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  "description": "What drives your decision making: do you start with thinking or feeling? Each approach has different results but one is the product designer’s super power.",
  "path": "/think-act-feel/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-06T12:37:25.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.designy.com",
  "tags": [
    "Apple Podcasts",
    "Spotify",
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    "RSS.com for more...",
    "Become a guest on The Daily Sprint...",
    "whole course on making vague requirements clear."
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  "textContent": "<a href=\"https://rss.com/podcasts/the-daily-sprint/2692116/\">Think. Act. Feel. | RSS.com</a>\n\n_Subscribe on your favorite platform_\nApple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | RSS.com for more...\n\nBecome a guest on The Daily Sprint...\n\n* * *\n\n## Transcript\n\nIt's The Daily Sprint.\n\nI'm Darrell Estabrook, you know the drill.\n\nWe're here to make sense of all the design, chaos, and design with a _why._\n\nToday we're talking about what drives your decision making.\n\nDo you start with thinking or with feeling?\n\nEach approach has different results.\n\nIt affects both your decision making and how you guide others to make decisions.\n\nI'm also the founder of designing a platform for product designers who want to design with a why.\n\nI coach designers into leaders through real-time interactive products specific guidance.\n\nFind out more and get on board with a free newsletter at designy.com that's design with a “y” .com.\n\nSo glad you're here.\n\nIt's episode 12.\n\nIt's like an even dozen.\n\nLike eggs.\n\nSo we're talking design with thinking versus feeling.\n\nSo I don't know if you've ever thought of that before.\n\nWe are all rational people as well as emotional people.\n\nAnd a lot of times design, product design focuses all on the rational or very much on the emotional, depending on what you're doing, marketing, analytics, like it's all mixed.\n\nWe like to mix them together.\n\nI think the ideal product is something that has taken both into account.\n\nBecause at the end of the day, there's a person using the software and they're going to be affected by these things.\n\nWe can't take away our emotions.\n\nAnd we can't just think about everything in bits.\n\nSo there's something to that.\n\nAnd I think the idea of thinking versus feeling, it's really, it's not one or the other, it's not really fixed.\n\nI mean, you may just tend to think about things more or you might tend to feel things more.\n\nThere's all sorts of personality tests out there, to try to help you gauge, you know, what am I?\n\nMore thinking, more feeling.\n\nAnd those are helpful maybe.\n\nI don't know, to some degree.\n\nYou can't put all your stock in that because at the end of the day, you have to do something.\n\nSo, where does that fall?\n\nSo I think you're just trying to understand what your default tendency is.\n\nAnd you'll follow that.\n\nSo that's kind of your natural inclination to think more, to feel more.\n\nBut it's advantageous to recognize which one your default is, and then work on the other one.\n\nSo that takes some intentional doing.\n\nBut I'd like to maybe back it up even further and think a little bit more about these 2 approaches.\n\nAnd they're kind of phrased in a very memorable way.\n\nSo I kind of little play on words, but I think they set up a framework that when we're talking about design decisions, working with people helping them make design decisions, understanding where people are coming from, like all that stuff is part of the design designer job.\n\nThis might be really good.\n\nSo 2 different approaches to any situation.\n\nHere you go.\n\nFeel, act, think.\n\nThat's that's one flow of events.\n\nThe other one is think, act, feel.\n\nSo look, think about this in a bit.\n\nFeel, act, think.\n\nSo that progression starts out with emotion, feel.\n\nYou feel something.\n\nAnd that drives you to take an action.\n\nAnd then you think about the consequences afterwards.\n\nSo, emotion, take an action, and then think, it's very reactionary, right?\n\nAnd we'll talk about it a little bit more in a minute, the details on that.