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Authors: Scott Belsky
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cal s this the “two-minute rule”—if it can be done in under two minutes, it should be done right away. After al , it wil take a minute or so just to enter it into your system, so why not just take care of it already?
• Whatever action management system you use, Action Steps should be recorded in a consistent way, assigned to a project, and given a due date (when applicable). By doing this, you are setting yourself up for ultimate productivity.
• Place Backburner Items in your Backburner folder, labeled with the appropriate project name.
• Try to discard as many References as you can, because most handouts and notes wil ultimately never be used. For those References that must be stored, file them away by project or use the chronological pile approach.
PRIORITIZATION:
Managing Your Energy Across Life’s Projects DYNAMIC CREATIVE PROJECTS— as wel as cumbersome logistical projects —become more manageable when they are broken down into elements. Once we are able to approach our work (and life) as a series of Action Steps, Backburner Items, and References, we wil have to decide where to start. We must prioritize because we can only focus on one Action Step at a time. Prioritization should help us maintain both incremental progress as wel as momentum for our long-term objectives. Prioritization is a force that relies on sound judgment, self-discipline, and some helpful pressure from others.
Keep an Eye on Your Energy Line
I spent one afternoon a while back with Max Schorr, the publisher of GOOD , a monthly magazine focused on doing good, and his team. A group of true idealists, the staff found themselves constantly overburdened and overextended—striving to do everything while also striving for perfection. As Schorr put it, “At GOOD we hate to waste anything, and given our surplus of idea generation, the one thing we waste tons of is energy.”
If you have lots of ideas, you probably have the tendency to get involved with or start lots of projects. Projects can require tremendous amounts of mental energy, from capturing and organizing the elements to actual y applying your creative talents to solve problems and complete Action Steps. Energy is your most precious commodity.
Regardless of who you are, you have only a finite amount of it. Just as a computer’s operating capacity is limited to the amount of memory (or RAM) instal ed, we al have our limits.
As you decide where to focus your precious energy, visualize al of your projects along a spectrum that starts at “Extreme” and goes al the way down to “Idle.” How much energy should your current projects receive?
Place your projects along an energy line according to how much energy they
should receive.
At any given point in time there may be a couple of projects that you should be extremely focused on, while others may be semi-important or perhaps idle for the time being. If you were to place projects along the spectrum, the extremely important projects would be placed on the “Extreme” end of the spectrum and the others would be placed accordingly farther down toward “Idle.” Keep in mind that you are not placing your projects along the spectrum based on how much time you are spending on them. Rather, you are placing your projects according to how much energy they should receive based on their importance.
A project placed at the “Extreme” end of the energy line should be the most important for the time being—worthy of the majority of your energy. Projects should be placed according to their economic and strategic value. The concept of the Energy Line is meant to address our tendency to spend a lot of time on projects that are interesting but perhaps not important enough to warrant such an investment of energy.
Viewing your projects along an Energy Line prompts certain questions: How much of your time are you spending on what? Are you focused on the right things?
Amidst the everyday craziness of a creative enterprise, it is hard
• Whatever action management system you use, Action Steps should be recorded in a consistent way, assigned to a project, and given a due date (when applicable). By doing this, you are setting yourself up for ultimate productivity.
• Place Backburner Items in your Backburner folder, labeled with the appropriate project name.
• Try to discard as many References as you can, because most handouts and notes wil ultimately never be used. For those References that must be stored, file them away by project or use the chronological pile approach.
PRIORITIZATION:
Managing Your Energy Across Life’s Projects DYNAMIC CREATIVE PROJECTS— as wel as cumbersome logistical projects —become more manageable when they are broken down into elements. Once we are able to approach our work (and life) as a series of Action Steps, Backburner Items, and References, we wil have to decide where to start. We must prioritize because we can only focus on one Action Step at a time. Prioritization should help us maintain both incremental progress as wel as momentum for our long-term objectives. Prioritization is a force that relies on sound judgment, self-discipline, and some helpful pressure from others.
Keep an Eye on Your Energy Line
I spent one afternoon a while back with Max Schorr, the publisher of GOOD , a monthly magazine focused on doing good, and his team. A group of true idealists, the staff found themselves constantly overburdened and overextended—striving to do everything while also striving for perfection. As Schorr put it, “At GOOD we hate to waste anything, and given our surplus of idea generation, the one thing we waste tons of is energy.”
If you have lots of ideas, you probably have the tendency to get involved with or start lots of projects. Projects can require tremendous amounts of mental energy, from capturing and organizing the elements to actual y applying your creative talents to solve problems and complete Action Steps. Energy is your most precious commodity.
Regardless of who you are, you have only a finite amount of it. Just as a computer’s operating capacity is limited to the amount of memory (or RAM) instal ed, we al have our limits.
As you decide where to focus your precious energy, visualize al of your projects along a spectrum that starts at “Extreme” and goes al the way down to “Idle.” How much energy should your current projects receive?
Place your projects along an energy line according to how much energy they
should receive.
At any given point in time there may be a couple of projects that you should be extremely focused on, while others may be semi-important or perhaps idle for the time being. If you were to place projects along the spectrum, the extremely important projects would be placed on the “Extreme” end of the spectrum and the others would be placed accordingly farther down toward “Idle.” Keep in mind that you are not placing your projects along the spectrum based on how much time you are spending on them. Rather, you are placing your projects according to how much energy they should receive based on their importance.
A project placed at the “Extreme” end of the energy line should be the most important for the time being—worthy of the majority of your energy. Projects should be placed according to their economic and strategic value. The concept of the Energy Line is meant to address our tendency to spend a lot of time on projects that are interesting but perhaps not important enough to warrant such an investment of energy.
Viewing your projects along an Energy Line prompts certain questions: How much of your time are you spending on what? Are you focused on the right things?
Amidst the everyday craziness of a creative enterprise, it is hard
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