Image by Jeff Medaugh

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There are moments when we step into our highest selves. We are lost in our activity and performing at our peak. We’re smarter. We contribute more. We connect to the heart and root of our identity.

We call this “the zone” or “state of flow”. Dr Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his landmark work Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience describes it as “joy, creativity, the process of total involvement.” Time melts away. Nine hours can seem like twenty minutes. “The key element of an optimal experience is that it is an end in itself…the activity that consumes us becomes intrinsically rewarding.”

We merge with what we are doing. The dancer becomes the dance.

At the same time, we are fully and completely ourselves.

We are in our Element.

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Being in the Zone doesn’t drain you of energy. It restores and recharges you. It makes you – literally – more alive. It is a powerful and transformative experience, and the sense of self and wellbeing that it creates spills over into other aspects of your life.

What if you could put yourself into the zone everyday?

What if you knew your Element?

Your Element is that personal sweetspot where something you have a true passion for overlaps with your aptitude and ability. Ken Robinson, in his book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything describes it as “a different way of defining our potential. It manifests itself differently in every person, but the components of the Element are universal….Finding your Element is essential to your well-being and ultimate success.” Whether your Element is something that you can build a career around, or pursue as a recreational activity, it connects you to the deep internal pulse of your own creative spirit.

As Robinson puts it: “You don’t know who you are until you know what you can do.”

Finding your Element is like finding your soul.

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But it’s easier said than done, thanks in part to our limited definitions of creativity and intelligence and how they work and interact. Most of us remain blind to our own potential, having decided long ago that other people – you know, the ones in black turtlenecks sipping their lattes – are creative, but not us. Other people have passions…but not us. We’re not smart enough. Or maybe we think it’s already too late for us; we’re too old; the chance to find our Element passed us by long ago.

And yet we’re entering an era when creativity is more important than ever. As the global population continues to explode, as technology continues to transform society at a wicked pace, as jobs continue to be outsourced or automated, the individuals who will thrive and prosper will be the ones who can’t be replaced, who think in ways that computers can’t. Seth Godin calls them the linchpins: the people who bring a creative edge to everything they do, who impress with the quality of their ideas and their ability to relate to others.

School didn’t prepare us for this. Public education is a relic of the Industrial Age, meant to turn boys and girls into the men and women who would stock the factories and keep progress thrumming along. Factories had little use for creativity or independent thinking. What resulted is a system that drummed the creativity out of most of us: that prizes conformity, linear thinking and standardized testing. We learned how to get the grades we needed. We learned to please. We learned to fear anything that smacked of failure or potential social embarrassment. We learned how to hide our authentic selves so well that some of us lost them altogether.

Rejecting this – rejecting whatever label you got slapped with in school — and embracing the combination of ways that you truly process the world is key to discovering your Element.

Because you are so much more than a set of numbers, whether it’s your IQ score or your GPA.

Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner puts forward the idea of multiple intelligences, independent of each other and equally important: linguistic, musical, mathematical, spatial, kinesthetic, interpersonal (relationships with others) and intra-personal (knowledge and understanding of the self).

Your intelligence is strongest in certain areas and operates on many levels. It is diverse, dynamic, and every bit as unique to you as your fingerprint.

Creativity is a process that draws on these different levels of thinking at the same time. It can be an intensely physical process that taps into feeling and intuition, association and memory, nonverbal as well as verbal smarts. You can be creative at anything at all, in art or math or business or relationships – anything that involves the application of your imagination and intelligence in any of its forms.

But what the process requires is the actual doing and making (otherwise known as “creating”). This means that your brand of creativity isn’t just in relationship to your brand of intelligence, but also the medium through which you develop and express your ideas.

And people who engage in creative work usually have this in common: they love their medium.

They love to dance. They love to make deals. They love to write. They love to shoot pool, or cook, or whatever it is that they do.

Actually finding that medium can be a revelation. Points out Robinson, “history is full of examples of people who didn’t discover their real creative abilities until they discovered the media in which they thought best.”

Let me stress that: the media in which they thought best. The media that plays to their particular profile of the multiple intelligences. Different forms of media enable us to think in different ways. When you find your media, and develop your practical skills in the use of that media, you might prove more creative than you ever expected.

