An old mentor in Seattle showed me why my components kept breaking
Back in 2017 I was fresh to Figma and kept making these huge nested components that would explode every time I changed a padding value. This senior designer at a coworking space downtown finally pulled me aside after watching me fight a button for 30 minutes. She said 'stop nesting everything, just make one master frame and use variants like they're meant to be used.' That single comment took my file from a mess to something I could actually hand off without crying. Has anyone else had a moment where one tiny tip from a stranger made years of struggling click instantly?
Used to swear by naming every single layer, figured groups were just for messy people. Then I tried it on a project with like 40 layers and suddenly everything made sense. Now I barely name anything and my files are actually easier to go back through.