session and I wish you all the best. And if you have questions, comments, please feel free to just subscribe down below, but also leave your comments and reach out to me directly if you have any struggles or questions about any of this content. I would love to support you. Have a beautiful rest of your day and I'll see you in the next one. Ram Sam.