creativity

The Brainstorm Book: Finishing Up And Following Up

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

We’re talking how to solve your creative challenges with a Brainstorm book!  Last time I discussed how to record your ideas and track them.

Of course I assume you’re actually getting things done during this time by whatever method of productivity you choose. So let’s talk what to do to follow up once you get things done.

Signoff

Make sure you have a way to look at one of your projects and say “yeah, that’s done at least for now.” This way you can confidently say you’ve completed what you set out to do. This could be something as solid as a published book, or as ephemeral as a website update you know you’ll change tomorrow. Learn how to say “this is done.”

Defining “Done” means you can complete work. You can evaluate. You can deliver a product. You can relax. “Done” is vitally important to define – so do it as early as possible, including as early as possible when you’re maintaining your lists of all these ideas.

When you do decide something is “Done” have your Brainstorm Book handy – that “Done” will probably inspire other ideas.

Plus you get the peace of mind of something being over.

Retrospectives

It’s important to have a regular Retrospective – a review of how things have gone. I recommend two times to do them – in fact, I recommend both:

  1. First, do a retrospective after any big project completes.
  2. Second, do one after a period of work. For instance if you plan things out by month, then review every month.

On a Retrospective review the following:

  1. What went well?
  2. What did you have problems with?
  3. What work took more effort to do than expected and what work did you miss?

After this review, you should actually ask what concrete actions will you take in the future to make things run better. This could be doing things you did right more, it could be fixing things, it could be staying aware of issues.

Retrospectives help you understand how you brought ideas to life, and how work went from a scrawl in a Brainstorm Book to being real. They spawn new ideas and help you understand your creative process.

Plus each time, you get better.

Success List

Finally, keep an success list. Every month list out what you achieved that month to move your plans forward. That should include:

  • Any major achievements and successes in your plans.
  • Making distinct progress in one of your projects.
  • The completion of a project.
  • Anything you’re particularly proud of.

Reviewing your successess helps you see the results of your actions, appreciate them – and provides you reminders that you can get these things done. It builds habit of self-reinforcement.

All those ideas in your Brainstorm Book? This is when you see that you can make your dreams real.

You’re Not Done Until After You’re Done

Always remember that your brilliant ideas aren’t done when they finish. You want to take time to figure out how to end them, how to review them, and how to learn. That helps tie together all you did and all you learn and all you do at the end.

It’s important to have these kind of closing rituals to know you’ve ended things correctly. And of course, you’ll come up with new things to do or tweak my ideas – good.

Keep learning because even though things are done, creativity doesn’t end . . .

– Steve

Writing Thoughts: Sand Mandalas And The Impermanence of Art

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

There’s a Tibetan Buddhist tradition where monks spend days building beautiful mandalas of sand, illustrating various principles.  Then at the end of this long ritual, they destroy the entire thing.  It is a nicely evocative example of the impermanence of all things – and a lesson to writers and artists.

Imagine you are making a mandala, knowing it will be destroyed.  You craft it perfectly, knowing it’s impermanent.  Every step is temporary, each precise.

Imagine working as people gather around you, in awe, looking at it, wondering.  They marvel art artistry, think over the meaning, ask questions.  Then they go on their way.

Then you spin it or scrape it away or let the wind come in and it’s all gone.

That’s very likely to be your book – any book.  That’s likely to be your art – any art.  Few of us will be spoken of in centuries, let alone years ,let alone ever.  We’re unlikely to be Kameron Hurley or Terry Pratchett or any of the other greats.  We’re temporary things, but in the end we’ll be sand – and even the greats will probably stick around a bit longer before they’re footnotes and records.

It’s worth it.

First, it’s worth it because art is what you do.  That is your expression.  That is who you are.  Be it for religion or creativity or to speak or even money, that’s you and what you do.

Second, it’s what you learn by doing this.  The craft, the knowledge, the self-reflection.  Each step in your own impermanent work tells you something more.  Each step changes you – because you too are an impermanent, shifting, collection, so make it a good one.

Finally, it’s that crowd gathered around you, watching and learning.  They may not take home the mandala, they may not see it again.  But they’ll think, and learn, and contemplate.  You may just touch hearts – they don’t need to take a picture or have their own copy to do that.

What many of us artists can hope for is not immortality as creators – and it’s not what we should hope for.  In these impermanent moments we leave behind something greater, not as a work praised for the ages, but in influencing ourselves and others.  Just because your book is forgotten a year or two from now, doesn’t mean it didn’t matter or have an effect.

It’s pretty much the same as how I take the Buddhist idea of Projected Karma – that thing that has an influence down the road.  Influence of action, not permanence of creation.

Just like the Mandala teaches, so can you work.  It doesn’t have to be forever – and indeed it shouldn’t be.  Nothing is, and clinging to past forms, worn and tired, isn’t immortality, it’s a specific kind of hell.

