The Accidental Creative
Page 18
Checkpoints slow you down, in a good way. Many creatives are aggressive in how they tackle their work, and they attack it with vigor. I have had to learn the hard way, many times in my life, to slow down. I like to move quickly. (I frequently run into automatic doors that don’t open in time for me because I’m walking too fast.) I can sometimes get ahead of my team or my clients because I’m not stopping to make sure that we are all on the same page. Having occasional checkpoints in my schedule forces me to stop and reflect on where I’m headed and whether my life is really structured in a way that will get me there.
Checkpoints provide traction. Traction is gained when points of friction—even small ones—push off against one another and enable movement. Until there are two opposable surfaces, there will be no traction. Checkpoints act like strategic points of friction in your life to ensure that you’re still moving forward and not losing traction. This will generate forward momentum in each of the five elements of Creative Rhythm and lessen the chance that they will get squeezed out of our life as the pressure escalates.
Checkpoints clarify opportunities. Think about how you’ve spent your last twenty-four hours. How much time did you spend on building something rather than on maintaining something that already existed? Many of us spend much of our personal and professional lives in obligation mode—we maintain a system that someone else invented, or simply maintain our relationships, reactively doing what we have to in order to get things done without building capacity for future work. These are symptoms of obligatory living.
A big factor in shifting from obligation mode to opportunity mode is thinking regularly about how you are investing in your capacity to do better work in the future and taking accountability for your own creative growth. To do so requires that you ask difficult questions at regular intervals and to have the courage to readjust your lifestyle as necessary to accommodate what’s required of you in any given season.
You probably don’t care about the pipes running through your walls (unless you’re a plumber); you just want the water they deliver. Similarly, you need to be mindful enough of your practices only to ensure that they are present and functioning properly, but remember that they are there to serve you, not the other way around. Any system tends to become more and more cumbersome to maintain over time, and that’s exactly what you must avoid. Simplicity is key. Simple rituals become habits, and good habits yield results.
Here are a few other critical notes about checkpoints:There is no “one size fits all” solution for how the practices are implemented. The specific mix that works for one person may not work effectively for another, and you must be patient and willing to experiment. If you are diligent you will see results.
When the practices are implemented collectively, they work together like an engine with all of its parts intact. Your relationships impact your focus, which helps you determine what should be in your Stimulus Queue, and so on. When taken piecemeal, they still will provide improved clarity and insight, but you will not derive the full benefit that is present when all the practices are working together.
Get ready to compromise. Any degree of intentionality involves choice, and letting go of activities that have become comfortable and habitual may be awkward at first. In order to establish healthy habits, you need to let go of things that are making you efficient but not necessarily effective. This means that you may see a short-term dip in the amount of work you’re producing while you are retraining your instincts about where to look for ideas.
There are additional materials, including worksheets, audio, video, and more, to help you engage in the checkpoints at AccidentalCreative.com/book. At bare minimum, for each Checkpoint you will need your notebook, your calendar, your work and personal project lists (if you keep them), your Stimulus Queue, and your Project Queue (of potential Unnecessary Creating projects).
WEEKLY CHECKPOINT
The Weekly Checkpoint is where many tactical decisions will be made regarding the practices. As your schedule is shaping up for the upcoming week, you’ll have a much better sense of how and where the practices will fit most effectively into your life. I like to schedule my Weekly Checkpoint on Friday afternoon because it gives me a cliff-top perch from which to view my upcoming week and plot my course. Others I’ve worked with prefer to wait until first thing on Monday morning, or even to do this checkpoint over the weekend. If you have an organizational system that you’re already comfortable with, you can also find ways of working your weekly checkpoint into your existing systems. For example, I’ve used David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology for years, and I like to lump my weekly checkpoint in with the weekly review suggested by David’s system. Whatever works for you is fine, but be consistent.
During your Weekly Checkpoint you will think about how to implement the practices into your upcoming week. Here is a complete list of the practices we discussed in the book:Focus: Challenges, the Big 3, Clustering
Relationships: Circles, Head-to-Heads, Core Team
Energy: Whole-Life Plannin, Pruning
Stimuli: Study Plan, Notation, Purposeful Experience
Hours: Idea Time, Unnecessary Creating
Block off twenty minutes on your schedule for the Checkpoint, then work through each of the practices and where appropriate schedule them in your calendar.
WEEKLY CHECKPOINT PROMPTS
Focus
Challenges: Look at, or create, a comprehensive list of your projects. Do each of them have associated Challenges? If not, create them.
