In the previous article that I wrote in this series, I talked about dealing with the massive overwhelm that you experience as you delve into any new subject; which was something I was struggling with early on when I decided to get into UX. During my initial overview of the subject, the more I knew, the more I knew I didn’t know.

I’ve also talked a little bit about the benefits of going the self-taught route and skipping expensive traditional educational routes when you’re first getting started.

The biggest benefits of being self-taught:

1. Saving money (or even staying out of more debt like I wanted to after my undergrad…

December 2020

This is mainly a record for me to see growth and trends over time. That said, I hope that it might offer some transparency as I get started for others that might be interested as well!

A bit of background on me

I’m definitely not a professional writer, but I’ve done a few blog posts on things that interest me in the past. I also loved writing in school. I’m currently a UX Designer for a software company and I travel full-time in my RV while working remotely. I’ve been writing about design, personal finance, being a digital nomad and some of my past life experiences.

Focus of this month

Last month, my focus was doing a ton of research, getting involved with communities of writers to learn from, and increasing my presence to grow my audience. I started putting all of that in place, and this month I really went into “doing mode”. …

This year I had a grand total of 3 glasses of wine.

I didn’t purposely set a limit, it’s just what ended up happening. The actual goal was to be more mindful of when I chose to drink. I was curious about what I might learn about my own relationship with it and see how I might choose to change my habits moving forward based on what I learned with this more hands-on approach.

Over the course of the year, that decision has drastically changed how I view my relationship with drinking and our collective culture around it. This time has helped me see how obsessed we are with it to solve all of our problems. It helped me see that many of our socialized expectations around it are unintentionally toxic and more often than not, we enable long-term addiction and discourage healthy coping mechanisms. …

I’ve recently been writing about my switch into Tech and offering help to those that are also making the switch. Part of sharing my process is also sharing my results. This article goes over what I’ve made in 2019 and 2020 as I’ve moved from a Junior UX Designer to a Mid-level UX designer.

• If you’re interested in getting into UX without going back to school, here is an article on how exactly I did that.
• If you want to see how much money I made during the 1st year as an intern and as a Junior UX Designer at a top company, here’s a breakdown of that. …

There are 2 things that most of us seem to struggle with in some capacity:

1. Our Jobs — getting one, keeping one, and balancing work with our lives.
2. Our Money — Making it, managing it, and growing it.

But what if you could stop worrying about both of these things early on? That’s exactly what the FIRE movement is all about. …

We got engaged 2 years ago, and we still aren’t married. To be honest, I’m not sure we ever will be. At first, I was confused and anxious about my cold feet. I was initially so excited about being engaged…

At the best of times, I told myself that maybe it was normal. At the worst of times, I thought I must not love my fiance enough, or there was something awfully wrong with me if I didn’t want to go through with the wedding I’d already agreed to.

I now know that neither of those is the case.

It wasn’t our relationship, it was the wedding and the institution of marriage that had me on edge… and I’m far from alone in feeling this way. …

November 2020

This is mainly a record for me to see growth and trends over time. That said, I hope that it might offer some transparency as I get started for others that might be interested as well!

A bit of background on me

I’m definitely not a professional writer, but I’ve done a few blog posts on things that interest me in the past. I also loved writing in school. I’m currently a UX Designer for a software company and I travel full-time in my RV while working remotely. I’ve been writing about design, personal finance, being a digital nomad and some of my past life experiences.

Focus of this month

I’ve been doing a ton of research and have been learning from the successful writers that are already here to get better with my overall strategy and to become a better writer. …

I see articles all the time saying that UX Designers absolutely must learn how to code; otherwise, you’ll soon be out of a job.

My opinion after actually learning to code? — You don’t need it. Not yet at least. But you still might want to learn, here’s why.

It can help you:

• Land a UX job, or get a better one — even if you don’t have a background in tech
• Make your life easier by giving you a common vocabulary to communicate with your more technical peers
• Be better at your job by having an understanding of the real constraints of your product and your team (in ways that other designers may not) so that you can design the best solution possible, quickly. …