{"id":397,"date":"2010-03-29T01:53:30","date_gmt":"2010-03-29T06:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/?p=397"},"modified":"2010-03-27T08:10:19","modified_gmt":"2010-03-27T13:10:19","slug":"a-blank-sheet-of-paper-and-a-pencil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/2010\/03\/a-blank-sheet-of-paper-and-a-pencil\/","title":{"rendered":"A Blank Sheet of Paper and a Pencil"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Dwayne Phillips<\/p>\n

As a designer and writer, two of my favorite tools are the blank sheet of paper and the pencil.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I love a blank sheet of paper. I love to have a pencil in my hand when I’m looking at a blank sheet of paper. This is freedom. There are no guidelines, no rules, nothing in the way. I can do whatever I can imagine.<\/p>\n

I start projects with a blank sheet of paper – literally with a blank sheet of paper. This is true for projects at work, projects at home, and papers and books that I am considering writing. I draw mind maps<\/a>, well something that vaguely resembles a mind map. Shown below is the mind map I drew before writing a recent paper. There are a some lines connecting ideas, some sentences, some of this and some of that. It contains whatever I was considering at the time – no rules, no guidelines, just whatever I imagined.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

And then there is the pencil. I can erase what I write with a pencil. I can also smudge it a bit, scratch through it, and do just about whatever I want to do.<\/p>\n

I think these tools – the blank sheet of paper and the pencil – are under-appreciated. We have only had these tools a few centuries, and that isn’t long relative to the course of human history.<\/p>\n

Let’s hear it for the blank sheet of paper and a pencil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Dwayne Phillips As a designer and writer, two of my favorite tools are the blank sheet of paper and the pencil. I love a blank sheet of paper. I love to have a pencil in my hand when I’m looking at a blank sheet of paper. This is freedom. There are no guidelines, no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3,5],"tags":[135,126,128],"class_list":["post-397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-technology","category-writing","tag-design","tag-technology","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":400,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions\/400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}