Luke van Zyl

UX Designer, Former Big Four | Sharing my journey from designer to leader and the unfiltered reality of managing creative teams

[Luke van Zyl @lukevz]

Lately I’ve noticed something subtle but real: on some days, I’m talking to AI more than I’m talking to actual people.

It’s not a cause for alarm — AI is an incredible tool — but the energy exchange feels different. When there’s no human on the other end, there’s less creative spark and positive momentum flowing back. (And let’s be honest, some meetings can be energy drains too 😅)

A year or two ago, when I hit a wall I’d usually just brute-force my way through it. Stay up late, push harder, grind until I finally got the aha moment and felt like I’d crushed it and unlocked the next level.

Now it’s different. I’m managing multiple AI agents at once — each one progressing at its own pace on different projects. You can handle way more work, but your human energy gets spent faster. It’s like your personal “energy tokens” deplete quicker when you’re context-switching between all these systems.

That’s why taking real breaks has become non-negotiable for me. I can’t tell you how many breakthroughs I’ve had not from pushing harder, but from completely detaching: going for a walk, getting outside, touching grass, and giving my brain a proper tech detox. The ideas that show up when you’re not staring at a screen are often the best ones.

We’re in a new era of work. The tools are more powerful than ever, but our most important resource — our own energy, creativity, and taste — is still finite. Finding a healthy rhythm between leveraging AI and protecting your human bandwidth feels more important than ever.

[Luke van Zyl @lukevz]

The Rule of 3
Patterns in the Wild

Three is one of those quiet patterns that surfaces everywhere once you start looking.

- Photography’s exposure triangle: shutter speed, aperture, and ISO.

- Presentation design: no more than three key points per slide.

- Bookshelf decor and retail displays: objects grouped in threes feel composed, dynamic, and complete.

It works because people can remember three. Three strikes a balance. Enough to create rhythm and relationship, but few enough to avoid overload. Two feels incomplete. Four or more starts to blur.

This is a principle you can borrow when life or work feels scattered. Use the Rule of 3 to edit: your priorities, your commitments, your message. It forces clarity and reveals what actually matters.

In a noisy world, patterns like this become tools for realignment, pulling you back to something essential.

[Ryo Lu @ryolu_]

when the dream becomes the job

i used to think the dream was to make my hobby my work.

to spend my life close to the things i loved: computers, tools, interfaces, systems, tiny details, the feeling of making something from nothing. the things i used to do at night, after school, after work, in the margins of life, somehow became the center of my life.

and it is a dream. i don’t want to pretend otherwise.

there is a very specific happiness in getting paid to care. in meeting other people who care. in building a language around your obsession. in seeing something that lived only in your head become real enough for other people to touch.

but there is also a quiet pain in it.

because the thing that once belonged only to you no longer belongs only to you.

it becomes attached to deadlines, teams, customers, strategy, money, reputation, momentum... curiosity becomes roadmap. taste becomes decision-making. play becomes output. the thing you once used to escape the world becomes the thing through which the world reaches you.

and now there is another strange layer: the machines are getting good at the work too.

not just the boring parts. the parts that used to feel close to the heart. writing, coding, designing, reasoning, making taste-like decisions, turning vague ideas into something real. the things we once used as proof that we had something special inside us are becoming things a model can approximate, remix, and sometimes do faster.

that can feel scary in a very specific way.

not only because of jobs or competition, but because it touches the myth you built around yourself. if the thing i became good at can be done by a machine, then what part of it was really me?

i think that question is painful because it arrives at the same place.

the original love.

before the title, before the company, before the taste became a role, before the work became useful to other people, there was a small fire inside. curiosity. obsession. the feeling that the world became more alive when you understood a little more of it, or made a tiny piece of it bend to your will.

