I was brought up in a musical family. My parents, my sisters and myself would gather in the living room and there we would begin to sing gospel songs. Mom and Dad would often utilize this time to teach us the wonderful art of music. We’d make contests of who could harmonize better and who could create a better arrangement of the song. This was my life as an ten-year old child.
Years later I began to sing at church, lead worship, sing in a band, and even record background vocals for some friends, but the real fun was to help arrange the harmony for a group of singers. I loved listening to the sound of perfect harmony. It’s true beauty. Throughout the years, my ear has been trained to listen to even the most minute details in a person’s voice. Sometimes it can be a wonderful thing, sometimes not so much.
When I heard about the International House of Prayer and The Prayer Room, I really was shocked to see so many talented people. Unless you are in a school of music, it is very rare to find a large amount of extremely good singers and musicians all located in one place. And to put the cherry on top, I live here (sigh of relief).
One of those amazing singers that I began to listen to on a constant basis was Joy Maves. What a voice. It’s like listening to 10 angels sing the most beautiful songs you’ve heard, ever. I’m not exaggerating. Since I began to listen to Joy (about three years ago), I wanted to meet her and tell her how amazing she is and how much her music had inspired me. It wasn’t until this year that I got the pleasure to meet Joy and though in the beginning I was a bit star struck and kinda giddish, I just had to tell her. Joy just smiled, kind of embarrassed, said: “Aw, thank you!”.
All that to say that I got the opportunity to work with Joy on her website and I feel incredibly blessed for being able to have done so.
Below, *drumroll please* … Joy Maves site! http://joymaves.com
As business owners with 42 things to do to get through the daily grind, not to mention long-term business goals to pursue, most of us are constantly seeking new ways to create accountability – to drag ourselves (kicking and screaming, if necessary) to the finish line.
Here’s five ways to build accountability into your daily routine:
1. Declare goals publicly. This functions on many levels. In terms of an entire company, it could mean publicly stating an ambitious goal and tying it to a date. In terms of individuals, it can mean declaring your goals in front of those you respect – your team, your inner circle of friends, or your family. The moment that you tell someone else you ARE going to do something, an outside gravitational force takes hold, making you feel more duty-bound to reach your objective.
2. Share your planning documents and to-do lists. Whether it’s a timeline with project milestones or a regular old list of to-dos, sharing your working documents transparently with your team builds trust and increases accountability. Essentially, it’s a passive way of publicly stating your agenda and creating a powerful accountability mechanism for getting things done. If your colleagues notice you are constantly missing milestones, they’ll start asking questions.
3. Rewire your focus on short-term rewards. We love instant gratification, which is why it’s so much easier to get the small, no-brainer to-dos done than the big tasks that require deep focus and hard thinking. We can spend our whole day just responding to emails, while we neglect the long-term future of our businesses. Rewiring is about finding ways to take pleasure in the long haul required to truly achieve great tasks and cause real change. We can’t get rid of our desire for short-term rewards, but we can be aware of it. The first step is identifying your long-term goals, and setting up a series of short-term rewards that keep you moving towards – and accountable to – those goals.
4. Leverage fighting to stay on track. In a work setting, we often shy away from arguments, thinking that easy agreement (and not rocking the boat) is preferable. But particularly productive teams actually encourage healthy fighting, where coworkers duke it out to explore all of the possible solutions for a given problem. While a quick consensus is comfortable, vigorous debate means our teams will stay accountable to finding the best solution.
5. List out action steps after brainstorming sessions and impromptu gatherings. Accountability often slips through the cracks when we get high on the rush of a good meeting or an ad hoc conversation about a new idea. To ensure that these daily insights get captured, every meeting of the minds should end with a quick recount of each person’s “action steps.” No amount of talking about the future helps if we don’t ensure that we’ve articulated the very concrete next steps necessary to get there.
*** This post by J.K. Glei is based on research by the Behance team. Behance runs the Behance Creative Network, the 99% productivity think thank, the Action Method project management application, and the Creative Jobs List.
I’m confused. Why does Microsoft.com have 4 different widths (header, menu, main ad area and content)? Then this random ad on the lower left side of the page. :-/
I really enjoyed Mike Kus’ talk on Web Design being art. It’s interesting how we can easily forget that we’re artists when we sink in to a project. I highly encourage any web designer to watch this.
I don’t think I’ve seen a design portfolio like this before. Very creative. Thumbs up to Mike for the awesome work!
It’s been a while since I did a print project, so this one is pretty exciting. My friends Andrea and Kenny wanted something very simple, vintage-looking, non-traditional, and I thought this would be right up my alley. They are super happy with them and I’m just so excited about the way that they turned out.
@ilovetypography twittered this awesome link today and I just have to share it! Enjoy.
Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations. -Paul Rand
Simplicity does not mean want or poverty. It does not mean the absence of any decor, or absolute nudity. It only means that the decor should belong intimately to the design proper, and that anything foreign to it should be taken away.
- Paul Jacques Grillo
A sweet grid generator that will help you with your web designs. Just plug in the number of columns and generate a png file to build your designs off of!
From: Creattica Daily
This is such a great project! I have never seen anything like it. Talk about creativity.
iQ font – When driving becomes writing / Full making of from wireless on Vimeo.
You can find more information on the project on this site: pleaseletmedesign.com. You can also view images on Flickr and download the free iQ font from Toyota.
The wonderful people from Icon Dock put this awesome list together. Since they’re in the sharing spirit, so am I. Here ya go kids!
There is nothing better than a large, open Photoshop canvas ready to be made into a beautiful work of art. Ready to express all of my fears, dreams, visions, heartaches, triumphs, successes, excitements, happiness, discouragement, sadness, and so much more that goes inside my soul. I simply love to just lay it down and begin to create beautiful art.
At times, I look at it and toss it because it’s not coming out the way that I want it to. There are times that I save it so that I can work on it later, but there are times where I sit there, minute by minute, either laughing, crying, pondering or even praying, knowing that what I’m looking at, is a reflection of my inner most feelings. Sometimes, too overwhelming to see it with just bare eyes. This type of work can only been seen with the eyes of your heart.
I love art and I love God for creating it!