Mapping your Practice

An exercise to help make sense of what you’re good at, what you want to learn, and what you love to do at work. Presented at World IA Day DC 2021. 

Welcome! Glad you made it. Grab the Mural template to make your own map, and if you do the exercise, please share your thoughts. 

If you don't have access to Mural and can't or don't want to do their 30-day free trial, drop me a line. 

Let me know how it went!

If you do the map, I’d love your feedback — please fill out the form. 

Interpreting the Map

Top Right // High Skill, High Enjoyment // Core Skills

These are the main strengths of your practice, where you shine. Spending your time doing these things keeps you in your happy place, and takes you deeper into your expertise.

Bottom Right // Less Skill, High Enjoyment // Growth Areas

These are where you can invest your time. You enjoy the work, so now you can build the skill through training or opportunities to practice.

Top Left // High Skill, Low Enjoyment  // Meh.

These are ...  fine. You’re good at it, but you don’t love it. Minimizing how much of your time you’re spending on these will leave more time for things on the right side of the map. 

Bottom Left // Low Skill, Low Enjoyment // The Wasteland (or Opportunities)

These aren’t a priority. But, they’re still still worth looking at, especially if they’re things you get asked to do often. In that case, putting some energy into getting better at them may at least make you more efficient … and if in the process if you end up disliking it less, bonus. 

Unused Cards // Possibilities

We can’t be experts in everything. But clearly the many pieces of design are interdependent. Learning a little more might help you work more effectively with people who do get joy from doing these things.