We’ve just announced Phase shutting down. It’s been a big chapter of my life, but it’s time to see what’s next.

Years ago, we set out to help designers Enjoy Being Creative creative flow. Building a very difficult product with a powerful no-code canvas workspace. When we started, the vision was often called the “holy grail” by designers.

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I lack (but I would like to find) a relatively objective mental model for thinking about determination in practice. This post is an RFP for such a framework. I am hoping that someone may be able to point me in the right direction to gain one (or ideally, several) practical mental-models on determination.

I hope to use this framework when hiring new team members (as a pre-hire test/assesment), or when training existing team members (as a framework to aide coaching, and/or a framework they may adopt in self-directed learning). Or simply anywhere the topic of determination comes up, and someone wants some practical help to increase it.

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Hello, all - it’s time for another blog post. It seems I’ve got it in me to write a blog post perhaps once every 3-years, or so… ;)

Today I want to write about my habits.

Partly inspired by Sam Altman’s post on his own productivity, and partly because I hope some friends may offer feedback to improve the habits I have, or suggest some useful new ones.

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In 2011 I went to a dinner at a friend’s - one of my old high school teachers - and at some point in the conversation he asked “How’s your job?” I had a great job, but I really wasn’t happy being in Halifax anymore. I remember answering that “my job’s awesome, there’s no other job I can imagine that could be better…but god, I really just want to work on my own stuff. And I wish I could travel.”

It was a feeling that had been building up for a long time.

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