\n\nThe other one think, act, feel. Is where you consider the possible consequences of a decision.\n\nThen you make a decision, and then you accept the feelings that result from that decision.\n\nHopefully they're positive, right?\n\nIt's more strategic. Think, act, feel.\n\nSo let's break these down because I think the 2 really play off of each other.\n\nAnd notice act is in the middle.\n\nSo we're taking action, and that's like the core of the daily sprint, right?\n\nWe have this one day to work on our work, to live, exist, to provide an impact to people.\n\nSo we're acting unless you're in bed all day.\n\nYou're doing something.\n\nSo what are you doing, right?\n\nSo what drives those actions?\n\nAnd then what are the results of it?\n\nAnd, you know, reactionary results or strategic results.\n\nSo feel act, think.\n\nLet's think of that one for a minute.\n\nIt's very common. Overall in life, right?\n\nYou think, feel like thing.\n\nThe 1st thing I think of is marketing.\n\nI think of advertising.\n\nIf you've ever seen an ad, it's a lot of time structured in a way to evoke emotion.\n\nYou feel, you see the product and how desirable it is, and then you buy it.\n\nAnd then you think about whether that was a good decision or not.\n\nRight.\n\nSo there's a lot of that.\n\nI mean it's everywhere.\n\nYou think of, devices, you know, whatever.\n\nThe marketing is not bad. Advertising is not bad, right?\n\nYou have to talk about the thing that you're doing, right?\n\nBut how is it pushed, right?\n\nWhat is it highlighting?\n\nAnd that's our default.\n\nI think that's a human nature thing. Where we're very much emotional, our feelings are always changing, even through the course of the day.\n\nI'm sure you could plot it.\n\nI think there are apps out there.\n\nYou could plot out your emotions over the day.\n\nAnd how much that helps you or not.\n\nI don't know.\n\nIt could be just interesting.\n\nI think, like, if you haven't eaten since breakfast.\n\nYou're probably feeling hungry, right?\n\nThat's not good or bad.\n\nWe all get hungry.\n\nBut that feeling is going to drive you to act. And eat something or maybe not eat something.\n\nI't know, but eat something, right?\n\nYou're hungry, you eat something, and then you're not hungry afterwards, right?\n\nThe feeling went away.\n\nAnd that's probably why they say don't shop on an empty stomach.\n\nIf you ever go to the grocery store hungry, everything looks good.\n\nEven the Brussels sprouts.\n\nWell, maybe not the Brussels sprouts.\n\nI have to draw a line somewhere.\n\nBut here, you have a feeling.\n\nAnd then you don't have a feeling.\n\nSo it's kind of like the basis of a decision is based on a feeling.\n\nIt can be very shaky.\n\nRight?\n\nSo the pitfalls of kind of operating this way is that there's unintended consequences or it might not necessarily be unpredictable, but you might not want things to turn out a certain way if you just act on feelings.\n\nUm, I am really hungry.\n\nI see a king-sized candy bar.\n\nI am going to eat 5 of them.\n\nIt's not unpredictable.\n\nYou'll have a sour stomach.\n\nBut you won't be hungry for a little bit.\n\nUm, satisfying the hunger consequence was satisfied, you know, that accomplished, cha-ching, but unintended sickness and health issues afterwards.\n\nNot what I want.\n\nBut I did it anyway.\n\nYou know, making these design decisions.\n\nYou know, we'll get into that too.\n\nIf we're going on feelings versus thinking out the outcomes.\n\nI think when it comes to leading meetings, you know, when we talk about having an agenda for a meeting, I used to think that that was very formal and and stuffy.\n\nBut later on now, I think, oh, well, if we don't have a goal for why we're meeting, then what are we going to talk about?\n\nAnd it could just end up being feeling feeling oriented.\n\nThere's so much talk about AI vibe coding.\n\nI think that's like the epitome of feeling, acting, and then thinking.\n\nThere's no strategy.\n\nWell, there's there is a reason you sat down and started prompting the AI, right?\n\nYou have an idea.\n\nI want to create this thing.\n\nBut the idea of vibe coding this emotional pushing and pulling.\n\nThere's something to be said about it.\n\nI think of a potter. And clay and you know, painting, you know, all these things that you start working on.