1. i like to write but don’t do it enough
2. seven as a quantity is enough to be interesting but not so much as to be overwhelming
3. to force myself to be more observant in my daily activities
4. to give myself a creative outlet besides my work at the d.school
5. for my parents + friends i’m not in touch with nearly enough to keep tabs on what i’m up to
6. to create a habit that’s just, well, fun
7. to feel productive – without having to go totally overboard…

i guess an introduction is in order. i’m carly, and i’m currently a student/teacher at stanford university. more specifically, i’m the designer in residence at the d.school this year before launching into phd research at stanford. i used to keep a blog a long time ago, but i haven’t updated regularly since my junior year of college. the site is still up here if you’re interested. i think i wrestled with the fact that i really liked updating but started feeling conflicted about what sort of content was appropriate to post to the web. i couldn’t write about everything that was going on in my life anymore – just some (probably less interesting) things – and that made it stressful. i also have this way of constantly trying to outdo myself, so eventually i raised the proverbial bar pretty high with my posts… and felt bad when i didn’t have the time to post updates of acceptable quality + length.

enter the seven things blog! seven things – that’s all i have to post every day. maybe some context, too, maybe not. who knows. maybe they’ll be totally superficial, like seven things i saw on my way to work today, or maybe it’ll be the result of many weeks of work, hours of pondering and reflection. above all, i want to keep this fun to read and fun to update.

sound good? i’ll see you back here tomorrow