Approach life as a project

Inspiration and creativity are the most common themes in the creative sphere, but there is very little talk about organization and execution of creative ideas. Generally, most creative professionals have no problem producing ideas. In fact, the spillover of ideas is more often the problem rather than the shortage of them. Manufacturing the idea itself is actually the easy part. The follow-through is the issue — how to take the brilliant ideas to its end result. It can be paralleled with what Thomas Edison eminently declared: “Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”

This observation is the main thesis of the international bestseller Making Ideas Happen written by Scott Belsky, founder and CEO of Behance — a company that develops products and services to organize the creative world. The book summarizes the methods, insights and best practices used by leading creative people and teams across industries who defy the odds — companies like Google, IDEO and Disney, and individuals such as author Chris Anderson and Zappo’s CEO Tony Hsieh.

Simple yet compelling thoughts fill this tome.  Specifically, the author discovers that the most basic techniques for making ideas happen lie in your ability as a creative person to organize and execute, engage your peers and community, and develop a strategy for effective leadership. Here are some relevant principles you can consider:

To move your idea forward you should know how to put it in order and handle its progress. You have to have a road map on how to bring your concept all the way to implementation.  “While you may enjoy generating brilliant ideas and imagining new possibilities, you must approach every occasion of creativity with a dose of skepticism, 
and a bias toward action,” Belsky proclaimed. The key to thinking differently about idea execution is in your ability to organize your ideas and manage your time wisely. Scott advocates that “Everything in life should be approached as a project” and every project can be broken down in to a set of practices, which he calls the “The Action Method.”

“When you treat every idea like a project, you’re assuming that these are ideas you want to push into action. They’re ideas you want to act on and see through to completion,” Belsky underscored. Once you have everything classified as a project, you can do the second move — start breaking each one down into its primary components determining the action steps, references, and backburner items. “Action steps” are the most important component in the project. They are the specific and concrete tasks that you do to move the project forward. If there are no action steps there will be no action, and if there will be no action, there will be no results. “References” are the handouts, notes, sketches, or meeting minutes that you refer to for information. The key thing to remember is that they are not actionable, they’re simply resources to refer back to at a later time.  “Backburner items” are ideas that are not actionable yet, but may be at a later time.

Sharing your ideas liberally defies the natural instinct to keep your ideas a secret. Yet, among the hundreds of successful creative people interviewed by the author, a fearless approach to sharing ideas is one of the most common attributes. Share ideas to foster community that will help make your ideas happen. If you can gather community support for your project, it’s more likely you’ll find the motivation to follow through. They can be your back-up group too if you need feedback and to ensure that you’re kept grounded and accountable. “Your success will depend on how well you harness the efforts of others,” Belsky stated. The community may start small, and it becomes bigger once you’re able to engage more and more people,

Determining what creative type you are can guide you on how to handle your ideas. Are you a “dreamer,” someone who focuses more on the ideas, a “doer” who is obsessed with executing ideas and following through on projects or an “incrementalist,” who can straddle between a dreamer and a doer? Many people endeavor to become “incrementalists,” believing that this is the key to the completion of projects they initiate. But being one has its drawbacks too. It can split your attention and focus between many, many different projects. While sometimes this can lead to success, it can just as often lead to feeling overwhelmed and burnt out.

The principle of “acting without conviction” works. The thought runs contrary to what is often taught in leadership and management classes and workshops. But as Belsky remarked, “For the creative mind, the cost of waiting for conviction can be too great to bear. Waiting builds apathy and increases the likelihood that another idea will capture our fancy and energy.”

Using competition as a motivation keeps you on track. Competitors can keep you on your toes and make you less likely to give up. But seeking out competition can often be a scary thing for creative people. The possibility, for example, of someone else contending and receiving fanfare for an idea that you thought of first is absolutely frustrating. Your ideas are an extension of who you are and who you hope to become, and the instinct to protect them is primordial. Competition can be fierce or friendly. Either way it can still serve as a catalyst for pushing you forward.

Cultivating a good team can lead to a high level of support for developing and executing new ideas. Good team chemistry can also show the way to recognizing bad ideas more quickly and ceasing to work on them. Ideally, you want some team members who are good at poking holes in your ideas and showing you where the weaknesses are.

Sharing ownership in your ideas can be productive. Ownership is important because team members who feel they have a stake in these ideas will put more effort into their development. One way to give a sense of ownership to your team is to get them excited about your idea, and empower team members to push the idea forward rather than micromanaging them every step of the way.

Arguably the hardest person to effectively manage is you. But you just have to manage you. Most creative leaders can trace their greatest obstacles to something personal — fear, insecurity, or self-imposed limitation. Overcoming these obstacles is going to be incredibly valuable to most creative people, accepting that internal struggles are the hardest things to overcome in the creative process.

No one is born with the ability to drive creative projects to completion. But the talent and skill to push it to implementation can definitely be acquired. To reiterate, everything in business and life should be approached as a project, and the key to thinking differently about idea execution is in your ability to organize your ideas and manage your time wisely.

* * *

E-mail bongosorio@yahoo.com or bong_osorio@abs-cbn.com for comments, questions or suggestions. Thank you for communicating.