The true cost of listening
This week's newsletter is free, but full of value. Just like listening
Surprise! It’s me again.
I know, I’ve had some trouble publishing consecutive weeks recently but I’m glad to be able to this week.
It does mean I don’t have a tutorial in this week’s edition but there are still some inspiring links and a visual meditation for you. Plus some thoughts on sketchnote icon banks.
Interesting links
Are you a procreate user? Then you’ll probably find these 100 procreate tips useful.
Leave a comment with your favourite.
Did you know there are 9 forms of intelligence? I’m not sure if deciphering French from sketchnotes is one of them, but it should be.
Drawing too easy? Try the single-line sketchnote challenge. For each icon, you can’t take your pen off the paper till it’s finished.
I know I share a lot of procreate related content (because I use it so much), but maybe we should switch to Adobe Fresco…
The Cost of Listening is $0
But the rewards are priceless.
So many of us listen just to be able to speak.
But listening is invaluable.
In relationships
for customer research
to learn, develop, and grow
In each case, we need to listen and learn from other people.
Many of us know this, but in the moment of conversation, our natural desire to add or take over a conversation kicks in.
What’s helped me (in 1-2-1 conversations) is to mentally acknowledge “I’m listening” and then wait till I’m asked (explicitly or implicitly) to contribute my ideas.
It’s a small action but it helps me.
Sketchnote icon banks (or libraries)
I used to roll my eyes when I heard people say “You should keep a sketchnote icon bank.”
But three events changed my mind last year (you can read why here).
Since then I’ve discovered even more benefits once I actually started keeping an icon bank.
One of the biggest differences is I don’t just store icons, I have a table of layouts and frameworks too. These are reference points and inspiration I can peek at to work out how to arrange information.
Although I’m a massive Obsidian fan, I’ve been using Notion for this use case as I find it easier to navigate as a database and to share with others (but I may well shift everything over soon).
If you’d like to give it a try, check out my free printable worksheet (for you analogue sketchers) and Notion template (for storing ideas).
I’d love to know if you use an icon bank or have a different system. Leave a comment and share.
See you next week
Thanks for popping by. I’ve been hard at work on a couple of full sketchnotes and I hope to share some more next week.
See you then!
P.s. I haven’t forgotten sketch 30. I just had different priorities for the moment.