\n\nAnd then you kind of adjust your approach.\n\nThat's, you know, it's a thin line between.. Feeling and then exploring the design.\n\nYeah, those are those are very interesting.\n\nBut we're talking about if you're on the extreme, right?\n\nThat's our default, we don't want to always just be reactionary because the designs are going to be unpredictable.\n\nAnd just regretting the actions when they don't result in something predictable or desirable, right?\n\nIt's, You can hope all day that things will turn out a certain way, even despite actions which would prove otherwise, and then be disappointed.\n\nSo just because you want something to happen doesn't mean it will happen and where it's predictable or understandable, then it doesn't start to make sense why to start with feeling things.\n\nBut you can recognize this sort of approach when you sense that there's nothing objective that we're talking about, like this agenda in the meeting, or even the feature, uh, if we're, if there's no outcome identified, whether it's stated this is the outcome or not.\n\nIf there's no, if there's nothing we're pushing towards, then that could be a little signal.\n\nHey, we might just be feeling out this feature.\n\nWe really want this feature to turn out a certain way.\n\nBut there's no basis for it to turn out that way.\n\nSo we need to get down to an outcome.\n\nIf you start to notice a swirl of conversation, right?\n\nIt's, I've described it as a balloon, like one of those long balloons as partially filled up and you squeeze one end of it and all the air pushes to the other side and then you let go and you squeeze on the other side of the balloon and the air goes to the other side.\n\nIt's like, we're not actually filling up the balloon anymore.\n\nWe're moving the air around.\n\nSo conversations can happen that way too.\n\nSo you start to detect a swirl.\n\nIt might be a clue.\n\nHey, we're feeling instead of thinking.\n\nFirst, right?\n\nAnd this idea of outcome or goal or future, the idea that there's no long term why that's been defined, except for the moment, or the release, or the short term, you know, we got to get this feature out quickly.\n\nYou know, those things start to be the reaction result.\n\nWe've got a user that's complaining about this thing.\n\nLet's go fix it.\n\nLike that's feeling versus thinking.\n\nThere's nothing wrong with addressing those issues.\n\nPeople are always going to have insight into what's happening in the product, but then what do you do with it?\n\nSo that kind of follows that idea, right?\n\nSo feel, act, think.\n\nAnd we really, that shouldn't be the default, right?\n\nFeelings aren't bad.\n\nWe're going to talk about that right here.\n\nBut we want to flip it, right?\n\nSo think, act, feel.\n\nNow, if feelings are default, then thinking is not our default, that's a way to approach it.\n\nSo that means we have to intentionally think we have to take some purposing in our hearts to say, hey, this is important.\n\nI need a retool.\n\nWe need to engage thinking first.\n\nAnd that takes a bit of overriding this default, emotional instinct.\n\nIt's just, you know, reaction.\n\nWe want to react.\n\nWe want to help people with those features that are broken, right?\n\nIt's not bad.\n\nThat's a really good thing.\n\nBut to pause and start to think about the implications of that is really good.\n\nSo that means you have to be aware that it's happening, that we're feeling 1st.\n\nWe have to kind of pause.\n\nAnd it takes time to reflect, right?\n\nThinking is not necessarily instantaneous.\n\nNow, there are those who, either through talent or experience, can assess a situation and think through the consequences and produce a strategy in very short order, and depending on how complex it is, it could be in the moment even.\n\nAnd that's awesome.\n\nThat's like something to a strive for to achieve.\n\nI want to be that.\n\nAnd I've seen that.\n\nI've been able to do that in some cases in some expertise, you know, areas.\n\nI think those that you have practiced in over the years.\n\nYou may also have that ability.\n\nThat's great.\n\nHow can we expand that so that it becomes more of the norm?\n\nRight?\n\nBut taking time to reflect.\n\nIt might be something where there's a phone call.