Featured – Page 4 – Alex Piwtoratsky.

Trello Time! An Intro to Project Management

September 23, 2018October 1, 2018by Alex Piwtoratsky2 Comments

In the design world, especially in an agency, projects are ricocheting in and out of inboxes. The barrage of pings and pop-ups are not only disorienting and distracting, but they are a rather poor way to keep track of work. People interject changes in the thread wherever they want to, download links to assets expire, and many larger projects have multiple pieces that need to be accounted for. After working in the design field for nearly 5 years, project management is not just a fancy word organizing an inbox, but rather, it is a complex and personal necessity.

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Philosophies for Focus

September 23, 2018September 24, 2018by Alex Piwtoratsky4 Comments

Imagine a machine that an operator did not control, but rather, the machine controlled the operator. This “sentient” machine was introduced in Part 2, Rule #1 of Cal Newport’s book, Deep Work. Conceptualized by architect, David Dewane, this machine is actually just a building. This building has no moving parts besides the people moving through it. Deriving from the ancient Greek concept of eudaimonia, this building aims to bring its users to a state in which they are achieving their full human potential – or as Newport would say, this building aims to enable the user to practice the deepest of deep work. The Eudaimonia Machine, as Dewane refers to it, is a long, rectangular series of five rooms. Each room is designed to have their own distinct purpose to facilitate the transition to deep work. The rooms are as follows:

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My Data Detox

September 16, 2018September 29, 2018by Alex Piwtoratsky2 Comments

Data is all around us. It is within the books you read, the numbers at work, and it resides in your personal life – hiding in your computer, bills, and cell phone. If you work in a modern corporate environment, you would know that “Big Data” is all the rage right now. Big data is essentially more complex data sets stemming from new data sources. By utilizing top-of-the-line technology, these massive volumes of data can help us solve problems that were once very difficult to define solutions for like operational efficiency, customer experience, and product development. In a very short amount of time, big data has become extremely important capital and drives some of the most successful tech companies today.

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Smithing Satisfaction

September 16, 2018September 22, 2018by Alex PiwtoratskyLeave a comment

As an artist, I always have a pit in my stomach when I work in traditional mediums. Every detail is painstakingly applied, with a watchful eye and sweaty palms. Moments like these take me back to printmaking where any mistake, no matter how small, could ruin your final product. I left every single one of those classes exhausted and sore. My fingers were cramped from carving into wooden planks and my shirt looked like it had been used to mop up a molten rainbow. Some studio nights would last until four in the morning, yielding nothing but failure – and yet, there was something about that class that I loved, especially when I got it right.

“Living the focused life is not about trying to feel happy all the time…rather, it’s about treating your mind as you would a private garden and being as careful as possible about what you introduce and allow to grow there.”
– Winifred Gallagher

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Our Culture of Connectivity

September 9, 2018September 10, 2018by Alex Piwtoratsky2 Comments

“The world is getting smaller!” declared one of my undergraduate marketing professors during my Marketing 102 course. While the earth isn’t physically becoming more diminutive as time passes, my professor wasn’t spewing drivel in his class. Our world is becoming smaller due to the fact that it no longer takes weeks to obtain information or to meet people. Computers and mobile devices have transitioned from professional tools to personal extensions. Because laptops and cell phones are so easily at disposal, people are constantly locked into the grid. While some are perturbed by the fact that they are reachable at all times, many of these individuals have had to deal with this type of intimate connectivity for their jobs. In Chapter 2 of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, author Cal Newport explores this new “Culture of Connectivity” and how the workplace has changed to accommodate it.

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Hacking into Humans

September 9, 2018September 9, 2018by Alex Piwtoratsky1 Comment

Picture this: You’re in the passenger seat of your friend’s car. There is pop music playing and the windows are rolled down a little, letting in the crisp breeze. You scroll through your Instagram feed while listening to your friend talk about their horrific day at work. Your eyes glance up from your phone occasionally, taking in the surroundings passing by. Badly designed electronic billboard ads and gaudy signs for fast food joints stick out. Those, of course, are boring, so you lose interest in them quickly. Your Instagram feed quickly sucks you back in again. Ads for new clothes and niche products intersperse the feed. Maybe you’ll buy one in the hopes that it’ll change your life. You double tap your thumb at almost every passing post, hoping that in turn, your friends will like back. You hear your name being called, and then again with more angst. Your friend glares at you, and as you look up to speak your phone vibrates, it’s an email. You have unlocked your favorite store’s “diamond membership” and they sent you an exclusive coupon code. Your friend sighs in exasperation as you click through the email and goes silent, turning up the music in response. You try to get them to talk again but they won’t look your way. Oh well, at least now you can go tend to those tempting notifications…let’s see what’s on sale…

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Peak Performance

September 2, 2018September 9, 2018by Alex Piwtoratsky2 Comments

As children, we always dream of becoming the best. How many times have you heard a kid say they want to be the best firefighter or the greatest ballerina? This dream of being the best transcends into adolescence and early adulthood, as we work tirelessly to get a quality education and a respectable job. While many of us share the urge to be the best at what we do, how is it that only some of us become experts?

“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes
that can be made in a very narrow field.”
– Niels Bohr

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How to Get Deep

September 2, 2018September 8, 2018by Alex Piwtoratsky1 Comment

How many times have you found yourself looking at your phone when you’re supposed to be doing something important? Five times, ten times? If you’re a typical working professional, this number easily skyrockets to at least 80 times a day. Now that’s significant! Scrolling your thumb on a phone’s smooth screen is satisfying, for people of any age – but is this seemingly innocent addiction harmful? The answer to that is yes. Studies show that the presence of a cell phone, even when it is turned off, affects our cognitive capacity; in other words, our ability to learn and perform tasks. The habitual compulsion to check our phones derives from it being a device that is constantly relevant – we can achieve nearly anything with this portable tech in a matter of seconds. While cell phones are great for boosting efficiency, people who are too attached to them may experience social impairment and health issues. Clearly, cell phones have evolved from commodity items to negative objects that slowly, and unapologetically, eat away our focus.

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