Super8: Eight intriguing articles from November.

Today marks the last day of November. We’re standing on the precipice of the silly season—a period laden with celebrations and frivolity. As a result, this time of year is often plagued by a general lack of productivity. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

With this month’s Super8, I’ve decided to provide you all with an early gift: a productivity survival kit for the festive season. These eight articles offer practical techniques to manage stress, dream big, stay prolific, and… design smooth 60fps web animations with CSS. All of the essentials and everything to equip you for a busy holiday period. Ready? Let’s do this.

1. How to transform your stress into insane productivity, according to Harvard psychologists.

• Read the full article here.
• Written by: Elle Kaplan.  
• Submitted by: Elliott Grigg. 

We’re not suggesting the holidays are anything other than unbridled bliss with family and friends, but we’ll leave this here anyway. Just in case you need it. Stress is obviously bad for us. It can cause all sorts of negative symptoms, impacting upon our health and work output in equal measure.

However, with the right management, stress can also encourage us to perform at our peak. If you’re in danger of feeling overwhelmed, find out how to harness your stress in a positive capacity.

2. Ten principles for smooth web animations.

• Read the full article here.
• Written by: Anand Sharma.  
• Submitted by: Matt Agar.

The festive season can be erratic and unpredictable—that’s part of the appeal. Animations though? They need to run smoothly and elegantly to be effective.

A simple, well crafted animation can create huge impact for a user. Gif via The 12 Principles.

Unfortunately, there’s no singular trick for great animations, aside from spending a lot of time testing and optimising them. However, by following these ten guiding principles, you can easily create transitions and animated assets that feel smooth and work on multiple devices.

3. The golden rules of bottom navigation design.

• Read the full article here.
• Written by: Nick Babich. 
• Submitted by: Vivi Chau.  

Movement is key. Not just over the next few weeks, when the cumulative effects of turkey, ham, beef, pork, and general merriment are felt most, but also in web and app design. And particularly for mobile.

Good navigation design helps users move from ‘A’ to ‘B’ with minimum fuss and maximum enjoyment. It doesn’t matter how good your site or app is if people can’t find their way around. Check out these techniques to ensure they can.

4. Lessons from Disneyland on staying animated and keeping your dreams BIG.

• Read the full article here.
• Written by: Corey McComb.  
• Submitted by: Athalia Foo.  

Walt Disney famously said:

‘too many people grow up. That’s the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up’.

Well, what better time to embrace your wide-eyed inner-kid than the lead up to Christmas?

Let’s dig up and dust off that childhood magic; let’s forget goals and go back to dreams. The only issue with dreams is they very rarely impact on any kind of reality. With these lessons from Disneyland, you can ensure your ‘dreaming’ always results in ‘doing’.

5. Fighting front-end fatigue.

• Read the full article here.
• Written by: David Berner. 
•  Submitted by: Kurt Smith.

Time flies at the end of the year, with everything and everyone so busy. When you work in front-end dev, everything’s always moving quickly and there’s a constant stream of things to learn, know, master, and do. At a snapshot, you’re expected to be familiar with HTML, CSS, JS, SVG, WebGL, accessibility, responsive principles, and visual design basics.

Here, David Berner offers some tips on fighting the exhaustion associated with constant professional development. And while this piece specifically focuses on the fatigue of the front-end developer, there are valuable techniques for everyone—whatever your craft.

6. Thirty-two ways to find time for what matters.

• Read the full article here.
• Written by: Paul Boag.  
• Submitted by: Mark Davis.  

Interesting fact: you have the exact same amount of time in the day as all of the CEOs, Nobel Prize laureates, professional athletes, rocket scientists, and brain surgeons in the world. How do they accomplish so much? Probably with vast collaborative networks and comprehensive support infrastructure. But also, through effective time management techniques. Up your game and get more done.

7. How to build technology that feels like a friend.

• Read the full article here.
• Written by: Nir Eyal.  
• Submitted by: Steph Little.

In the coming month, you probably have to pick up all of the ingredients for Christmas lunch. Prepare the ingredients. Cook lunch. Cook dinner. Shop for presents. Wrap the presents. Put up the tree. Decorate the tree. Pack up the tree. Prepare for New Years. Recover from New Years. And all on top of your regular daily responsibilities—at work and home.

You need a friend. With a CUI, you can have the next best thing: a piece of technology that feels like a friend, conveniently located in your phone, tablet, or desktop.

8. 100 excuses for designers.

• Read the full article here.
• Written by Jon Moore.  
• Submitted by: John Broadfoot.

And what if it all gets too much? What if this productivity survival kit fails you and you’re… unproductive over the holidays? Well, my friends, this piece here is your cherished last resort. Your parachute. Your safety net. Your get out of jail card.

This is ‘break glass in case of emergency’ in blog-post format.

Be warned though—to dabble in these excuses is to partake in the dark arts. We don’t advocate for excuses. But we do advocate for laughs, and some of these are just too good not to share. The holidays are a time for joy, after all.