Let the sand be sand.  Don’t mummify your creativity in the hope people will stare at it dumbly, unmoved, un-involved.  Let it be a living thing and go where it may, even when it may die.

Think of how liberating that is.

– Steve

The Brainstorm Book: The Review

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

We’re talking how to solve your creative challenges with a Brainstorm book!

Now that you have a Brainstorm Book and are filling it with ideas, you need to review it. When you review it, you’ll go through the contents, go over your ideas, and figure what to do with them. That means coming up with a review schedule – but also coming up with a way to organize these ideas.

Your Review Schedule

First, set up a time to review your Brainstorm Book. You want to find a schedule that’s going to work best for you and not drive you up a wall. I recommend one of the following two choices:

  1. Do it every 2 weeks regularly.
  2. Do it twice a month on regular times that makes things roughly equal distance. (I recommend the 5th and the 20th).

Now it’s OK to, now and then move the time around a bit, but don’t get too radical. Good, solid, regular review should become a habit so you make the time to do it.

But what do you do? Well, when you review you need to set a few things up in your notes. Let’s get ready for a review.

Preparing for a Brainstorm Book Review

Remember, set this up before your review begins.

When you review a Brainstorm Book, you’ll sort ideas into four separate files. Now that may sound like a lot, but bear with me.
Here’s the four ways I keep ideas.

  • Archives – A collection of files that are things written down that you might refer to one day. One file can be enough, though you may want to divide them into general lists (stories, cooking, etc.)
  • The Incubator – This is my list of things you want to do some day, but aren’t sure when. Keep them in a list in order of importance – and no item can be of equal importance to another.
  • Backlog – Things you are definitely going to do. These should also be listed in order of priority. In many cases you’ll start breaking down work here because you know it well enough.
  • Current Backlog – What you’re committed too now. As an example I plan my work in monthly increments, so it’s a month of things to do.

Yeah, it sounds like a lot, but I keep the Incubator, Backlog, and Monthly backlog in the same spreadsheet.

If you’re familiar with Agile methods, specifically Scrum, some of this may look familiar – that’s because it comes from a mix of my own experience, Scrum, and the Getting Things Done method of David Allen. I sum this up more in the next chapter but to give you an idea:

I use my personal version of Scrum, where I plan work monthly. Every month I determine what I can do (from my regular tasks and Backlog) and then commit to that. Then at the end of the month I re-evaluate.

(You can also get a detailed guide here)

Now you know what you have toset up, let’s talk about how we use the review.

Reviewing Your Brainstorm Book

When you sit down to to a Brainstorm Book review, commit to taking one hour to do it. You may not use all of the time – but sometimes you will. You may also find yourself needing to go over, which is fine, but if it’s a habit you may want to get more efficient.

With that time set aside, do the following:

First you take your Brainstorm book, and go to the latest page that needs revieweed (I mark pages as I review them). You look at the idea or ideas there and decide what to do with each:

  • Ignore It – The idea may not be worth it or isn’t as great in retrospect or you weren’t sure what you wrote down.
  • Archive It – It may be something you want to write down but there’s no place for it. Put it in an Archive file.
  • Incubate It – If it’s an idea that you really see value in, really want to do, then put it in the Incubator. However the Incubator is ranked in order of priority as noted – so you have to put the idea at the right priority. You might reshuffle the entire list (this is why you may need an hour)
  • Backlog It – If an idea is really important, really must-do, put it in your Backlog – and again, put it in order of priority. If the idea is maturing, take some time to flesh it out more – you may break it into parts – another reason you may need that hour.
  • Current Backlog – If an idea is that important, that necessary (or that awesome) put it in your current backlog so you get to it soon.
  • Do it now – If it’s going to take a few minutes, why not just get it over with?

Simple, isn’t it? You look at ideas and determine how important they are, then put them in the proper areas. It’s intended to be simple because we don’t want to overcomplicate this. Next chapter, we’ll talk how to use these gatherings of ideas in more detail.

Why The Review Matters

Now that you’ve started to do your reviews, why are they helpful? Well, first after a review or two you’ll see why they matter, but heres a quick summary:

  • You don’t loose ideas or worry about losing ideas. You record them twice over to make sure you have them.
  • By seeing your inspiration you’ll be able to trust it to help you. Even if there are problems in being inspired, you now can see them, address them – and know when they’ve worked.
  • Analyzing your inspiration helps you understand how you think. You may find ideas repeat, or that certain days are better than others.
  • You can get re-inspired. When you look at your ideas, they don’t just come back to you, new ideas form. This further helps you understand how you think and have confidence in your imagination.
  • Reviewing them like this is the start of deciding what to focus on. By sorting items into different lists (or discarding them) you start prioritizing already.

This prioritization helps you get ready for long-term planning to bring your ideas to life. In fact, that’s the next chapter.

– Steve