Hasta La Ideas

Mondays are opportunities to start new habits and the day to begin a productive path for the week. While others grumble about Mondays, I try to think of them like the first day of school or the first day of a new job. The possibilities for success, fulfillment, creativity, and all the reasons you do what you do are open for you to experience.

To help keep me motivated and positive about Mondays, I like to begin each week with a 10- to 15-minute planning session. I grab my cup of coffee (glorious, glorious coffee), a pencil, my calendar (this year I’ve been using the Julie Morgenstern Balanced Life Franklin Covey daily planner), and I head to my front porch or the dining room table. During this time, I ask myself the following questions while I plan out the week:

• What calls, meetings, luncheons, parties, and travel do I have on my schedule that have set times and locations?
• What deadlines do I need to meet?
• What actions do I need to take to meet those deadlines?
• What additional tasks do I also wish to accomplish this week?
• What reminders for future actions do I need to set on my computer when I get back to my desk?
• When am I most productive?
• When am I least productive?

I plan for both my work and my personal life at the same time. I currently keep everything on the same calendar, but there have been years when I have kept things separate. It’s a matter of preference, and you could do one planning session at home and another when you get to work if that better meets your needs.

How you plan for your week is up to you, but taking the time to plan can make a significant difference in what you accomplish by Friday. It’s a lot easier to get somewhere if you know where you’re going.

Happy Monday!

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Interpretazione di Justin Van Genderen.
[Via]

Maximilian Büsser of watch brand MB&F has designed a watch with dials mounted on two jet engine-shaped parts of the case. (more…)

Jane Stockdale and Sean Freeman created the cover for our Illustration Annual using a large letter ‘i’ and an infinity mirror. Here’s a short film of how they produced the cover image pretty much straight from the camera…

“This was a big team project,” explains Stockdale who photographed the set-up, co-created with illustrator, Sean Freeman. “It was great to collaborate with mates and combine different skill sets from carpentry to art direction and product design. After we finalised the idea, we spent about a week prepping and researching the best way to create the structure. The build itself took about two days of sawing, gluing, clamping and drilling to create the frame.

“We knew from the start that this shoot was going to be really experimental so we spent a long time researching things we’d like to try and test. For the shoot itself we loaded up on anything and everything we could find that we thought would work – confetti, glitter, plastic swords, glow in the dark paint, fishing wire, LED lights and 1000 glowsticks.”

“We spent a day testing with versions of the letter ‘i’ made out of card and metal and a day shooting,” Stockdale continues. “The final cover image was created at about 5am. I think we all knew it was going to be the cover shot when we sat back and stared at it on screen for about half-an-hour thinking ‘how on earth did we just do that…?’

“The images might appear at first to be CGI but the cover image is pretty much the photo straight from the camera. If you look closely you can see how we did it. Big thanks to Toby Summerskill, Toby Stockdale, Clare Elliott, Matteo Fogale, Hugh Stockdale, Gunter, Liam Ricketts, Cassiano Prado and Ray from Ray’s Glass for their kind help and assistance.”

And here’s the finished front cover of the July issue (Stockdale and Freeman’s back cover image shown top of post):