Big 3: What are your Big 3 for the week? Write Challeng es for each of the Big 3.
Clustering: Are there ways you can structure similar work this week so that there is less task switching? Block specific time on your calendar for these activities.
Relationships
Circles: Do you have a circle meeting on the calendar? Do you need to prepare for it? If so, put time on your calendar.
Head-to-Heads: Do you have any head-to-heads this week? Do you need to prepare? When will you do it? Put time on your calendar.
Core Team: Do you need to reach out to a member of your core team for advice on something? If so, add it to your task list for the week or fire off a quick e-mail.
Energy
Whole-Life Planning: Are there any potential conflicts this week between work and personal activities or expectations? How will you get ahead of them?
Pruning: Is there anything that you’d planned but now realize may not be a good idea, given your upcoming schedule? How can you prune it? Additionally, are there any “hard runs” in which you’ll have all-day or back-to-back meetings? How will you plan something energizing around or between them to prevent burnout and stay energized?
Stimuli
Study: When will your personal study times be this week? Put them on the calendar. What will they consist of? Take a look at your Stimulus Queue and map your week’s stimuli.
Notation: Take just a few minutes to lance at your notes from the previous week as well as the indexes in the front of your notebook.
Purposeful Experience: Do you have one on your calendar this week? When will it happen?
Hours
Idea Time: When will you structure your Idea Time this week? What will you focus on during these sessions? Put it on the calendar with the associated project name.
Unnecessary Creating:What will you do for Unnecessary Creating this week? Put it on your calendar
On page 188 is an example of what your week could look like after the Weekly Checkpoint.
You’ll notice that all the practices are represented in this calendar, which will not always be the case. Each week will look different, but being purposeful about putting the practices onto your schedule before your time fills up will help you ensure that they don’t get squeezed out. Additionally, you’ll notice that the evenings are free and clear because this schedule demands getting out of bed early. Your schedule may be weighted more toward the evening if you tend to prefer being active then.
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nbsp; Also, depending on your preferences, you may want to combine exercise with your study time a few times per week by listening to audio books on the treadmill or while doing resistance training, or by going for a run while listening to a podcast or two. It doesn’t really matter when the practices happen, as long as they are present.
Be sure to allow some space in your calendar to breathe. Don’t be so rigid that you account for all your time, as unexpected interruptions are likely to interfere with your plans and frustrate your efforts. If you are coming into an especially busy season, you may need to ebb and flow with it, which is fine.
MONTHLY CHECKPOINT
The one constant in the life of a creative is change, which means that you must regularly ensure that the plans you’ve made and the practices you’ve established are still relevant. The Monthly Checkpoint is about reviewing how the past month went, and recommitting to, or changing rails, around practices for the upcoming month. It’s a way to gain a more clear perspective on your current priorities and workload.
The Monthly Checkpoint is an hour per month, preferably at the very end of a month (to plan for the upcoming one). The goal is to recognize trends in your work and to do some strategic thinking about which types of practices will help you most in the coming weeks.
MONTHLY CHECKPOINT PROMPTS
Focus
Challenges: What are the biggest projects you’ll be working on in the coming month? Do each of them have Challenges? If not, create them.
Big 3: What are your Big 3 for the month? Write Challenges for each of the Big 3 if they don’t already exist.
Clustering: As you examine the upcoming month, are there days or weeks where you can cluster project work in order to focus more deeply? If so, plan ahead by marking those days on your calendar.
Relationships
Circles: When will your circle meet this month? Put time on your calendar or send invites to members.
Head-to-Heads: Do you have any head-to-heads this month? Put them on the calendar or send an invite to the other participants.
CoreTeam: Do you have any Checkpoints coming up with your core team members? You may want to schedule a lunch or a call. Send an invite or an e-mail.
Energy
Whole-Life Planning: As you survey the landscape of the upcoming month, are there any potential conflicts this week between work and personal activities or expectations? How will you get ahead of them?
Pruning: Look at your upcoming month; are there any especially busy weeks where you may need to prune either work or personal commitments in order to maintain a healthier energy level? Do it now, before things get too busy.
Stimuli
Study: Which items from your Stimulus Queue will you incorporate into your study times this month? Determine now what will best help you with your upcoming work and schedule. You may even want to create a note in your calendar on a weekly basis with the stimuli you hope to use that week.
Notation: Take a few minutes to review your idea index. Is there anything that may apply to upcoming projects? Is there anything that needs to be turned into a project? This is the time to do it.
