Hasta La Ideas

Today’s guest post is by Scott Belsky, founder of Behance, oversees The 99% think tank, and is the author of the new book Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming The Obstacles Between Vision & Reality. Thank you, Scott, for joining us today. — Erin

Perhaps you have an idea for a new business, a restaurant you want to open, or a novel you want to write? Or perhaps you have an idea for how to solve a problem at work? Regardless, the sobering reality is that most ideas never happen. While some ideas are killed for good reason, most ideas are abandoned half-baked as a result of obstacles during execution.

I’ve spent the better part of five years studying the struggle to push ideas to fruition. Along the way, I learned that some people and teams are consistently able to defy the odds and make their ideas happen, time and time again. Authors like James Patterson and Chris Anderson; Companies like Google, IDEO, and Disney; and other serial entrepreneurs, restauranteurs, and the list goes on…

While there are a myriad of methods and tips I observed, the force of ORGANIZATION emerged as the most important. I came to believe that organization is, in fact, the greatest competitive advantage in the creative world.

The practicalities of how you organize projects and manage your energy are critical to making ideas happen. Here are a few my observations – and some of the methods I observed:

Reactionary Workflow

We live in a connected world of endless e-mails, texts, tweets, messages on social networks, phone calls, instant messages … the list goes on. Rather than be proactive with our energy, we have become reactive — living at the mercy of the last incoming thing. As a result, we spend all of our energy trying to keep up rather than propelling our ideas forward. Eventually, all of the small inconsequential activity wears us down and we’re liable to jump ship. To avoid reactionary workflow, some people schedule “windows of non-stimulation” in their day. For a 2-3 hour period of time, they minimize their email and all other sources of incoming communication. With this time, they focus on a list of goals – not their regular tasks, but long-term items that require research and deep thought. There are other tricks for how you aggregate messages and reduce “hop time” (the time spent transitioning between sources of communication). But the bottom line is that reactionary workflow is a threat to ingenuity. To combat it, we must focus less on ideas themselves and more on how we manage our energy and ultimately push ideas to completion.

Reduce Bulky Projects To Just Three Primary Elements

Every project in life can ultimately be reduced to just three primary elements: Action Steps, Backburner Items, and References. Action Steps are succinct tasks that start with verbs. They should be kept separate from your notes and sketches. Backburner Items are ideas that come up during a brainstorm or on the run that are not actionable but may someday be. Backburner Items should be collected in a central location and should be revisit periodically through some sort of ritual. One leader I met prints out his list of Backburner Items (kept on a running Word document) on the first Sunday of every month. He grabs the list (and a beer) and then sits down and reviews the entire list. Some items get crossed out as irrelevant, some remain on the list, and some are transformed into Action Steps. The third element of every project is References – the articles, notes, and other stuff that collects around you. It turns out that References are overrated. Rather than spend tons of time organizing your notes, consider keeping a chronological file where all your notes are simply filed chronologically (not by project name or other means). In the age of digital calendars, you can search for any meeting and quickly find the notes taken on that date.

Use Design-Centric Systems To Stay Organized

The color, texture, size, and style of the materials used to capture your tasks (and your notes) are important. People who have successfully developed personal systems for productivity over the years claim that their designs make their projects more appealing (and thus more likely to be managed well). When it comes to productivity, attraction breeds loyalty.

Measure Meetings With Action Steps

Meetings are extremely expensive if you consider the cost of time and interruption. Beware of “Posting Meetings” or meeting just because it’s Monday. Such meetings are often planned for the morning — when you’re most productive — and often end without any Action Steps captured. A meeting that ends without any Action Steps should have been a voice-mail or an e-mail. When you do meet with clients or colleagues, end each meeting with a quick review of captured Action Steps. The exercise takes less than 30 seconds per person. Each person should share what they captured. Doing so will almost always reveal a few Action Steps that were either missed, duplicated, or misunderstood. Stating your Action Steps aloud also breeds a sense of accountability.

Insecurity Work

In the era of Google Analytics and Twitter, we spend too much time obsessing over real-time data. Just a decade ago, we had to wait for weekly and monthly reports for information that is now always available at our finger tips. Whether it is checking your site’s traffic, customer sentiment, or your bank account, these small repetitive actions don’t help you make ideas happen. They just help you feel safe. “Insecurity Work” is stuff that you do that (1) has no intended outcome, (2) does not move the ball forward in any way, and (3) is quick enough that you can do it multiple times a day without realizing — but, nonetheless, puts us at ease. The first step for reducing Insecurity Work is self-awareness. During the research for my new book, I was astonished by the spectrum of self-imposed guidelines and very effective rituals that people use to reduce insecurity work. Insecurity work is yet another workplace phenomenon that can reduce productivity and obstruct great execution.

