30 Things I’ve Learnt Over 30 Years
The order is random—they might be important or utterly trivial, interesting or banal. If I remember, I’ll do this every birthday from now on.
Over 30 years, I’ve learnt the following:
1) Everything rests on people who care
No process, ideology, approach, AI, or anything else can create anything great on its own. Great things happen only when people care. That’s the whole secret to doing good work.
2) Prosperity comes with time
If you keep developing in your profession long enough, both a bigger salary and savings arrive with time. No need to be upset that at 22 you don’t have everything in the world. It’ll come.
3) A lot can be planned
Some things in life come unexpectedly, but birthdays, holidays, quarter-ends, and the like can be foreseen—you can plan your moves before the date arrives. And if there’s no schedule, you can make one.
4) You need to widen your set of options
Even when life feels relatively stable, it’s better to expand your options so you’re prepared if a surprise hits. Spread your savings across a few different banks, and keep some in cash. Look into visas or residency options you might qualify for, even if you don’t need them yet. Learn a skill outside your main field. Have as many contacts as you can, and their contacts too.
5) Combining work and hobbies is hard
Reading 75 books a year is easy when half the year is free of work; reading even 30 while working full-time is a different challenge entirely. So I have huge respect for people who manage to combine the two well.
6) Acceptance is a blessing
With age, more and more things you just accept, without much feeling attached. And life really is easier that way. Better not to accept absolutely everything, though—pick one or two areas where every detail still matters. But no more than that.
7) Camping gear is brilliant at home too
Drinking tea from a thermos beats walking to refill your cup every two minutes. A power bank is handy anywhere there’s no outlet. An inflatable mattress works just as well for guests at home as it does on a trip.
8) A Moka pot is the best way to make coffee at home
The same coffee every time, no surprises, stable stability. Total satisfaction. And the quality holds up against a decent café—maybe a touch behind a truly excellent one, but a big city only has 5-6 of those anyway.
9) Don’t be afraid of the work itself
In the age of automation and AI, it’s hard to make yourself sit down and do something monotonous, but sometimes that’s both faster and gives a better result. So don’t be afraid of the work—sometimes the only way through is to just do it.
10) There’s nothing interesting happening on social media
Social media would be more accurately called antisocial media, because there’s nothing social left in it. The feed is run by an algorithm, the content is made by AI, and even the authors are steered by an algorithm. And it does all this badly—it would be one thing if it did it well. The things actually worth your time still travel from person to person, get written in small blogs with 100-1,000 subscribers, get passed on quietly.
11) Birds are wonderful creatures
Watching birds is easily in the top three pastimes in the world. They’re stunning to look at, their behaviour is fascinating, and birdwatching gets you into the habit of walking and keeps your mind sharp.
12) Build tools, not instructions
Writing a precise instruction can be a good first step, but it should be followed by a second one: building a tool. A good system is one where doing it right is easier than doing it wrong, because the tools themselves are convenient and simple to use.
13) macOS shortcuts genuinely beat Windows’
Having Command sitting right next to the space bar, under your thumb, makes everything more convenient. Windows made the wrong call not putting Ctrl near the space bar.
14) Things really were better before, in some ways
Not everything was better before, of course, and not even everything from just a while ago. But plenty really was—software that worked predictably and fast, for one. Old social media, before the algorithms took over, was better too, because it still had something social in it. Quite a lot was better.
15) Enjoyment is a matter of mindset
Watch football thinking “22 millionaires chasing a ball around a field—how pointless,” and you won’t enjoy a second of it. Start watching with curiosity instead—follow the news, try making predictions—and it gets genuinely interesting. It’s not just football: you can dismiss almost any activity this way, but should you?
16) Good design is always needed
As AI improves, average designers are having a harder time, because AI can now produce average design on its own. But good design will always be needed—and in an age of AI slop, it’s becoming an even bigger competitive edge.
17) Treating people well pays off
Say thank you generously, don’t hold back compliments for good work, and deliver criticism in a neutral tone or framed as a request—critique the result, not the person. Do that consistently and the world around you gets noticeably nicer.
18) Better to promise less and deliver more
Promise things repeatedly and then miss the mark, deliver late, or deliver worse, and you burn trust. Better to promise a little less, so there’s room to add something extra on top.
19) Not everything can be found online
Some knowledge still lives only in books, or only in people’s heads. Sometimes it is online, but in the part that never gets indexed. And sometimes it’s indexed but you’ll never find it again. Don’t be stingy with your bookmarks.
20) Simpler ≈ better
Simplicity comes in different flavours—sometimes simpler means dumber, but sometimes it means elegant. Aim for the elegant kind. Every time I’ve swapped a complex solution for a simpler one, I’ve been glad I did.
21) The world keeps changing
It changes in small ways as much as big ones. If something didn’t work a year ago, it’s worth checking again—maybe it’s been fixed since. What was true yesterday isn’t necessarily true today.
22) “Later” does, sometimes, arrive
Putting something off for later isn’t the same as killing it. Things parked for later genuinely do get done sometimes. Later might show up in a month, six months, a year, or three years—but it does show up. You shouldn’t put everything off, but putting things off is a perfectly normal approach that doesn’t deserve to be demonised.
23) Being natural and genuine matters a lot
It’s hard work to play a role or manage an impression, and much easier to just be yourself. Things go more smoothly with people who let themselves be themselves.
24) Taste matters more than it looks like it does
Decisions very often get made at the level of taste, and only rationalised afterwards—and that’s true well beyond design: technology, decision-making, business, all of it. Don’t be embarrassed to choose something simply because you like it, but do work on being able to explain why.
25) Education is worth having for its own sake
It has value in itself. Being educated is good, full stop. Education doesn’t need to translate into more money or more opportunities to be worthwhile—that’s not what it’s for. It just has intrinsic value.
26) Coercion is a poor motivator
Things done out of genuine interest turn out better than things done under pressure. Sometimes you do have to do what needs doing. But whenever there’s a real choice, it’s better to avoid coercion—including coercing yourself—and go with what you want to do, or at least find interesting.
27) Gratitude is wonderful
It’s worth learning to be grateful—sincerely. Even when someone has done you both good and bad, you can still be grateful for the good and handle the bad separately. Gratitude can’t be demanded, but when it’s never shown, that stings.
28) Practice is the best teacher
You can study theory endlessly, take notes, drill flashcards. None of it compares to actual practice. Want to learn a language: read it, listen to it, work through it. Want to learn design: study the theory, apply it, redo it, review it, improve it. Same goes for everything else.
29) Hold on to what you might otherwise forget
Found a good link—bookmark it, let it sit. Had a thought—write it down, it might matter later. Most of what you save won’t turn out to matter, but you do it for the sake of the few things that will.
30) Faith
The longer I live, the less doubt I carry, and the more certain I become that God exists. That presence feels woven into life itself.
If I remember and I’m still around, see you next year with 31 things.