SKETCHPLANATIONS

Explaining the world one sketch at a time. About Archive Tags Search Subscribe Patreon Prints Archive Tags Search Subscribe Patreon Prints

SKETCHPLANATIONS

So I set myself the challenge of explaining something with a sketch — as explaining is a handy skill. Over 2013 -14 I posted one sketchplanation a day. Since then I switched to one per week, and the quality improved. You can follow how it suits you: Get a new sketchplanation by email

SKETCHPLANATIONS

Sketchplanations - A weekly explanation in a sketch. 🎉 Welcome! Subscription confirmed. I'm Jono and I create all the sketchplanations you see. You just made me happy by joining the list. Thanks! Now the plan is to make you happy too, with interesting, surprising, clarifying and easy-to-absorb sketches that may, after enough of them,

even

GOLDILOCKS TASKS

The sweet spot for flow and mastery where the task is not too easy, not too hard — it’s just right. Also, just the right spot for learning similar to Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development. In that model when you’re out of your comfort zone, and not in your anxiety zone you’re in the learning zone. And yet another way of looking at it, still without as catchy a name as Goldilocks

LANGUISHING

Meh. Blah. Can't be bothered? Not excited about the future? Perhaps you're languishing. Adam Grant's NYT article, There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing, resonated with so many people as the coronavirus pandemic drew on. While not having a mental illness or being clinically depressed, many of us associated with a general stagnation or apathy towards things GOODHART’S LAW: WHEN A MEASURE BECOMES A TARGET, IT CEASE Goodhart’s Law: when a measure becomes a target, it cease to be a good measure. In other words, if you pick a measure to assess people’s performance, then we find a way to game it. I like the illustration of a nail factory that sets number of nails produced as their measure of productivity and the workers figure out they can get

tons of

THE STORY SPINE

Kenn Adams’s story spine is a wonderfully simple and flexible backbone for creating or analysing stories. I learned it from Dan Klein at Stanford as a fun improvising game: standing in a circle each person in turn takes on the next step of the story spine making up what happens. You’ll effortlessly produce some fascinating and amusing stories. We would extend the middle section as many

THE LEARNING PIT

James Nottingham's metaphor of The Learning Pit illustrates the struggle before "getting it." It's the learning journey of approaching a new concept, uncovering conflicts or contradictions with your knowledge, confusion, beginning to put new ideas together and finally the clarity of a new concept mastered. There are natural parallels to other models like the stages of competence, Lev Vygotsky BICEPS, TRICEPS, QUADRICEPS Biceps, triceps, quadriceps. One day after swimming front crawl, which works the triceps nicely, it all became clear. The triceps muscle has a curious shape at the top on account of its three 'heads' — or connecting origins. And the name derives from tri-ceps from latin meaning three-heads. And so it goes. The biceps is a two-headed muscle MANAGER TIME, MAKER TIME In Manager Time a day is neatly sliced up into hourly chunks according to the calendar. Meeting someone is as easy as finding a free slot that coincides. You don’t have to worry too much about what you’ll be doing next as your calendar will tell you. In Maker Time a day is an open book to get something hard and meaningful done. Even thinking when a meeting might be and remembering to go

SKETCHPLANATIONS

So I set myself the challenge of explaining something with a sketch — as explaining is a handy skill. Over 2013 -14 I posted one sketchplanation a day. Since then I switched to one per week, and the quality improved. You can follow how it suits you: Get a new sketchplanation by email

SKETCHPLANATIONS

Explaining the world one sketch at a time. About Archive Tags Search Subscribe Patreon Prints Archive Tags Search Subscribe Patreon Prints

SKETCHPLANATIONS

Sketchplanations - A weekly explanation in a sketch. 🎉 Welcome! Subscription confirmed. I'm Jono and I create all the sketchplanations you see. You just made me happy by joining the list. Thanks! Now the plan is to make you happy too, with interesting, surprising, clarifying and easy-to-absorb sketches that may, after enough of them,

even

GOLDILOCKS TASKS

The sweet spot for flow and mastery where the task is not too easy, not too hard — it’s just right. Also, just the right spot for learning similar to Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development. In that model when you’re out of your comfort zone, and not in your anxiety zone you’re in the learning zone. And yet another way of looking at it, still without as catchy a name as Goldilocks

