Gibberish Explained

Recently someone came to me, with his glistening eyes and bright smile, he asked ''So Iman, what have you unlearned?'

Pressured to answer him there and then, I answered him with nonsense, gibberish. I couldn't even remember what i said.

Today, i'd like to share with you 2 things that i've learned, unlearned and relearned last year.

Earlier last year I was assigned to a new project. It was not ''new' per se as at the time I joined, the project is in its 4th year. So the project has its own way of doing things with the templates and guidelines etc. However, in my previous project, I was taught that improvements are never ending and it's important. I was taught to make the effort to improve in any way I can. Whenever I get a task, I would change and try to make things better as how i see it. But everytime, I'm told to refer back to the template or to just keep doing things as how it was done before. After a few times of rejections, I learned to accept that, 'Yes, improvement is a continuous thing. But it does not necessarily happen all the time. There are things that we leave as how it is, because it works'.

In my line of work, my tasks involve creating communication materials such as posters, videos, emails etc. It's nothing new to me as i've been doing it since I was in university. All i had to do is Google the image or icons i want and do some collage and Wala! Done. 

However, I cant do that anymore. The client has strict requirements with colours, fonts, type of icons etc. I would spend so much time trying to find 'The One' that complies to the requirements. But most of the time, i couldn't. So what do i do? I changed the way i do it. Instead of finding 'The One', I Google to find samples and references for me to create my own 'The One'. 

These 2 things may seem so small. But they are very challenging for me to learn, unlearn and relearn.

To the person who asked me that question, I hope the gibberish is explained.

To the rest of you, i'd like to extend the question. 

'What have you unlearned last year?'

Note: This is my speech for a Toastmaster session in January