\n\nThe emotion happens. Let's instead of making a decision right then.\n\nIt's like, hey, let's let me get back to you in an hour.\n\nLet me get back to you tomorrow.\n\nThat's a way to put a little, you know, pump the brakes, as they say.\n\nDoes anyone pump breaks anymore?\n\nI don't think so.\n\nBut you're right?\n\nPut a little put a little halt on that.\n\nBut there's a great upside to thinking 1st and and then acting, right?\n\nThe objective nature of making a decision really comes to bear.\n\nSo there's reasons for decisions.\n\nSomeone can say, hey, why did you do it that way?\n\nWhy did you design this screen in a certain way?\n\nYou will have an answer for every aspect of what you did.\n\nIt's one of the things that's really difficult with AI generated screens is you don't know why it's there.\n\nThere might be some explanation and things like that.\n\nAnd that's a deeper topic, but without being able to truly understand the thinking, it's very hard to understand if the outcome will be what we intend.\n\nRight?\n\nWhen you think first.\n\nYou're considering the consequences.\n\nAnd those are good consequences aren't good or bad either, right?\n\nThey're just the result of a decision.\n\nWe think of bad consequences, like I ate 5 king-sized candy bars, not good.\n\nThe consequence of immediately eating it might be awesome, right?\n\nBut that's not where it stops.\n\nSo, considering the consequences is very beneficial design consequences, right?\n\nIf we stop to fix this feature for this user, have we really made an impact to all the users or by fixing it?\n\nAre we breaking something else?\n\nAre we going to cause other workflows to fall apart because of this one fix?\n\nOr does this one fix suddenly make other features more complicated?\n\nLots of things to consider?\n\nBut the flip side of that, though, is you can plan for exceptions.\n\nBecause when you're thinking, and you're thinking of those consequences, you're like, okay, well, there's a lot that's good in this, except for these bits.\n\nSo let's design for that.\n\nLet's let's cut off the feature at that point or let's go forward, but we're going to have to design a few extra contingencies in order to not have it all fall apart.\n\nSo that's really good.\n\nAnd when you're when you're thinking first, you're actually stepping into a leadership position of directing and not reacting.\n\nAnd directing is a really fun position to be in.\n\nIt's like the orchestra conductor, right?\n\nDirecting all the instruments, you know, when to come in for this section, you know, instrument, when to fade out, when to stop, when to start.\n\nAnd then all of these other actions are happening in sequence, when they're supposed to.\n\nAnd you've got a very broad view.\n\nIt's very systems way of thinking when you're directing.\n\nBut when you're reacting, you're just whack-a-mole.\n\nIt like, ooh, problem there, solve, smash.\n\nOh, another problem.\n\nSqueeze the balloon.\n\nYeah, all these things.\n\nSo yeah, so to think 1st is really to direct.\n\nAnd that naturally leads to more control, which is good control in the sense of knowing where everything is.\n\nIt's leadership.\n\nIt's showing a path forward and being able to go there.\n\nAnd that just doesn't happen on its own.\n\nSo where do we see this in everyday stuff?\n\nWell, you know, when you design for outcomes, You know, and you're designing for value.\n\nThat's the biggest part.\n\nValue is a thing we like to think about as a umbrella idea.\n\nWe have a valuable product, but we can do it on purpose.\n\nWe can actually design something that generates value to users value, that they could actually, I like using this app because it helps me actually get something done. Value to the engineers.\n\nThey, wow, this is scalable.\n\nThis is something that's, uh, kind of lower our maintenance costs and help us build faster, value for the stakeholders who want to see the product grow.\n\nMore people use it, benefit from it.\n\nAnd I think even in the granular everyday thing, when we're thinking 1st, these design reviews go much better.\n\nThey're not feeling based.\n\nLike, I like it, I don't like it.\n\nThey're really objectively looking at the outcome and say, oh, see, these elements here, they help achieve this outcome or these seem to have this trade-off that's very valuable.