Let’s start with the good, I decided to treat myself to Dunkin Donuts Vanilla Bean coffee (via Amazon) and it has changed my coffee intake, I also bought myself a one-cup brewing machine, and again - this has changed my coffee intake. I can now see through walls and hear your thoughts.

I recieved a message, asking for help - next thing, we had a planned call and ended up chatting for over an hour all about a subject she doesnt like to talk about - herself and her needs. My good friend Pretty was on the fence and somewhat stuck in her own mind, we chatted through her direction, wants and desire - the “what is stopping you”, which I found so interesting. I’ve known Pretty for years and have gently touched on the subject of “her”, but she was so open and it was great to dust down my coaching brain. The talking eventually stopped, and it turned out it was the push she needed.. and out pops a podcast and I couldn’t be more proud of her for unleashing herself to the public as she is such a wonderful speaker, teacher and sharer.

On a sad note, I officially found out my contract won’t be extended - nothing personal or to do with my work, it’s actually to do more with AstraZeneca’s vision for what or where they hire designers. It’s been a busy 7 months of work so far, which will eventually be 9 months (not bad for what was 3 months originally!), so it’ll be a nice opportunity to take a break and think about my next piece of work (I haven’t looked at the market so I’m unsure what’s out there) but do feel like getting in touch at hello@michaelcattell.com if you have something. Expect an influx of LinkedIn posts and case study updates - im behind schedule on those!

Work-check: With the news of my contract ending in December, it’s been a crunch of delivering design tickets, which are tickets from my backlog that I had parked for those quiet months. I think when I get a chance and look at what has been delivered over my time here (esp the last 3 months) and the workaround educating the value of design - it’ll be a feeling of satisfaction and err warmth of a job-done-well.

One thing I have felt in this contract compared to my others, is the lack of backup of a pre-set design system or design-ways-of-working in regards to work being set, handovers and the rules around that (when done is done, why and when we need to iterate), there have been many obstacles and issues around speed, expectations and what-is-done from the design team, and including sign-off. We also use Jira a lot more than in any team I’ve been part of, it’s become a workload of truth - but design-isnt-like-that (which is another post). It’s felt more like a chase and an exhausting one, which I haven’t enjoyed but it’s the nature of the beast and something i’ve been chipping away at with a design-system of sorts, but the decision to start with desktop only designs has bit us in the bum a number of times, nevermind the dark-mode requirements too. It hasn’t been all doom and gloom - far from it in fact, we have changed a lot in the time we’ve worked together, we’ve got consistency in design, we’ve started to iterate in parts (no big sweep changes) and also we have started to shape value in our work.

What am I looking forward to this week: Using LinkedIn again, I like the platform - yes it’s full of posts around “what you are doing wrong”, and chatAI posts, but somewhere in there, are some super people who are doing great work and potentially - my next contract!

I want to launch the re-design of Bobbin and Bumble this week, so keep a mince-pie out for that too.

Watch of the week
I randomly got recommended a Video called “Tony Robbins | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von”, in the past I used to eat these up daily and felt a ton better for it - but in the last 1-2 years I’ve stopped watching and learning about myself, this video has kick-started something in me to re-learn, re-listen and all of a sudden I have my energy back and drive to work, thrive and sleep better. It’s not for everyone, but we each have our own ways-or-means to help push us to the next level.