LANGUISHING

Meh. Blah. Can't be bothered? Not excited about the future? Perhaps you're languishing. Adam Grant's NYT article, There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing, resonated with so many people as the coronavirus pandemic drew on. While not having a mental illness or being clinically depressed, many of us associated with a general stagnation or apathy towards things GOODHART’S LAW: WHEN A MEASURE BECOMES A TARGET, IT CEASE Goodhart’s Law: when a measure becomes a target, it cease to be a good measure. In other words, if you pick a measure to assess people’s performance, then we find a way to game it. I like the illustration of a nail factory that sets number of nails produced as their measure of productivity and the workers figure out they can get

tons of

THE STORY SPINE

Kenn Adams’s story spine is a wonderfully simple and flexible backbone for creating or analysing stories. I learned it from Dan Klein at Stanford as a fun improvising game: standing in a circle each person in turn takes on the next step of the story spine making up what happens. You’ll effortlessly produce some fascinating and amusing stories. We would extend the middle section as many

THE LEARNING PIT

James Nottingham's metaphor of The Learning Pit illustrates the struggle before "getting it." It's the learning journey of approaching a new concept, uncovering conflicts or contradictions with your knowledge, confusion, beginning to put new ideas together and finally the clarity of a new concept mastered. There are natural parallels to other models like the stages of competence, Lev Vygotsky BICEPS, TRICEPS, QUADRICEPS Biceps, triceps, quadriceps. One day after swimming front crawl, which works the triceps nicely, it all became clear. The triceps muscle has a curious shape at the top on account of its three 'heads' — or connecting origins. And the name derives from tri-ceps from latin meaning three-heads. And so it goes. The biceps is a two-headed muscle MANAGER TIME, MAKER TIME In Manager Time a day is neatly sliced up into hourly chunks according to the calendar. Meeting someone is as easy as finding a free slot that coincides. You don’t have to worry too much about what you’ll be doing next as your calendar will tell you. In Maker Time a day is an open book to get something hard and meaningful done. Even thinking when a meeting might be and remembering to go

SKETCHPLANATIONS

Sketchplanations - A weekly explanation in a sketch. 🎉 Welcome! Subscription confirmed. I'm Jono and I create all the sketchplanations you see. You just made me happy by joining the list. Thanks! Now the plan is to make you happy too, with interesting, surprising, clarifying and easy-to-absorb sketches that may, after enough of them,

even

THE LEARNING PIT

James Nottingham's metaphor of The Learning Pit illustrates the struggle before "getting it." It's the learning journey of approaching a new concept, uncovering conflicts or contradictions with your knowledge, confusion, beginning to put new ideas together and finally the clarity of a new concept mastered. There are natural parallels to other models like the stages of competence, Lev Vygotsky

SKETCHPLANATIONS

You are not free to use them for commercial purposes like publishing a collection of sketchplanations or some giant marketing campaign, billboard, selling t-shirts and the like. However, if you’d like to, great! Just get in touch and we can discuss it. If you email me I can send on my highest resolution copies: jono.hey@gmail.com.