AI can make the output faster. it can even raise the floor of the craft. but it cannot want on your behalf. it cannot decide what is worth loving. it cannot protect the strange private thread that made you care in the first place.

maybe that is what becomes more important now.

not whether you can still produce the artifact by hand. not whether you can outperform the machine at every task. that game is already changing.

the real question is whether you still have a relationship with the source.

the part with no audience. no roadmap. no deadline. the part that can wander, collect strange references, make useless things. follow beauty, be wrong, be slow, be you, be true.

because that part is not separate from the work. it is the source of the work.

if you lose it, you can still operate. you can still manage the machine. you can still prompt, review, decide, ship, and keep things moving.

but the work becomes thinner. safer. more explainable. less alive.

so maybe the real discipline is not to work harder, rest more, or care less.

maybe it is to keep returning to the place where the love began – before it became useful, before it became legible, before anyone needed anything from it, before even the machine could mirror it back to you.

not to escape the work.

to make sure the fire inside is still alive.

[Luke van Zyl @lukevz]

@brsabel This looks incredible! Looking forward to the breakdown.

[Bruce van Zyl @brucevanzyl]

I've been using @DevinAI for 80% of my development the last 60 days.

Wrote a quick guide on how I'd setup for new non-dev founders.

https://t.co/7anHLCfQCd

[mymind @mymind]

˗ˏˋ BIG NEWS ˎˊ˗

We now have an API.
We have an MCP.
We have a Claude Connection.
We have a ChatGPT Connection.

All of this is now in Public BETA starting today and opens up a thousand new possibilities for how you can use mymind (link below).

Much love,
the mymind team 🧡

[Luke van Zyl @lukevz]

take my money

[Elite Obsolete Electronics @eliteobsolete]

iPod neo

[Luke van Zyl @lukevz]

looking for a video editor + thumbnail designer for my lifestyle/slow living YouTube channel. Paid per project, 2-4 vlogs/month. DM your work 👇

https://t.co/ufJsaRuFXP #ytjobs #VideoEditor

[Luke van Zyl @lukevz]

In the AI era, taste is the differentiator for the individual and specialization is the differentiator for the product.

Stop trying to build the 'everything' app.

[Luke van Zyl @lukevz]

DM if you'd like access!

[Luke van Zyl @lukevz]

First look at 52, a macOS note app I'm building around one simple idea:

Weeks are the right unit of time for thinking

Not days (too small), not months (too big). Focus on one work week at a time.

Markdown notes + task extraction + local AI + zero subscription

Still rough, but it's coming together 👇

[Luke van Zyl @lukevz]

Most note apps want you to build a second brain.

I wanted something simpler. 52 focuses on one week at a time.

Everything lives in the note - tasks, people, career milestones. No jumping between views. No overhead.

Markdown. Fully local. One surface.

[Luke van Zyl @lukevz]

@LynelDesign Love this vibe! Are these available somewhere?

[Luke van Zyl @lukevz]

@brucevanzyl Thanks!! Just posted the Test Flight link.

[Luke van Zyl @lukevz]

@vanschneider These new icons are stunning 😍

[Luke van Zyl @lukevz]

@brucevanzyl Coming this weekend 🤞

[Luke van Zyl @lukevz]

52 is coming together nicely.

3 weeks ago the app didn't exist... now I've been using it every single day at work and really enjoying the workflow so far.

[Luke van Zyl @lukevz]

This is still the best framework for UI copywriting and tone of voice.

I reference it all the time with my team. Props to @Zendesk

[Nick Babich @101babich]

📣 Voice & Tone In UX Writing

Voice & tone play a crucial role in shaping the user's experience.

🔴 Voice refers to the distinct personality of a brand conveyed through its writing.
🟢 Tone refers to the emotional inflection and can vary depending on the context

[Luke van Zyl @lukevz]

Officially hit 500+ connections, guess I can delete my LinkedIn now... right?

[Luke van Zyl @lukevz]

Oura Ring or Apple Watch?

After a year of wearing both, the honest answer is it depends on whether you want a recovery tracker or a fitness tracker.

My take, plus my wife's perspective as a certified personal trainer.