What Would Practicing to Warm Up Look Like For A UX Professional?

In my recent article on how UX professionals can practice to improve their skills, I left out an important type: Practice to Warm Up

Many professional writers, before sitting down for the day to write their master works, will just bang out 750 words of no consequence, an activity called pre-writing. (Merlin Mann refers to this as “making that clackity noise.”)

Warming up is another type of practicing. When we warm up, we’re just getting ourselves — both physically and mentally — ready for work we’re about to do.

In baseball, before a new pitcher comes on the field, he warms up in the bullpen. Then, once on the field, he throws several pitches to the catcher, to warm up on the mound. Meanwhile, the rest of the team in the field is tossing the ball between themselves. The batters warm up “on-deck”, swinging the bat a few times, before stepping up to the plate.

Performing artists also warm up. In addition to tuning their instruments, they play a few bars or scales. Singers have voice warm-ups. Actors have acting warm ups.

What would warm-up exercises look like for a UX professional? I’ve been wracking my brain on this and don’t have any good examples.

I’ve never seen a UX professional do warm up exercises — they always just jump into the work. Is it the case that we don’t need the warm up? Or are we missing an opportunity here?

What warm up exercises have you done? What ideas do you have for warm up exercises?