And then you can find your tribe.

This could be as dramatic as leaving your hometown for the bright lights of the big city, or as mundane as going online.

You might find members of your tribe on your bookshelves, or somewhere in the past. They could be living or dead. Young or old. Near or far. What matters is that something in their life resonates for you and calls forth a deep sense of recognition. You see yourself in them: who you are and who you want to be. Through examining their journeys you can begin to imagine your own. To paraphrase Einstein: we all see further when standing on the shoulders of giants.

What connects a tribe — and separates it from a mere crowd or group – is a passionate commitment to the thing that they feel born to do. A tribe offers validation that this thing matters and has importance, even if the people at home thought you were nuts, or smiled politely and looked at you askance.

A tribe offers stimulation and inspiration. It challenges your sense of what is possible and provokes you to the edge of your abilities. Robinson refers to an “alchemy of synergy”: the mix of creative energies and need to keep up with your peers that forces you to push to new heights. From Florence at the beginning of the Renaissance to Silicon Valley at the end of the twentieth century, there have always been powerful clusters of individuals who drive innovation through the ways they influence each other. But first they had to find each other, which was akin to finding themselves, or giving themselves permission to truly be themselves.

It’s never too late to find your Element.

Life is not linear, although for some reason we Westerners tend to favor that idea. The road that brings us face to face with our Element is rarely so straight-forward. “Different capacities,” Robinson says, “express themselves in stronger ways at different times in our lives…We get multiple opportunities for new growth and development.”

The brain turns out to be surprisingly plastic. Research indicates that, so long as we actively flex its muscle, the brain will continue to generate cells and build neural pathways as we age (techniques such as meditation can accelerate this). If we’re willing to take the time to step out of our routines, evaluate our paths and return to the passions we let fall by the wayside or maybe never pursued in the first place, we open the door to some remarkable possibilities. We can discover the Element at practically any age.

You don’t know who you are until you know what you can do.

You and Your Element

Have you found your Element?

Where and when have you felt most deeply in your Element?

How do you recognize fellow members of your tribe?

About the Author: Justine Musk explores what it means and how to be a kick-ass, soulful and savvy fiction writer in the digital age at Tribal Writer. You can check out her books at www.justinemusk.com and follow her on Twitter @justinemusk.

Image courtesy of The 99 Percent

Are you ambitious? Or do you think ambition is a dirty word?

Is it possible to have big ambitions without turning into an egomaniac?

Are you hiding your light under a bushel? If so – what difference would it make to your career if you gave yourself permission to pursue your ambitions?

These are the questions I address in my latest article for The 99 Percent: Are You Ambitious Enough?

If you have anything to say in response, I hope you’ll pop over to The 99 Percent and leave a comment.

Image by Stephen Boisvert

Brainstorming is the best technique for generating great ideas.

Brainstorming is the worst technique for generating great ideas.

Both sentences can be accurate depending on the methods used to conduct a brainstorming session. However, there’s one technique (perhaps mindset is the better word) that can improve your results. It’s something that Tim Hurson of thinkx calls the ‘third third’.

Brainstorming Has a Bad Reputation

We’ve already had a good discussion about brainstorming here on Lateral Action, with lots of smart ideas suggested by our readers. We discussed a few key criticisms of brainstorming:

• Not enough good ideas
• Lack of critical filters
• Inhibition
• Freeloading
• Taking turns
• Groupthink

Groups Do Generate Fantastic Ideas

Despite the criticisms, it seems obvious that groups do generate good ideas, or at a minimum they do help refine them to the point of making them actionable. After all, corporations and organizations do some pretty amazing things and it’s just not possible for all of them to be one-person armies. Consumer products, charitable organizations and other endeavors may be driven by a single guiding mind, but they have to rely on teams to get into the nitty gritty, solve problems and execute plans.

Focus on Getting the Best Idea

Let’s assume that we can somehow surmount the dangers of human psychology and sociology. You manage to assemble a smart team of people with a mixture of backgrounds and each person has sufficient self-awareness and emotional intelligence to work cooperatively. Moreover, let’s also assume that they understand the pitfalls of brainstorming and have decent guidance.