5 WAYS TO WELLBEING

5 simple, evidence-based, ways to improve mental capital and mental wellbeing throughout life. Developed by the New Economics Foundation, the 5 ways to wellbeing are: Connect With the people around you. With family, friends, colleagues and neighbours. At home, work, school or in your local community. Think of these as the cornerstones of your life and invest time in developing them. MANAGER TIME, MAKER TIME In Manager Time a day is neatly sliced up into hourly chunks according to the calendar. Meeting someone is as easy as finding a free slot that coincides. You don’t have to worry too much about what you’ll be doing next as your calendar will tell you. In Maker Time a day is an open book to get something hard and meaningful done. Even thinking when a meeting might be and remembering to go PASSING ON AN INSIDE BEND We all know that racing drivers overtake on the inside — it's the shorter, faster route. It was only relatively recently that I've found how useful it can be on a long drive too, not for racing, but for using the bend on a multilane road for easier, safer overtaking. Perhaps this scenario will resonate: after cruising at a steady speed for miles of a long journey you slowly catch up with a THE POMODORO TECHNIQUE ® The Pomodoro Technique ®. A super simple method to help you get your tasks done. Named after a pomodoro (tomato) kitchen timer, the essence of it involves considering in advance how many pomodoros you might need for what you want to get done, setting your timer for, normally, 25 minutes and then focusing on your task until the time’s up. YOU GET WHAT YOU MEASURE You get what you measure. Sir Arthur Eddington, an English astrophysicist, told a short story involving a scientist studying fish by pulling them up with nets. After checking all the fish hauled up, the scientist concludes that there is a minimum size of fish in the sea. But the fish seen were determined by the size of the holes in the

net, the

DATA INFORMATION KNOWLEDGE WISDOM In his poem The Rock, T.S. Eliot wrote: Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? In these short lines he touched on an intriguing differentiation between wisdom, knowledge and information. Add data at the beginning and people have proposed various models such as a hierarchy, chain, or pyramid to THE SWISS CHEESE MODEL The Swiss Cheese Model. Despite all our best intentions, accidents happen. Analysis of accidents in large complex systems such as power stations or plane crashes led to an understanding that "no one failure, human or technical, is sufficient to cause an accident. Rather, it involves the unlikely and often unforeseeable conjunction

of several

SKETCHPLANATIONS

Explaining the world one sketch at a time. About Archive Tags Search Subscribe Patreon Prints Archive Tags Search Subscribe Patreon Prints

SKETCHPLANATIONS

So I set myself the challenge of explaining something with a sketch — as explaining is a handy skill. Over 2013 -14 I posted one sketchplanation a day. Since then I switched to one per week, and the quality improved. You can follow how it suits you: Get a new sketchplanation by email

SKETCHPLANATIONS

Sketchplanations - A weekly explanation in a sketch. 🎉 Welcome! Subscription confirmed. I'm Jono and I create all the sketchplanations you see. You just made me happy by joining the list. Thanks! Now the plan is to make you happy too, with interesting, surprising, clarifying and easy-to-absorb sketches that may, after enough of them,

even

GOLDILOCKS TASKS

The sweet spot for flow and mastery where the task is not too easy, not too hard — it’s just right. Also, just the right spot for learning similar to Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development. In that model when you’re out of your comfort zone, and not in your anxiety zone you’re in the learning zone. And yet another way of looking at it, still without as catchy a name as Goldilocks

LANGUISHING

Meh. Blah. Can't be bothered? Not excited about the future? Perhaps you're languishing. Adam Grant's NYT article, There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing, resonated with so many people as the coronavirus pandemic drew on. While not having a mental illness or being clinically depressed, many of us associated with a general stagnation or apathy towards things GOODHART’S LAW: WHEN A MEASURE BECOMES A TARGET, IT CEASE Goodhart’s Law: when a measure becomes a target, it cease to be a good measure. In other words, if you pick a measure to assess people’s performance, then we find a way to game it. I like the illustration of a nail factory that sets number of nails produced as their measure of productivity and the workers figure out they can get

tons of

THE STORY SPINE

Kenn Adams’s story spine is a wonderfully simple and flexible backbone for creating or analysing stories. I learned it from Dan Klein at Stanford as a fun improvising game: standing in a circle each person in turn takes on the next step of the story spine making up what happens. You’ll effortlessly produce some fascinating and amusing stories. We would extend the middle section as many