My book, out this month, Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming The Obstacles Between Vision and Reality chronicles the methods of the creative leaders that have pushed their ideas to fruition (and make our lives interesting as a result). My hope is that the book will prompt more discussion on the mechanics for pushing ideas to fruition.

A couple reminders and articles we wanted to share with our readers.

The reminders:

• If you’re in New York City, you’re invited to attend the Real Simple 10th Anniversary Celebration this Thursday (April 15). Learn more at RealSimpleRewards.com. I’m scheduled to speak between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. in the “dining room” of Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central Terminal.
• Don’t forget about our drawing Thursday (April 15) at 10:00 a.m. EDT for our third Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 giveaway! Entering to win is simple. All you need to do is follow us on Twitter. If you aren’t already on Twitter, create an account and then follow us @Unclutterer. Also consider following the generous people of ScanSnap @ScanSnapIT.

The articles:

• From NPR: “For Hoarders, The Mess Begins In The Mind“
• From BoingBoing: “Custom furniture for gamer geeks“
• From the Wall Street Journal: “Law and Order: How a Pro Helps Tackle Clutter“
• From WiseBread: “15 Awesome Storage Solutions for Under $10“

One of my resolutions for the second quarter of 2010 is to “accomplish all 67 tasks on the ‘Spring Cleaning for the Overachiever’ list on pages 189 and 190 of Unclutter Your Life in One Week.” Since I live in a house that doesn’t have exterior gutters, we swept our house’s flat roof instead of tackling list item number four: “Clean leaves and debris out of gutters.” Sweeping a roof is a comparatively easier chore than cleaning gutters, and I have a lot of sympathy for folks who have to climb up on ladders twice a year to de-muck their gutters.

DIYlife.com’s recent article “Spring Maintenance: Clean Gutters and Downspouts” is a wonderful step-by-step guide on how to get the debris out of your gutters so that your home is ready for spring rains. I particularly appreciated the final tip of the article:

It’s not often that you’re up close and personal with your gutters so take this opportunity to inspect them for damage as well. Dents, holes and cracks may have surfaced over the winter months and should be repaired as soon as possible.

In addition to the advice that appears in the article, I would recommend doing this chore on a clear morning. It’s nice to get it out of the way first thing and avoid racing the setting sun to get it finished. This isn’t a chore you want to hurry through and risk your safety.

Video conferencing is a simple and cost effective way to “bring” many people together for a meeting without physically bringing people together. Unfortunately, many digital meetings end up wasting more time than traditional meetings — and most traditional meetings are less-than-stellar points of productive comparison.

Productivity501’s recent article “9 Tips for Effective Video Conferences” provides considerably more than nine tips for how to run productive digital meetings. I particularly enjoyed the advice:

Assume that the technology is going to be a problem and give yourself multiple options and enough time to get everything right … Reboot your computer ahead of time. If you occasionally need to reboot your computer to keep it from getting bogged down, do this ahead of the meeting. You don’t want to force everyone to wait while you reboot your machine.

One of my biggest pet peeves during video conferences is that many people don’t treat it like work. A spouse will come on screen and wave at everyone or one person will take a call on his cell phone or it becomes obvious that someone is surfing the web, checking e-mail, or playing a video game. A good rule of thumb is that if you wouldn’t conduct yourself that way during an in-person meeting, don’t do it while on a video conference.

What advice would you add to “9 Tips for Effective Video Conferences?” I’m eager to read your suggestions. I’m also interested in hearing which video conferencing programs people prefer to use. I’ve never organized a video conference, just participated on them, so I use whatever program the coordinator chooses. I’d like to hear if some of the systems are significantly better at helping users be more productive.

These are articles that caught my attention recently that I wanted to share with you:

• “Work Smart: Do Your Worst Task First” by Gina Trapani for Fast Company. You can read the transcript or watch the video.
• Qik Announces iPhone Support. If you have an older model iPhone, you can now record video with it. No need to shuck out the money for an upgrade. Qik also works with most smart phones.
• The slideshow “New Kits for Container Gardens” in the New York Times introduces a handful of great ideas for small space gardening. If you don’t have a backyard and want to garden, be sure to check out the corresponding article on the same topic.
• “How to Get Back Into Your Routine After a Break” by Ali Hale for Dumb Little Man. I struggle with this every time I travel for business or take a vacation.
• “Organize with Handmade Bins” by Holly Becker. I really like these alternatives to traditional storage baskets.
• “Handmade: Transform a Bucket into a Wastebasket” on DIY Life is an inexpensive way to get a stylish trash can on the cheap.
• “Clear a Surface.” Gretchen Rubin talks about how outer order contributes to inner calm.
• “10 Ways to Deal With the Non-Simplifying Others in Your Life” on ZenHabits. A great reminder for anyone who shares a space.

Were there any uncluttering articles this week that caught your attention? Share them with us in the comments.