The world has enough interviews of rock star designers, so I’m interviewing everyone else–designers who are happy, without the fame.

Let’s start Stephanie Orma, a former student from my alma mater, the California College of the Arts. I first met her when I was a TA for Jim Faris’s information design class.

I recently caught up with Stephanie and asked her a few questions about her struggles, inspirations, and future:

1. First, tell us a little about yourself

I’m the founder and artist of She’s SO Creative, a brand new line of outrageously clever and devilishly adorable greeting cards. I do everything: conceptualizing the ideas, drawing the illustrations, designing the cards, writing the copy, marketing and pr, answering emails, and fulfilling and shipping orders.

My professional career ran the gamut from graphic designer for award-winning design firms to marketing account manager & creative marketing consultant for major Fortune 500 accounts.

I studied creative writing at the University of Michigan, and graphic design at Parsons School of Design in New York City and California College of the Arts in San Francisco.

2. Wow, that’s a handful. How do you balance it all?

That is definitely a struggle. I’m so excited about my new business, I want to work on it all the time! I keep a pad and pen right next to my bed, so I can write down all the ideas that pop into my head at 2am.

But I just try make sure to take breaks throughout the day, whether it’s going for a run or hike outside or to a yoga class. I’ve learned over the years how essential breaks are for refueling, recharging, and keeping the ideas coming!

3. When was the moment you decided to quit your job and start your own business?

It wasn’t just one moment. The strong, growing desire to devote 100% to pursuing something that would truly fulfill and make me happy came to a head around the time I turned 30. It’s a pivotal and reflective age for all of us. And it gave me the much needed push to go off on my own. Plus, I think I had finally had enough confidence in my skills and talent.

4. What were some of the early struggles?

I struggled for a long time to find my creative voice. I have a very unique and quirky sense of humor, which is pretty obvious in my work now. Scott Metzger, a brilliant illustrator and comedic writer whom I admire very much, said the first time he saw my cards, they –”oozed with personality. Right there on the table––they were oozing.–

But when I was in design school, I definitely struggled to bring personality to my designs. It wasn’t until I fully embraced this part of me and felt confident enough to express it, did my work really come alive.

5. What’s it like not being famous?

When I was twelve, I wore a pin that read –”I can’t understand why I’m not rich and famous.– I still don’t get it–¦

6. What was your most dramatic design school moment?

It was when I first began the graphic design program at Parsons. Everything was so new to me: using a Mac, all the Adobe design programs, communicating through typography, imagery, and page design. It opened up this whole new and exciting world to me–especially living in NYC at the time.

I remember walking through Times Square after one of my graphic design classes. It was like seeing the city for the very first time. I focused on the kerning of the type in the billboards, the signs on the buses, the posters on the building facades. It was a very inspiring time in my life.

7. Would you have done anything differently in school?

I struggled with self-doubt, and was really hard on myself in design school. But all my past experiences and how I perceive the world influence my work and ideas today. It was a long process to get here. But I learned a tremendous amount and gained confidence in all my endeavors along the way. So in a nutshell, I wouldn’t change a thing.

8. Who do you draw inspiration from?

I was really into watching Donny Deutsch’s TV show, The Big Idea, on CNBC for a while. He interviews ordinary, everyday people who had the courage to follow their dreams and start their own businesses. He’s interviewed everyone from the person who created the Cranium board games to the person who started Spanks.

I’m also constantly inspired by the brilliant artists and designers gracing the pages of Communication Arts Magazine. In terms of inspiration for my own work, everything inspires me. It could be something I see, hear, or remember, and I’ll be off and running with an idea for a greeting card.

9. What’s next for you?

Growing my business, of course! She’s SO Creative greeting cards are already in over 35 stores, 9 states, and both coasts in less then 4 months! Future plans include, increasing retail outlets across the country, branching out into other products such as tote bags, notebooks, and prints, as well as, designing many, many more greeting cards!

10. Your best tip for new designers leaving school?

Follow your passion, believe in yourself, work hard, and pursue your dreams.

Photo by Herman Privette

The first interview is with Noah Kagan on Mint, a soon-to-launch personal finance tool. Find out about my current financial strategy, what tools I use to manage money, and what’s in my wallet. Check it out here.