THE LEARNING PIT

James Nottingham's metaphor of The Learning Pit illustrates the struggle before "getting it." It's the learning journey of approaching a new concept, uncovering conflicts or contradictions with your knowledge, confusion, beginning to put new ideas together and finally the clarity of a new concept mastered. There are natural parallels to other models like the stages of competence, Lev Vygotsky BICEPS, TRICEPS, QUADRICEPS Biceps, triceps, quadriceps. One day after swimming front crawl, which works the triceps nicely, it all became clear. The triceps muscle has a curious shape at the top on account of its three 'heads' — or connecting origins. And the name derives from tri-ceps from latin meaning three-heads. And so it goes. The biceps is a two-headed muscle MANAGER TIME, MAKER TIME In Manager Time a day is neatly sliced up into hourly chunks according to the calendar. Meeting someone is as easy as finding a free slot that coincides. You don’t have to worry too much about what you’ll be doing next as your calendar will tell you. In Maker Time a day is an open book to get something hard and meaningful done. Even thinking when a meeting might be and remembering to go

SKETCHPLANATIONS

Explaining the world one sketch at a time. About Archive Tags Search Subscribe Patreon Prints Archive Tags Search Subscribe Patreon Prints

SKETCHPLANATIONS

So I set myself the challenge of explaining something with a sketch — as explaining is a handy skill. Over 2013 -14 I posted one sketchplanation a day. Since then I switched to one per week, and the quality improved. You can follow how it suits you: Get a new sketchplanation by email

SKETCHPLANATIONS

Sketchplanations - A weekly explanation in a sketch. 🎉 Welcome! Subscription confirmed. I'm Jono and I create all the sketchplanations you see. You just made me happy by joining the list. Thanks! Now the plan is to make you happy too, with interesting, surprising, clarifying and easy-to-absorb sketches that may, after enough of them,

even

GOLDILOCKS TASKS

The sweet spot for flow and mastery where the task is not too easy, not too hard — it’s just right. Also, just the right spot for learning similar to Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development. In that model when you’re out of your comfort zone, and not in your anxiety zone you’re in the learning zone. And yet another way of looking at it, still without as catchy a name as Goldilocks

LANGUISHING

Meh. Blah. Can't be bothered? Not excited about the future? Perhaps you're languishing. Adam Grant's NYT article, There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing, resonated with so many people as the coronavirus pandemic drew on. While not having a mental illness or being clinically depressed, many of us associated with a general stagnation or apathy towards things GOODHART’S LAW: WHEN A MEASURE BECOMES A TARGET, IT CEASE Goodhart’s Law: when a measure becomes a target, it cease to be a good measure. In other words, if you pick a measure to assess people’s performance, then we find a way to game it. I like the illustration of a nail factory that sets number of nails produced as their measure of productivity and the workers figure out they can get

tons of

THE STORY SPINE

Kenn Adams’s story spine is a wonderfully simple and flexible backbone for creating or analysing stories. I learned it from Dan Klein at Stanford as a fun improvising game: standing in a circle each person in turn takes on the next step of the story spine making up what happens. You’ll effortlessly produce some fascinating and amusing stories. We would extend the middle section as many

THE LEARNING PIT

James Nottingham's metaphor of The Learning Pit illustrates the struggle before "getting it." It's the learning journey of approaching a new concept, uncovering conflicts or contradictions with your knowledge, confusion, beginning to put new ideas together and finally the clarity of a new concept mastered. There are natural parallels to other models like the stages of competence, Lev Vygotsky BICEPS, TRICEPS, QUADRICEPS Biceps, triceps, quadriceps. One day after swimming front crawl, which works the triceps nicely, it all became clear. The triceps muscle has a curious shape at the top on account of its three 'heads' — or connecting origins. And the name derives from tri-ceps from latin meaning three-heads. And so it goes. The biceps is a two-headed muscle MANAGER TIME, MAKER TIME In Manager Time a day is neatly sliced up into hourly chunks according to the calendar. Meeting someone is as easy as finding a free slot that coincides. You don’t have to worry too much about what you’ll be doing next as your calendar will tell you. In Maker Time a day is an open book to get something hard and meaningful done. Even thinking when a meeting might be and remembering to go

