Earlier this year, I wrote about freeing time. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done professionally. It both energizes and calms me, and I end up making things I’ll use later. Just this week, in multiple meetings, I shared things I wrote and sketched months ago. They were already there, set aside during freeing time, waiting for the right moments to be useful. And I’m sure they will be repeatedly useful.

More recently, I’ve gotten into Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It brings me joy. I know I’m late to the party, but I mostly like my games and media to be aged in oak barrels.

Anyway, I’m putting these two things together, you see, the freeing time and the Zelda. On my last two freeing days, I gave myself a quest: to reveal a rough map, representing the territory of general design practices (in Breath of the Wild, you reveal the map one piece at a time). So I started to explore. Also, I started tallying up the days I practice design exercises. Each time I do that, I earn an orb (in Breath of the Wild, you collect orbs to level up in different ways). This is all pretty silly, but it’s making things a bit more fun for me and I’ve made no commitments about keeping it up. 😄