A creative project is a bit like a long hallway with multiple chambers. As you navigate down the hallway, you reach checkpoints where critical decisions must be made, and a door closes behind you. On this episode, I elaborate on these three questions and offer some tips for crafting a process that's sane and helpful to your work.
What is the first thing you do in the morning? The last thing you do at night? Your first action when taking on a new project? Your impulse when receiving good (or bad) news?
If you asked those questions to many highly productive creatives, they’ll have immediate answers. Not because they are micro-obsessive about their schedules, but because over time they’ve developed predictable rituals around key areas of their life and work.
For creative pros - those charged with turning our thoughts into value every day - the promise of a quick path to successful work is alluring. If there were proven ways to avoid the uncertainty and pain of the process, they would be worth their weight in gold. Unfortunately, they don't exist. Not really, anyway.
The lack of willingness to commit to creative decisions will kill your motivation and the motivation of your team. In this episode, we discuss a strategy for making and keeping creative commitments in the midst of your work.
How to prevent comparison from paralyzing your productivity.
It's easy to fossilize around bad creative habits. Here's how to shake them up!
Don't just sit and stare at your problem! Ask questions to break out of a rut.
Why do you do what you do? Is it for the perks, the attention or the paycheck? Probably at least somewhat. But what about the process itself? If you knew that you were going to spend the rest of your life doing your work and there would be no recognition, no public...
Do you remember the old episodes of the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote? When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait to tear out of bed on Saturday morning, pour a giant bowl of cereal and watch in anticipation of the coyote actually catching him. Then it happened. One...
Balancing Process vs. Product in the create-on-demand world.