SKETCHPLANATIONS

Sketchplanations - A weekly explanation in a sketch. 🎉 Welcome! Subscription confirmed. I'm Jono and I create all the sketchplanations you see. You just made me happy by joining the list. Thanks! Now the plan is to make you happy too, with interesting, surprising, clarifying and easy-to-absorb sketches that may, after enough of them,

even

THE LEARNING PIT

James Nottingham's metaphor of The Learning Pit illustrates the struggle before "getting it." It's the learning journey of approaching a new concept, uncovering conflicts or contradictions with your knowledge, confusion, beginning to put new ideas together and finally the clarity of a new concept mastered. There are natural parallels to other models like the stages of competence, Lev Vygotsky

SKETCHPLANATIONS

You are not free to use them for commercial purposes like publishing a collection of sketchplanations or some giant marketing campaign, billboard, selling t-shirts and the like. However, if you’d like to, great! Just get in touch and we can discuss it. If you email me I can send on my highest resolution copies: jono.hey@gmail.com.

5 WAYS TO WELLBEING

5 simple, evidence-based, ways to improve mental capital and mental wellbeing throughout life. Developed by the New Economics Foundation, the 5 ways to wellbeing are: Connect With the people around you. With family, friends, colleagues and neighbours. At home, work, school or in your local community. Think of these as the cornerstones of your life and invest time in developing them. MANAGER TIME, MAKER TIME In Manager Time a day is neatly sliced up into hourly chunks according to the calendar. Meeting someone is as easy as finding a free slot that coincides. You don’t have to worry too much about what you’ll be doing next as your calendar will tell you. In Maker Time a day is an open book to get something hard and meaningful done. Even thinking when a meeting might be and remembering to go PASSING ON AN INSIDE BEND We all know that racing drivers overtake on the inside — it's the shorter, faster route. It was only relatively recently that I've found how useful it can be on a long drive too, not for racing, but for using the bend on a multilane road for easier, safer overtaking. Perhaps this scenario will resonate: after cruising at a steady speed for miles of a long journey you slowly catch up with a THE POMODORO TECHNIQUE ® The Pomodoro Technique ®. A super simple method to help you get your tasks done. Named after a pomodoro (tomato) kitchen timer, the essence of it involves considering in advance how many pomodoros you might need for what you want to get done, setting your timer for, normally, 25 minutes and then focusing on your task until the time’s up. YOU GET WHAT YOU MEASURE You get what you measure. Sir Arthur Eddington, an English astrophysicist, told a short story involving a scientist studying fish by pulling them up with nets. After checking all the fish hauled up, the scientist concludes that there is a minimum size of fish in the sea. But the fish seen were determined by the size of the holes in the

net, the

DATA INFORMATION KNOWLEDGE WISDOM In his poem The Rock, T.S. Eliot wrote: Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? In these short lines he touched on an intriguing differentiation between wisdom, knowledge and information. Add data at the beginning and people have proposed various models such as a hierarchy, chain, or pyramid to THE SWISS CHEESE MODEL The Swiss Cheese Model. Despite all our best intentions, accidents happen. Analysis of accidents in large complex systems such as power stations or plane crashes led to an understanding that "no one failure, human or technical, is sufficient to cause an accident. Rather, it involves the unlikely and often unforeseeable conjunction

of several

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Explaining the world one sketch at a time About Archive Tags Search Subscribe

Patreon Prints

Explaining the world one sketch at a time About Archive Tags Search Subscribe

Patreon Prints

UMBRELLAS AND FUNNELS Much of the success of a good manager or leader is making sure your team can get the right work done. The demands on a team, say a product team in a tech company, increase as…Much of the success of a good manager or leader is making sure your team can get the right work done. The demands on a team, say a product team in a tech company, increase as organisations grow. Before you know it there are requests from all sides that can sap a team's time, energy, and ability to get the key work done. Todd Jackson, former product manager of Gmail, memorably shared that a manager can be an umbrella or a funnel. The umbrella protects their team to let them get work done and the funnel lets everything pour through. All of us want autonomy to choose our own actions but none of us want to be overwhelmed. Be the umbrella. Order printWWWMuch of the success of a good manager or leader is making sure your team can get the right work done. The demands on a team, say a product team in a tech company, increase as organisatio…Read more…

