Get up before 7am. Don’t try to fall asleep again if it doesn’t work immediately. Get out of your bed and start your day with whatever makes you happy. Head to work and get home early.

Fixed working-hours. If you have the luxury of flextime it seems tempting to enjoy the flexibility to start and end working whenever you want. However I would recommend that you set your own hours which allow you to do some life-related stuff after work.

A “yes” should be rare. Learn to say no! Say no to friends, say no to co-workers if they ask you for after-work activities (of course you can and should do it from time to time, but it shouldn’t be the norm). Also say no to tasks if you can do them the next day early in the morning. Since a few weeks I try to adapt the Eisenhower Matrix to my workflow.

Find a workout partner. If it feels like an arrangement between a friend/partner to show up at a gym or park for exercising you have to leave the office or otherwise break your arrangement and feel guilty. If you exercise with a friend or partner you can work on a friendship or relationship and your fitness at the same time. Win!

Cooking and grocery shopping with your partner. This ensures to spend some time together even before couching.

Of course it’s okay to constantly refine your priorities and routines. But in the end it should always help you to keep a nice balance.

Initially I posted this as an answer on Quora.

The post How I keep a good work-life balance appeared first on Kevin Niedermayr.

Newsletter ahoi

Yeah I know, right now everybody has it's own newsletter-thing going on. I want to try this because I really want to give you all something back, share my knowledge and tell you guys where I failed and finally got up and tried it again. The newsletter will contain:

• Tips for Designers
• Book, Reading & Podcast Recommendations,
• Cute Gifs
• insights on my life and design workflow.

So if you are curious I would really appreciate if I can welcome you as reader and friend. You can subscribe here.

The post Lots Of New Things appeared first on Kevin Niedermayr.

Recently it looks like every now and then people ask: “How can I get started as freelancer and get clients?”, “How can I get better at x?” “How can …” — you name it.

There is a simple answer: just value the work you do. Avoid to just execute for the sake of executing, do work that matters to you and add some value. It’s not about just throwing out stuff that looks or works the same as everything else.

It’s not about marketplaces that offer a certain amount of money just to execute. You are not just removing value for some kind of creation, you also don’t value your own work. So why should anybody else do?

Value yourself, value the outcome and value the positivity that will be added to your life because of it. There is a reason for the proverb “What goes around, comes around”.

I would appreciate to hear your thoughts on this on Twitter or as response.
Let me know if you enjoyed this article and remember others to add value to their work and life.

The post Value your work. appeared first on Kevin Niedermayr.

tbc.

P.S.: This is/was just a quick note & reminder to myself the last few months. I just thought that it maybe could help you too.

I would appreciate to hear your thoughts on this on Twitter or as response.
Let me know if you enjoyed this article and remember others to add value to their work and life.

The post About Work appeared first on Kevin Niedermayr.