Two and a half years ago, I left project management to become a User Experience Designer. At the same time, I stumbled across John Stepper’s book, Working Out Loud. The book describes the benefits of sharing your work-in-progress:

“As you work out loud, you leverage principles for building meaningful relationships as well as ways to share your work, get feedback, and interact with others who share your interests. Importantly, you wrap all of this in a mindset of generosity.”  (p.31)

Coming together unexpectedly, as these things often do, I decided to give it a go.

On the morning of my first day as a UX Designer in a boutique experience transformation studio, I nervously sipped a cappuccino in a nearby café, and announced on LinkedIn that I would be sharing my journey into UX. That was my accountability sorted.

Every working day from then on, I posted something to LinkedIn with the hashtag #100DaysOfUX.

I shared reflections on my role, work, studio, and learning. I posted about things that interested me, surprised me, puzzled me. I shared my latest reads, training courses I’d found helpful, and projects I was working on at work and in my spare time.

Working out loud in this way helped me form a habit. Not a habit of posting on social media. But a habit of reflecting on my work daily, thinking about what I’d learnt, and sharing information that I thought might be of interest to others.

I gained a lot of traction, made new connections, had interesting conversations, and even had one person say to me: “When I think of UX, I think of you!”. Not bad for a newb.

Working out loud helped me adopt a more reflective, collaborative approach to learning my new craft. And, for as much as I sometimes felt vulnerable when talking about relatively new concepts for me, it also helped me build my creative confidence and self-identity as a designer.

I stopped working out loud about 14 months ago, in October 2023. Global events, and people’s responses to them, made me reconsider everything, and I decided to leave LinkedIn for (what I thought would be) ever.

Since then, I’ve not had much time to reflect.

Alongside my full-time job, and raising two little children, I’ve been trying to learn more about the world we live in. I’ve spent almost all my spare time volunteering my design skills for charities who are helping the most vulnerable people in society. And I’ve become more active in my community, standing up for human rights.

This felt like the right thing to do. It kept me sane. And it’s given me a deeper understanding and sharper focus on my identity and purpose.

Over the past year, I’ve been living my dream of working in the third sector. I’ve worked with large national charities, specialist regional charities, small not-for-profit organisations, and multi-national volunteer-led groups.

I’ve discovered what kind of designer I want to be, who I want to design with, and what change I want to create in the world. I’m still discovering.

Now, I think it’s time to start working out loud again. But this time I’ll do it on my website, my own little pocket of the internet.

Maybe people will read my words, maybe they won’t. Maybe what I share will be useful, maybe it won’t. But I’ll share anyway, in the hope that I might reach someone who will benefit.

Let me know what you think. What would you like me to share?