The remaining problem is getting to the best ideas. One of the discouraging things about the brainstorming process is that the road to the best ideas is paved with the corpses of good, mediocre and downright awful ideas. These results will dampen most people’s enthusiasm. How can you get to the best ideas when everything that comes out during most of the process is utter garbage?

The answer is simple: that’s a part of the process.

Getting to the ‘Third Third’ in Brainstorming

In his book Think Better, Tim Hurson writes about techniques for productive thinking, which is a key skill needed for lateral action. One of the key points that he covers is the miracle of the third third. Let’s say that you have a brainstorming session and you’re aiming for 100 ideas. Studies have shown that the ideas generated in well run brainstorming sessions will typically conform to the following characteristics:

The first third (up to idea 33) of the ideas will tend to be obvious picks. They’ll be mundane and they won’t have anything new or interesting.

The second third (roughly between idea 34 and 67) will start to become interesting as your brain has to start thinking more creatively to come up with new ideas. You’ll start to get some good ideas amongst the mediocre, but they’ll still be based on prior knowledge and experience.

Around the time that you complete the second third, your brain will hit a mental wall. It’s going to feel extremely difficult to come up with new ideas.

This is a good thing!

If you have exhausted the obvious and not-so-obvious ideas, you’re naturally going to have to think creatively to come up with new ideas. Your brain will have to force connections between things that doesn’t seem to be connected to develop new ideas. You may have to combine motor oil and brassieres or goldfish and golf clubs in new and unusual ways to proceed forward (these are, of course, just different examples of new combinations of things – please don’t try this at home).

In Hurson’s view, the process of emptying out your mind during the first two-thirds of the brainstorming exercise clears out the mundane gunk and gives your brain room to think.

If we use the analogy of marathon running for a moment, you may feel like you’ve ‘hit the wall’ at this point and you can’t push ahead any further.

That’s exactly where you want to be. It sets you up for the ‘third third’:

In the third third (ideas 68 – 100), you have the best chance to come up with the really unusual, innovative and unexpected ideas. When you exhaust the obvious, the much less obvious ideas have room to emerge. You may still get some bad ideas or completely unworkable ideas (the latter is a highly likely occurrence, but it is normal). However, your brain may surprise you and come up with something so different and appealing that you’ll be glad you persisted. Even if you don’t immediately get the final idea, you may find a breadcrumb or clue to an awesome idea.

You Only Need One Great Idea

Like many things, there are no guarantees of success. Much like a baseball player who fails to get on base more than 60% of the time (most fail 70% of the time, or worse), you may not get the great idea that you are looking for through brainstorming, at least not on the first try. Brainstorming is a skill that requires patience, effort and practice to develop.

However, athletes go with best practices to maximize their chances for success. They may fail a lot of the time, but their best chance for success is to stick to what works.

If you go for the third third, your percentage of success may be worse than a baseball slugger. Out of 100 ideas, 99 of them may be worthless.

But sometimes all you need is one stellar idea, a mental home run, to win the game.

What Do You Think?

Have you had positive experiences with brainstorming?

Do you regularly go for the third third?

About the author: Mark Dykeman is the founder and main brain of Thoughtwrestling, a blog devoted to helping you with creativity, creative thinking, idea generation techniques, problem solving and getting things done. For more great ideas, follow Mark on Twitter.

Image by wsilver

We entrepreneurs are a pragmatic bunch. Meaning, we love to solve problems. Entrepreneurs almost always have a deep, unconscious need to find elegant, easy and fast solutions. Not just for their own issues, but for other people’s too.

As an entrepreneur, you feel the itch. When something isn’t right, you’re the first one to notice and feel the insatiable need to scratch it. ‘Scratching itches’ got you where you are today and that is pretty damn cool. You suffer from the obsessive compulsive problem solving disorder of all successful business owners.

As far as personality disorders go, this one simply rocks! Solving problems turns out to be a great way to make a buck or build an empire.

Obsessed with Scratching Itches? It’s a Blessing and a Curse

The entrepreneur’s need for pragmatic problem solving is a mixed blessing. It’s fantastic when we use this gift to do something revolutionary and valuable, but what about when we don’t?