Purposeful Experience: What kinds of experiences would you like to schedule into the upcoming month? What experiences would help you with your work? Create a list to use in your Weekly Checkpoints, or go ahead and put them on your calendar now.
Hours
Idea Time: Given the nature of your upcoming work, would your Idea Times be best placed at the beginning or end of your weeks? Which projects will definitely need some focused Idea Time? Make this list now to use in your Weekly Checkpoint.
Unnecessary Creating: What kinds of Unnecessary Creating projects will you work on this month? Take a look at your Project Queue and select the projects that seem the most appropriate given the time and energy you’ll have this month. Add them to your calendar, or just make a list for use in your Weekly Checkpoint.
Additional Questions
In addition to the more practical questions about the practices, the Monthly Checkpoint is a good opportunity to ask some self-probing questions about your current work. While some of these questions may seem obvious or unnecessary, the answers can often be surprising.
How do you feel about the work you’re doing right now? Do you feel like you’re doing your best work? Why or why not?
What do you perceive to be lacking in your life and work right now? What can you do about it?
QUARTERLY CHECKPOINT
People are brilliant at developing permanent solutions to temporary problems. Though you may not often recognize it, you probably see this all the time in your organization. This is why we often see big, cumbersome bureaucracies within companies. Many of those bureaucratic systems were developed to deal with pressing problems at some point in the past and have now become energy-zapping dinosaurs. It also happens in our personal life. We develop habits to resolve problems, such as e-mail inundation, lack of energy, or a desire for relational connection, but then these habits live on once our needs have been met. The Checkpoints ensure that these personal bureaucracies don’t take over your life and kill your best work.
Any of your practices can become more harmful than helpful if you don’t adjust or prune them from season to season. This is the primary reason for the Quarterly Checkpoint. It is a check-in to help you evaluate how things are going and to establish the practices you think you will need in the next quarter in order to meet the demands of your life. It’s like climbing a really tall tree to get your bearing and take a look at the upcoming terrain. It may seem like a temporary diversion, but this can make you much more effective as you continue your journey.
The Quarterly Checkpoint is the longest horizon planning you will do. While many productivity experts recommend annual retreats to examine goals and objectives, I find that these are often too long term to provide an accurate analysis of upcoming work. Ideally you will be able to take an entire day for this quarterly session, but, understandably, you may not be able to break away from your life in order to do so. If this is the case, the Quarterly Checkpoint can take place an hour at a time in the mornings or evenings over the course of a week.
One member of our coaching community shared how these Quarterly Checkpoints have been invaluable to her. She says, “They help to create balance in my life. I go to the library for about four hours on a Sunday afternoon armed with my daily notes and journal entries from the past quarter and my calendar for the upcoming quarter. I then analyze the past and plan for the future. It has been interesting stepping back from my own life and looking at it as an outsider. I look at where my energy has been going and where I want it to be going. I come away from the retreat with my Big 3 for the next quarter. The Big 3 go on my daily log that I use at my day job so I know what I’m really trying to do in life.”
There are two main priorities for the Quarterly Checkpoint: establish your focus for the upcoming three months and set general rails around your practices.
QUARTERLY CHECKPOINT PROMPTS
Focus
Establish areas of focus. Divide a sheet of paper in two and on one side write “work” and on the other write “personal.” Spend twenty to thirty minutes thinking of all of the commitments you will be accountable for. You want to be as comprehensive as possible because this will provide the working template for how you structure other elements of your plan.
A commitment is anything that you will be accountable for delivering. This can mean a large work initiative that will require a lot of creative effort, or it can mean a small personal project you’re personally committing to get moving on. This is not a wish list of things you’d like to do someday; it’s a list of things you are actually committing to doing or are accountable for doing in your work. If it’s on the sheet, it’s something you’re planning to get done in the next three months (or planning to spend a significant amount of time working on).
What are the Big 3 for the quarter? These are the big conceptual hurdles you will need to jump this qu
arter in order to succeed in your work.
Establish Challenges for each of the Big 3. These should be phrased in the form of a question, and they should capture the main creative problem you need to solve. For each commitment you’ve listed, you should be able to answer the question “What am I really trying to do?”
Relationships
Once you have a sense of direction for the upcoming quarter and for the scope of your commitments, you can begin setting some rails for the other practices. Your relational rhythms are best examined on a quarterly basis to make sure that you are filling your schedule with stimulating interactions but not becoming overwhelmed with obligatory ones. Doing this will also help you determine where there are gaps in your existing relationships that you may want to fill in the upcoming season.