\n\nThere's some other things we may have to, you know, work on or consider.\n\nWe really have a healthy conversation and design reviews.\n\nI love design reviews because you can actually have that conversation if you know how to lead it.\n\nAnd you can switch, right?\n\nWell, you talked a little bit earlier about feeling to thinking.\n\nHow do you do that?\n\nWell, if things are emotional, right?\n\nFirst, that's the stop, you know, yellow flag.\n\nIf you have a tight deadlines looming.\n\nThat's probably going to be very emotional or really lead to feeling first.\n\nBut that's a thing, that's a moment to pause and say, ooh, let's back it up a minute.\n\nMaybe it literally is a minute.\n\nWe're not talking about a lot of weeks later to think about it.\n\nNo, it's just a matter of pausing.\n\nSo how can you think, act, and feel in your everyday work?\n\nWell, we've gone through a number of kind of approaches already, but just thinking 1st requires time and consideration.\n\nSo you do need to do that.\n\nYou need to say, hey, I'm going to take 5 minutes and think about this or, right, some time period to do it.\n\nDefine your intended outcome.\n\nI've got a whole course on making vague requirements clear.\n\nThat's a thing.\n\nIt doesn't take a lot of time, but it does take consideration.\n\nAnd put your emotions in their place.\n\nThey are valuable, but not for driving outcome related design decisions.\n\nSo they'll come with me in.\n\nLimit your actions to those focused on the outcome.\n\nAnd there's a lot to do.\n\nSo limit sounds like, oh, I can't do anything.\n\nNo, no, it's really focus is what that brings.\n\nAnd then the action, right?\n\nAction with courage is required.\n\nI think sometimes it will take courage to take certain actions, especially if there's uncertainty with the decision, the thinking part, but that's good.\n\nWe're our designers.\n\nWe like to test things out.\n\nWell, let's let's test.\n\nLet's put our designs out in front of people.\n\nAnd that might take courage at early stages or, you know, different types of projects.\n\nBut it's done deliberately, right?\n\nThis is not an action, that's a reaction.\n\nIt's an action. Done on purpose.\n\nAnd you have an expectation of the result when you do it as opposed to, ooh, I don't know.\n\nI don't know what's gonna happen.\n\nAnd the feeling, the feeling.\n\nWhen you start with thinking first, the feeling is the reward, not the cause.\n\nSo after you thought you've acted, you can look back on the action and assess the results, right?\n\nThat's, it's a resting in the feeling of accomplishment.\n\nAnd there may be other feelings that come out of it, but it's the reward, right?\n\nIt's the result.\n\nIt's not what's driving you.\n\nSo think, act, and then feel, and see how that improves your everyday design work.\n\nSo I'd love for you to get more involved, especially with designy or the daily sprint.\n\nAnd if you have been in product design for a while, just getting started, if you've learned something along the way of thinking, acting, feeling, or feeling acting, thinking that's really changed your perspective on product design and how you approach it, I'd love to talk to you.\n\nI'd love to bring you on the show, and you can become a guest on the daily sprint.\n\nSo you could go to designy.com, and I have a form on there.\n\nIf you scroll to the bottom of any page, there is a form, become a guest on the daily sprint.\n\nSo you can go there and read more about it.\n\nAn application is there.\n\nLove to just get to know you a little bit more and see if it's a fit, then we can go down that path and see what we might talk about on the podcast.\n\nAnd speaking of the podcast.\n\nWould you share this link to the daily sprint with fellow product designer, someone you know?\n\nI really appreciate the support.\n\nAnd if you just want to stay in tune, stay involved with designing, go to designing.com, you can fill up a free newsletter, you can get that form and sign up, send out some articles, and just keep you up to date on what I'm doing at designing.\n\nThanks for listening to the daily sprint.\n\nRemember, today is a great day to design with a why.\n\nSee you next time.",
  "title": "Think. Act. Feel.",
  "updatedAt": "2026-04-06T12:37:25.507Z"
}