In your career as a technologist, whenever possible, invent on
principle. Find principles to guide everything you build. Live by
them.
"No Modes": The guy who invented copy and paste invented on the
principle that software should not contain modes, or different
environments to do different things. That directly lead to the invention
of copy and paste.
Bret's principle: when creating an interface, whenever possible,
remove the friction between the creator and the creation. (my memory
is fuzzy on this one, I'll have to re-watch the video).