Hey y’all 👋🏼 I hope you’ve been enjoying Sana’s Notes so far, if there is anything you’d like to hear about from me, just hit the Reply button and let me know! I hope you enjoy this week’s catch-up.

— Sana Tabassum

🍎 food for thought

A few months ago, in the name of spontaneity, I took a solo trip to New York. Today that same spontaneity has given me the opportunity to be a tourist in my own city whilst showing around family who have come to visit. My regular routine has hit pause and although this displacement might catch up with me soon, I’m taking each day as it comes.

I’m also gearing up for an extremely busy few days next week so there’s a lot of planning and preparation happening right now. From pitching my proposal for Open Studio to practising giving my workshop on personal branding, I’ve also been thinking a lot about my career. It’s difficult for me to summarise in a title or few words what it is I exactly do - since I do so many things.

But in one sense I suppose it means I’m finding my feet and figuring out what exactly I can use my skills for. Is it freelancing? Or starting my own ‘business’? I know I’m not opposed to traditional experience, but I’m holding out hope for the right fit.

What I’ve learned 👇🏼

• You might think your own home town is boring or that you’ve seen it all before, but there’s beauty in simplicity too. Who knows, you might also come across something you’ve never seen before.

• A break in routine is probably what you need if you feel like architecture is taking up most of your mental energy. So many students say they find it difficult to balance but often this is because they brush aside the importance of rest and disconnecting from work.

• Speaking up is difficult but worth it for your own peace of mind.

🍗 content nuggets

I came across this LinkedIn post celebrating the slower pace of working life and moving away from hustle culture and overworking. I think this is a step in the right direction especially for an industry as creative as ours. The best thing is that this ‘snail girl’ mindset isn’t lazy, it’s smart. You spend years learning and building skills, and you’re able to put them to use on your time. I think time is something I’ve learnt to value the most in recent years. The same goes for my ‘working’ hours. I like to see it as investing in myself and building something where I get to make creative decisions rather than work under someone else.

You already know I love my YouTube. This week I wanted to recommend a creator who has kind of been missing from the platform for a while. The thing I admired about Elliot in this video however, is that he hasn’t just told us why he’s not made content for a while, but towards the end as he’s packing up his apartment, and he says

“I turn 25 next year and I’ve realised that I need to be more patient because I’m still learning”.

This one line was so powerful, I had to pause the video. I’ve been thinking a lot about the trajectory of my own life recently and the pressures we put on ourselves because of an age or a predetermined life path. But does it all really matter? Architectural education is a long committment and although I didn’t realise it earlier, I haven’t exactly taken the traditional path either. But in a similar way to Elliot, I do feel like a new chapter is just around the corner, whether thats on a personal or professional level - who knows?

🦋 magic sauces

I often don’t plug my own stuff, but we’ve hit a really special milestone over on Instagram - 30K! I’m sure many of you have subscribed from there but I still wanted to point you to some of the reels that have been getting a lot of love.

How I created a render in less than a week

How you can plan your crit in just one hour

How to model smarter in Sketchup

🔥 on the back burner

I’m hosting a workshop with The London School of Architecture. All I can think is, I hope the students who attend get to take away something valuable. The workshop is called ‘Level Up Your Leverage’ and it’s a masterclass on personal branding as an architecture student. I’ve been wanting to create something like this for a while now because I’ve not yet created content on how exactly I use LinkedIn to my advantage.

The workshop is limited so there aren’t any more places left, but if you’re an architecture student reading this and are interested in having this workshop at your university, shoot me a reply and hopefully we can work something out! I’ve found that the only barrier is often finding the person in charge of running events in architecture schools, so if you could help out, I’d be grateful.

— Sana x