You can’t just turn off your problem-solving disorder. It’s practically hardwired in. It means that your brains is ‘always on’, ticking away and trying to fix things.

Do you find yourself constantly asking internal, mental questions of yourself, like:

• What can I do about X?
• How can I fix this?
• What will I have to do to achieve Y?
• What if Z goes wrong, then what will I do?

If so, hell, you’re probably just an entrepreneur. How perceptive of me!

You have a great habit of problem-busting thinking. You regularly come up with solutions way outside the ‘box’ – except when you don’t.

When Problem Solving Goes Horribly Wrong

What happens when the solution isn’t forthcoming? How do you know when to stop trying to solve the problem? What happens if you simply cannot solve the problem?

If you’re like most successful entrepreneurs, not solving the problem isn’t an option. The questions keep ticking around in your head regardless, even if you know you should give up. You tell yourself you will find a way.

There’s a word for that. It’s called ‘worrying’.

Worrying is problem solving when the problem can’t be solved.

It could be for many reasons. It could be that the problem can’t be solved yet – you need to wait for the situation to develop. Maybe you aren’t the right person to solve it at all! Or, perhaps you need help from someone and you’re waiting on them.

Whatever it is, the problem can’t be solved this minute. Yet your good ol’ unconscious mind goes ahead and keeps worrying. Bless it.

Now you’re not smiling. Now OCPS disorder isn’t looking so damn cool. You’re lying awake at 3am wishing you could simply switch off.

No wonder issues like insomnia are such a plague for entrepreneurs. About seventy percent of my entrepreneurial clients complained of the can’t-switch-off symptom. They lay awake at night trying to ’solve’ such doozies as:

• Finding enough customers to pay next month’s overheads
• Figuring out what they’ll do if it doesn’t work out
• Worrying if they charge too much/too little for their product

Destroying this ineffective mental habit doesn’t have to be difficult. I trialled several different solutions with clients and discovered that truly ‘getting’ one simple concept made all the different. The idea is a principle I borrowed from a pal of mine from Asia. You know, that guy with the grin and the big belly?

Buddha had some good things to say about worrying and despite that I’m not actually Buddhist, I thought I’d borrow this from him:

If you can do something about it, then don’t worry.

If you can’t do something about it, then don’t worry.

Entrepreneurs are problem solvers. We really don’t need to worry about things that we can do something about, right?

Thing is, if we are powerless to change something, what’s the point in worrying about it? A better choice would be to pour a drink and settle down to wait and see.

So since I discovered this proverb/philosophy, I’ve been putting it into action. I started asking around some of my mentors and role models. I discovered that the happiest of them held the same principle near and dear to their hearts. Except the part about pouring drinks – that’s optional.

They may not have been Buddhist, or even put words around the idea before, but deep down… they knew that worrying is never worth it.

I’d guess that, deep down, you believe the same. While you may find it tough to put into practice 100% of the time, this really is the key to finding the happiness and innovation that pushes the envelope of life and business.

Is this something new or something you knew? What do you think?

About the Author: Peter Shallard is the Shrink for Entrepreneurs. He helps business owners figure out how to achieve wealth, freedom AND sanity… all at the same time! Check out his blog or for mini Jedi Mind Tricks, follow @PeterShallard on Twitter.

What’s the most important big task on your schedule today?

And the most urgent?

Are they the same thing?

If so, then you’ll have no problem deciding what to do first. But if not, then you’re faced with a dilemma:

Should you do the more-important-but-less-urgent task first, at the risk of missing your deadline?

Or should you do the urgent thing first, at the risk of sidelining your most important work?

In the moment, most of us will tend to do the urgent task first, no matter that it’s less important than the other one. And in the moment, there’s probably no great harm done – after all, if it’s important enough to get on your schedule, then presumably Bad Things Will Happen if you don’t do it on time.

But if we step back and look at the big picture of weeks, months and even years… supposing you kept allowing the less-important-but-more-urgent tasks to take priority over more-important-but-less-urgent? Is there not a danger that, over time, you’ll do plenty of good work, but not as much great work as you could have done? And if that’s the case, what impact will it have on your career, or your business?

