Are you creatively organised?
As mentioned in my intro post, Getting My Creative Butt Organised, every Monday I will answer Mark’s questions from his Time Management series on Business of Design online.
From Mark,
So, … paraphrasing from Mark’s first post in the series – The opposite of concentration is distraction, which brings on interruptions, turning into frustration. And around it goes.
I wanted to see how many distractions happened naturally, so I let them flow with interruptions. The frustrations came later.
Let’s see … I work out of a home office, so in addition to work I have normal interruptions: Tea drinking, friends calling, cats wanting (but not needing) to be fed, a bed to be made, clothes to be picked up, laundry to be filled and emptied and folded, dishwasher to be emptied and filled again. Oh, and the post arrived with four expected packages that I just HAD to open, sprinkling foam peanuts around the house needing to be picked up before the cats hid them in and under furniture. On the plus side, I didn’t allow myself to sit down with the two tempting books from amazon. No. I opened their packages and placed them on the sofa. Where they still lay. Waiting.
The work side of my day: I try to keep my morning free to concentrate on writing, but this morning it didn’t stick. Not all the way anyway. But, even with my moving slow (I’m an insomniac and last night was one of ‘those’ nights) I settled in from a week off, wrote three posts, sorted code problems, answered emails and arranged a loose schedule for the rest of the week.
Now to get to those answers ….
Mark’s Time Management Questions
What is your attitude to organising your creative work? Do you see organisation as soulless, uncreative routine or as a necessary, helpful part of your creative process?
It’s my nature to control, so I enjoy organising myself as well as others. So much so, I can get wrapped up in the process (just ask the gang at Creative Latitude and Business of Design online :-)
When I’m organised, creativity flows. If I take on a project and start laying out the schedule, the creative angles appear in their own time. For instance, when I get the project brief I’m already thinking of design ideas. The research brings more ideas. The need for specific design layouts (web, print, etc) tightens it even more. Then, it’s clear what I need to do and at what time (project brief, research, design layout, etc). Take out proper communication, a decent project brief and adequate research (all reflecting needed organisation), and justice won’t be done to the project.
What effect does feeling muddled and disorganised have on your creativity?
When I’m not in control I stagnate. I lose sight of what should be important, at times wasting time on what’s not important – the fiddly side projects.
Today I worked without a to-do list and found myself jumping up from my work to do chores, going off into a different projects (emails, answering blog conversations, cleaning my desktop) and making excuses. I’m not saying the emails and blog conversations are not important. They are. But in their own time.
Which areas of your work would you like to be more organised about?
Let’s see … emails are a problem (I feel I need to keep tighter control on the subject). Coming up with a doable schedule is another. Prioritising, well, that’s a third.
What do you like about chaos? Where in your work do you want to give chaos and randomness free rein?
Even though I enjoy chaos when I’m designing, it can take over when I’m in business mode.
On the creative side: Mark has just introduced chaos into the equation which has thrown me off. Can losing myself in design be called chaos? In a way, yes. Causing chaos to a strict schedule anyway, but not chaos to the design process. When designing, I jump from one design to another (at times, not always). So, can chaos = creativity? Sure. As long as it includes randomness and free rein.
On a project management side: When I give chaos its head, the opposite is generally the case as chaos makes a mess of control. Loss of control equals loss of time equals loss of revenue.
Well, that’s it for this week. I’m already looking forward to Mark’s next post in his Time Management Series. How about you?
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I agree. No matter what profession, even a messy creative one. You must be organized.
Hi Chris.
When I’m not organised, I apologise to clients for projects falling behind. When I’m not organised, I’m forever telling the team ‘next week’. When I’m not organised, it takes extra time to catch up.
It’s my nature to be organised, but now I’m playing catch up from not just an increase in projects, but a year of life being out of step. Life can do that.
imho, creativity is an innate ability, not everyone is lucky to have it, me included. However, getting organized is a skill which requires discipline. and getting organized has a bit to do with time management, and it’s good to have a good and simple tool to help you out …
Hi Don. Agreed. I’m just hunting around for that simple tool. Complicated takes way too much time.
4. Complete the Major Tasks First
5. Do Tasks that Take Less Than 5 Minutes Immediately
Your number four tip seems to be fighting with your number five tip.
(Or I’m in need of a nap after all this managing)
Other than that, I agree with your list :-)
I’m not so sure about being organised all the time, everyday. A looser form of being organised works for me at least one day a week, where nothing is scheduled in and i just do the work i feel like doing that day and say no to everything else. This makes me feel like work is not work but just doing the things i enjoy or am in the mood for (and this sometimes includes doing admin and getting to the bottom of my inbox).
I used to work best where I sat down and just got to it. When I looked up, a ton of work was done. Like you I enjoyed working in this manner because I had a clear focus.
Now, I have a growing list of items fighting for importance. When this happens, I don’t do anything much. Just spin my wheels.
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