Next, Mark Shead of Productivity501 asked me and 29 other bloggers, three questions:

1. What is the single biggest way people waste time without even realizing it?
2. What change has made the most difference in making you effective in life?
3. If someone were to read just one post from your site, which would you recommend the read and why?

Special thanks to Noah and Mark for taking the time to pick my brain.

Merlin and David discuss some of the reasons why we procrastinate, followed with insights into how we can overcome it.

It was quite nice to hear the two most prominent figures in productivity get together and talk about GTD in detail. I only wish the interview was a bit longer.

I also hope this series leads to a more formal partnership between Merlin and David. It’d be great to see them team up and write a detailed book on GTD implementation. Until then, there’s plenty of reading material. Books mentioned in the interview include:

• The Now Habit
• The War of Art
• Bird by Bird (The Shitty First Draft)

Listen to the interview on Odeo.com or download the MP3.

How do you cope with procrastination? What other books or tools would you recommend? Don’t hesitate to comment!

In addition to the inteview, DonationCoder’s also doing an experiment to test and compare various organizational systems (including GTD), in hopes of coming up with new hybrid. To participate, check it out here.

The interview’s broken into two parts. The first is up now with the second part going up later this week. To tease you, I’ve transcribed a tiny bit of the interview for you. Be sure to download the podcast for the full interview:

Mouser: Can you give us just an overview of the Getting Things Done System?

David Allen: Well, there is a bottom line to Getting Things Done. First of all, you have to define what “done” means, and you have to define what “doing” looks like. So a core unique aspect of what Getting Things Done is about, is it deals with the thought process that has to be applied on your stuff before you actually know what to organize or can manage that inventory.

So that said, the practical aspect of it, is really about a set of best practices about how we collect things that have our attention. How we clarify what those things actually mean to us, so that then we can (stage 3) organize them appropriately so that we can review the whole inventory at any point in time. So we have more of a holistic way to see what all of our commitments are at any point in time to then make a choice about what to do.

Now thats the horizontal, “get control” aspect of the GTD, then there’s the “get perspective” aspect of GTD which is… you need to make sure you have these altitudinal horizons that we mature our conversations on to be able to trust your priorities. You need to know top-level purpose and values. You need to know vision. Then, you have shorter term goals and objectives, and you have areas of responsibility and then you have projects and you have actions about all that stuff. So thats kind of the vertical model and part of it as well. So those are the two primary aspects of GTD is: let’s get control and then get perspective. They tie closely together, but they actually are a little bit of different models

Mouser: So, let me probe you a little on the first part, “getting control”. The thing that, for me, was the most profound is this idea of getting things out of your head. Can you talk about that a little?

David Allen: Well you know, for my experience, your head’s for having ideas, not for holding them. And unfortunately, most people seem to have had the habit of having things in your mind, and thinking thats a good office, and psychic ram, as I call it, that space that we tend to hold reminders of would-could-should-need-to’s ought-to’s might-want-to’s might be interesting to me. We start to file that in that subliminal space. As soon as you have more than 7 or 8 things in there, part of it goes unconscious, because your conscious mind can’t hold onto all that. So as you start to load that onto your psyche, all those different commitments, there’s a part of you that’s hanging on to them all.

A matter of fact, there’s a part of it thats seems to be wanting to do them all right then, which creates this more subtle and subliminal sense of frustration and anxiety, but you can’t find the source. It has this gnawing sense that there’s a whole lot of stuff out there and i dont konw what it is. The problem is most people put it in the part of their psyche thats not very good at being able to manage and review and re-negotiate, and there’s a part of you that then thinks you should being doing all of them all the time.

So people walk around in this almost incessant sense of frustration and overwhelm and not really realizing that it’s just this mechanical part of the brain that just doesn’t do that very well. So teaching people to offload that, to capture those things in some external form, and to train yourself as you make commitment with yourself that has any interest or meaning that you can’t finish in the moment you think of it. Training yourself to externalize that is just hugely healthy. And as you say, it makes a big difference.

For much more, download the podcast.