Author: Anna

Picture of little birdie in my hand after we rescued her the first time this morning

When You Think Something Will Fly

Sometimes you have an idea, venture, or belief and think “This is going to fly.” And sometimes that turns out not to be true. Quite literally. This morning, I sat down and chatted with a founder of many things for the UX Fika podcast. We had some very honest conversations

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Image of me smelling a saffron bun

Don’t judge a book too much by its covers

The best books aren’t always the newest ones. Or the ones with the fanciest cover. Some of the best books are the ones that are older, worn, where the pages have been turned a hundred times, and where the cover, well it could be better.  Each of us has a

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“Beat everybody to your inconvenient truth”

That was one of the quotes I wrote down this lunchtime as I listened to an episode of the Mel Robbins podcast about imposter syndrome. There was another really good one which was “You can diffuse the imposter syndrome if you just accept where you’re at” which really struck a

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Five year journal

The closest I have to a resolution this year is this

I’m a sucker for new beginnings and had planned to kick off this year with healthier habits etc. etc. but the only muscles I’ve been exercising are the ones involved with coughing, and handwriting. When the girls were little I thought I’d always, and easily, remember their firsts. The date

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Baby girl sleeping in my lap whilst I work on the book

A moment in time

3 years ago this was me. Our baby girl was just over a week old and after an equally long break, I was back working through production comments on my book Storytelling in Design.  After years of working on it, it was n e a r l y finished. Yet

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Embracing and creating ordered chaos

Back in February 2011 I left Dare and began freelancing. At the same time we started building a loft conversion in our flat, and doing a head to toe renovation of it. Terrible timing in hindsight as there were so many decision to be made on a daily basis, most

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The Walk & Talk Podcast

My walk & talk “podcast” experiment

I’ve done a little experiment that I’d love your feedback on. It’s a series of unedited, no thrills audio recordings and what I’d love your input on is if I should turn them and the idea behind them into a no thrills podcast.

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Daily notes

Daily notes

It’s 6am and I’ve just fed our two month old daughter, gone up, made myself a cup of coffee and opened my computer. It’s still dark outside and everything is peaceful.

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UX Fika

I’m starting a UX school

I fell into running workshops after visiting General Assembly (GA) in NYC to look at their co-working space. A chat led to a dinner in London as GA was about to open here and shortly thereafter I taught my first class with them. Fast forward five years and I’ve taught

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Storytelling in Design book

I’m doing a book reading at SXSW

Towards the end of 2015 I’d just been contacted by O’Reilly about creating some content related to storytelling in design. A workshop or book was mentioned and I immediately jumped at the workshop idea.

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Sunset

My one thing for this year

There is a saying that goes something along the lines of that you have to take care of yourself first in order to take care of others. This year I have but one thing on my “resolutions list” and that is to look after myself.

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Why you should write every day

You probably think you have nothing to write about but once you start it gets hard to stop. Honestly. Writing is an incredibly important skill at all levels. By writing every day you reflect on things in a different and clearer way and you become better at expressing yourself. If you haven’t tried writing every day, give it a try for 30 days to begin with. I did it every day of 2012. Seth Godin has done it for years and swears by it.