THE CURB-CUT EFFECT

The curb-cut effect illustrates how when we design to benefit disadvantaged or vulnerable groups we end up helping society as a whole. Angela Glover Blackwell explains how…The curb-cut effect illustrates how when we design to benefit disadvantaged or vulnerable groups we end up helping society as a whole. Angela Glover Blackwell explains how campaigning by students with disabilities in Berkeley in the early 1970s led to adding curb cuts to the Berkeley sidewalks to make access easier for those in wheelchairs. Yet it wasn't just people in wheelchairs that it helped. Curb cuts also made life easier for people pushing children in strollers, people using trolleys for deliveries, people pulling a suitcase, those wheeling bikes or on skateboards, and it also helps save lives by guiding people to cross at safe locations. Another example is adding closed captioning to TV that helps anyone watch in a noisy bar, a waiting room, or watching an airline safety video. Or a classic example of universal design in the OXO Good Grips range originally made to be comfortable for holding a peeler even if you have arthritis. It's also a useful analogy for "how laws and programs designed to benefit vulnerable groups, such as the disabled or people of color, often end up benefiting all," (PolicyLink) whether that be increasing broadband access, improving public transport or taking cuts out of curbs. Here's a short, fun video of Gary Karp explaining the curb-cut effect. Thanks to my patron Quintin Balsdon for sharing it with me. Order printWWWThe curb-cut effect illustrates how when we design to benefit disadvantaged or vulnerable groups we end up helping society as a whole. Angela Glover Blackwell explains how campaignin…Read more… WHEN DRINKING TEA, JUST DRINK TEA When drinking tea, just drink tea. While I sometimes find myself drinking coffee and reading a book with a little background music, the basic idea of this Zen proverb seems sound. Stay…When drinking tea, just drink tea. While I sometimes find myself drinking coffee and reading a book with a little background music, the basic idea of this Zen proverb seems sound. Stay in the moment. Don't try to do things at the same time. Focus on what you're doing. Leave the phone in the other room. Avoid continuous partial attention. This proverb has stuck with me since I first came across it in a NYT article from Michael Pollan in 2009, no longer available online. He later published a summary of much of his food wisdom in his simple, approachable book: Food Rules. Several of them I realised I'd covered in some form here as sketches: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants Shop healthy Buy smaller plates If it's not good enough for bugs, it's not good enough for you Sketch in the ligne claire art style of Tintin. Order printWWWWhen drinking tea, just drink tea. While I sometimes find myself drinking coffee and reading a book with a little background music, the basic idea of this Zen proverb seems sound. Stay i…Read

more…

LANGUISHING

Meh. Blah. Can't be bothered? Not excited about the future? Perhaps you're languishing. Adam Grant's NYT article, There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing,…Meh. Blah. Can't be bothered? Not excited about the future? Perhaps you're languishing. Adam Grant's NYT article, There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing, resonated with so many people as the coronavirus pandemic drew on. While not having a mental illness or being clinically depressed, many of us associated with a general stagnation or apathy towards things — an absence of, or poor, mental health. Languishing is a counterpoint to how we might feel in prime mental health, full of wellbeing or Flourishing. While languishing may not be necessarily dangerous in itself, if you're languishing you may be at higher risk of mental illness. Some steps Adam suggests we can take: Naming our state can be a first step to doing something about it Looking for small wins that show us progress Asking how our friends and family are doing — having the opportunity to speak to someone about it You also might consider working on the 5 Ways to Wellbeing, getting in some forest bathing, walking a labyrinth, aiming for some flow, noticing when you're happy, or seeing what might bring you hope. — The term languishing for that part of the mental health continuum is from Corey Keyes. See for example, Corey L. M. Keyes. “The Mental Health Continuum: From Languishing to Flourishing in Life.”Journal of Health and Social Behavior, vol. 43, no. 2, 2002, pp. 207–222. Armchair and inspiration, as usual, from Bill Watterson. Order a printWWWMeh. Blah. Can't be bothered? Not excited about the future? Perhaps you're languishing. Adam Grant's NYT article, There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing, res…Read more…

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