From navigating the tension between “pixel perfect” polish to redefining creativity that clears the way for bigger ideas, Allison Perlis brings a refreshingly grounded perspective on what it means to create.

Read on for our conversation about challenges, advice, and the small joys that fuel Allison Perlis’ creative life.

We are all creatives.Describe what you do, make, or create in one sentence.
As a UX designer, I am responsible for designing experiences and user flows that feel intuitive and straightforward.

Creative Challenges: What are the top creative challenges that you face in your day-to-day?
One of my big challenges is that I want everything I create to be as refined and perfectly-crafted as possible, but perfection is an impossible goal! I’m always tempted to go back over what I’ve come up with and refine-refine-refine so that everything is modular and aligned, but that ends up taking too much time. I have to remind myself that it’s more important to take big swings and cover more ground (even if there are imperfections) than it is to deliver a narrow scope of work that is pixel perfect.

Defining Creativity: How do you define creativity and apply it in your career?
I think sometimes the word “creativity” can create a big, intimidating expectation of something incredible and groundbreaking - and that has its time and place, but creativity often plays out in smaller ways. How can you explain project goals to a client who’s not that “into” design? How can you create layout specifications for developers that will be easy and meaningful to them? If you can solve enough of these small-fry problems, you’ll make space for yourself to focus on bigger, more interesting questions.

Creative Advice: What’s one piece of creative advice or a tip you wish you had known earlier in your career?
Be patient and trust the process! I’m a very impatient person and I’m often antsy to skip ahead to the “fun” parts of design, but taking the time to do all the research and the foundational work is how you set yourself up to do the best job possible when you finally get to the fun parts.

Reading Recommendations: What are you reading these days?
I often fall for the notion that you should always be “productive” in some way so I tend to read more nonfiction, but I’m trying to get back into narrative stories because it’s nice! To that end, I’m halfway through “My Brilliant Friend” and it’s really fun to escape into a story that’s not super related to current events or the usual topics I think about every day.

15 Extra Minutes: If you had 15 extra minutes each day, what would you do with them?
If I had 15 extra minutes, I would probably squander it by scrolling more on my phone. But if I was smart, I would use it do something enriching for my life—maybe I’d do a meditation or touch grass.