It's about me, me, me

Hey!

First things first - spring cleaning. If you don't remember who I am, my name is Anton and I write about product design, user experiences, and occasionally freelancing. If this doesn't sound like something you're interested in and you don't know why you're getting this email, you can easily unsubscribe here.

Now, onto the fun stuff!

This newsletter doesn't contain a post, but it does include some interesting links. I have significant news to share in the coming days, but it's not quite official yet - don't worry, you'll be the first to know.

Recently, I've been featured in two of my favorite places on the Internet:

1. I've been a long-time fan of Lover's Magazine, and now there's an interview out with yours truly.
2. I've always been interested in exploring other people's workspaces, the tools they use, and the appearance of their offices. Workspaces.xyz offers a comprehensive collection and last week, they featured my modest home office.

→ Lover’s Magazine

→ Workspaces.xyz

You might notice this email looks a bit different. It's because I'm now using Buttondown instead of Convertkit. While I still really like Convertkit and its founder, Nathan, it's becoming increasingly obvious that it's not designed for people like me. Every new feature is focused on growth and monetization, which is great if that's your goal. While I'd love to make money from my newsletter, I just don't think it's a good fit. Our society, and especially our industry, is so focused on growth and monetizing everything. So, after contemplating the topic for a while, I think monetizing my newsletter is like monetizing my garden; it would remove the feeling of being free and allowed to do whatever I want. (Okay, my garden does not always feel like that).

Ok - talk again soon with some exciting news!

Anton

ps. There’s been more chatter in our Slack-channel. Feel free to join!

Here are a couple of links I’ve enjoyed reading lately

• Great design starts with writing - ok so literally no one is surprised I enjoyed this piece. “The lack of a cohesive, sensible narrative makes it a bore to read and the experience of writing it painful. And there’s a good chance that if you can’t write the narrative in prose, the end result will be hard to understand and even harder to sell.”
• A design reset - is a great, but long, read from Linear on redesigning their app and thinking behind it. Make sure not to miss part 2!
• How to start Google - Paul Graham in a talk to 14 year old students about what they should do now if they want to start a startup later.
• “Figure out what you're good at without trying, then try.”
• No new tools - I can across this old piece from Frank Chimero. It’s no longer online but thanks to webarchive, you can still read it. Though written back in 2014, I believe this still holds true today (unfortunately): “There are whole breeds of technology that do the opposite of my stated goals—they increase pain and reduce pleasure.”