Ins and outs for 2025
What I'm leaving in 2024 and what I'm looking forward to in 2025
Hi, I’m Maureen and I work as a product designer and design content creator. The Cursor Magazine is my online publication on design, workshop facilitation and career.
Happy New Year!
The new year always feels exciting to me. Even when new year’s resolutions aren’t really my thing, January does feel like a fresh start. Every end of the year I take stock of what went well, set a mantra for the coming year and reconnect with habits that benefit my life.
Here are my ins and outs for the coming year.
2025 - Outs
1. Social Media
Last November I decided to say goodbye to my community on Instagram after 4,5 years and stop posting under ux.collection.
It wasn’t an easy choice, because my activity on social media brought me so much joy and growth. For years this was the thing I spend most of my free time on and it was so rewarding to receive messages from strangers on the internet who told me my content helped their career.
At the same time, the superficiality of social media started to bore me. Past autumn I decided to focus my energy on other things like building my community on Superpeer. Unfortunately, Superpeer was sunsetted by the end of 2024 and with that came an end to my very short-lived community.
I took it as a sign to re-evaluate how much time I spend online. In the past year I’ve noticed that is quite difficult to balance my online activities with building up a new life in a new city. I invest a lot of my time now in building new friendships, exploring Amsterdam and enjoying living together with my partner and frankly - I wouldn’t want to change that.
Will I start a new community on another platform? I’m not entirely sure, but I do know that social media will not be my focuspoint for 2025.
2. Design as an identity
With spending so much time sharing design content online, design became a big part of my identity in the past years. In the past year I’ve learned how that identity can also be very limiting. I now see design as something I do instead of something I am.
3. Focus on tools
Over the years Figma almost became synonymous to UX design. Become skilled at Figma and you’ll be a great designer? This notion worries me. Design is way more than Figma or even hard skills in general. I hope that in 2025 we can shift our focus on tools towards a focus on practice.
4. Money-driven growth
In the past 1,5 years I’ve focused on financial growth within my career. Though I never saw myself as a money-driven person, I can’t deny the relief financial security brings.
Being able to plan for the future while also enjoying my life the way I want to is something I’m very grateful for. However, what I did not expect is to pay the price in terms of mental health.
The past year have been extremely taxing on my physical and mental wellbeing. I’m learning to listen to my intuition more and take better care of myself.
2025 - Ins
1. Long-form content
Doomscrolling really became my escapism from stress at work. Recently I installed Opal to block distracting apps and that has been really helpful to spend less time on my phone.
Besides spending less time on my phone, I also want to be more intentional with what content I still do consume.
It seems like I’m not the only one.
I’ve noticed a shift towards longer-form content with more (niche) newsletters and blogs popping up over the past year. I’m excited to write and read more long-form content in 2025 and I already have a bunch of essays in my drafts that I can’t wait to share with you.
2. Design as a soft skill
Throughout my career I’ve learned that being able to communicate clearly, play as a team, facilitate decision-making and other soft skills are as impactful or perhaps even more impactful than being skilled in Figma or other tools and methodologies. This year I want develop these skills even more.
3. Value-based growth
One thing that really motivates me and makes me feel excited about this year is finding opportunities to develop my career in line with my values. That’s not so easy. How can we have a more positive impact on our society as designers? Do we want too much - is a job not just a job? More on that in a later newsletter.
What are your ins and outs for the year? Do you have new year’s resolutions that you’re excited to achieve? I’d love to know - feel free to reply to this email or comment below!