If you’ve read Steven Covey’s classic book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, then you’ll recognise his distinction between urgent and important tasks, as illustrated in the table below.

Covey argues that most of us spend too long in the left-hand column, either firefighting or rushing to meet deadlines in the top left quadrant, or wasting our time on unimportant busywork in the bottom left quadrant.

If we really want to achieve something remarkable, Covey says, we should spend all of our time in the top two quadrants, and none of it in the bottom two quadrants (after all, if it’s not important, why do it?). And we should spend as much time as possible in the top right quadrant, on the important-but-not-urgent tasks that create long-term value for others and long-term success for ourselves.

We also need to deal with the important-and-urgent tasks. But following Covey’s logic, if we do as much of the important stuff as possible before it becomes urgent, then gradually we should find that there is less to do in the top left quadrant. Of course, some of this is dependent on others, who may come to us with requests very late in the day, but we can at least eliminate the false urgency we create for ourselves by habitually leaving things to the last minute.

It’s hard to find a flaw in Covey’s argument. And most of the successful people I meet seem to be doing as he prescribes, by focusing relentlessly on their true priorities rather than the ephemeral demands of the day. I made a similar argument myself recently, on The 99 Percent, where I encouraged my readers to do ‘creative work first, reactive work second’.

Yet even when faced with these arguments and the evidence to back them up, many of us still find it hard to get off the hamster wheel of seemingly endless ‘urgent’ tasks in the left-hand column.

So what’s the difference between these two groups of people?

Unlike the people on the hamster wheel, the consistently high achievers treat the most important tasks as the most urgent. For them, there’s nothing more urgent than completing the task that will create the most value and have the biggest impact.

How to Inject Urgency into Your Plans

Having coached plenty of high achievers over the years, I’ve noticed two things about their mindset that give them a sense of urgency about the important challenges that the rest of us tend to put off until we’re ‘less busy’.

1. Fast forward

Living in the now is undoubtedly the most rewarding state to be in most of the time, especially when it comes to things like family, friends, food, meditation and holidays. It even applies to work, at the times when you need to be 100% focused on the task in hand to do an outstanding job.

But if you want to create or achieve remarkable things, then you also need to keep an eye on the future, and assess the likely impact of today’s actions on tomorrow’s outcomes. This is what the outstanding creators typically do – when they look at this week’s schedule, they look into the future, and decide their priorities according to medium-to-long-term results, not whether it will make today easier or harder.

Use imaginary time travel for real results:

1. At the start of every week, look at the balance of urgent vs important tasks on your schedule.
2. Among the urgent tasks, isolate the really important ones – i.e. the ones that will have serious consequences if you let people down. In your diary, schedule enough time to get these done.
3. Now it’s time to prioritise the remaining tasks. In your imagination, ‘Fast forward’ one week – what is the likely outcome if you allow the urgent-but-not-so-important to take priority over the important-but-not-urgent? Note how satisfied you will be with your achievements.
4. Now fast forward to the likely outcome if you do things the other way round – i.e. prioritising the important-but-not-urgent tasks. What difference does this make – particularly to your sense of achievement?
5. Repeat the thought experiment using periods of one month, six months, one year and five years. Notice what difference it makes when you widen the timeframe.

2. Apply your own criteria

If you’re focused on today (rather than today + tomorrow) then it’s easy to get caught up in other people’s agenda – and find yourself making decisions based on their criteria. But once you start to look ahead, and see the likely consequences of your actions and the unfolding of related events, then you start to notice important factors coming into play. Things to avoid and things to aspire to. Opportunities and pitfalls.

In other words, you start to develop your own criteria for decision-making. Which makes it easier to assess your real priorities – and if it comes to it, easier to argue your point when there’s a clash with other people’s priorities.

Establish your own criteria:

1. When you fast forward in your imagination, look out for likely desirable and undesirable consequences. Pay particular attention to consequences that affect your long-term plans.
2. Use these ‘future consequences’ as criteria for the decisions you make today. Write them down, if it helps you keep them firmly in mind.

Now, some people might say that using your own criteria in this way is ’selfish’. I disagree.

The reason I disagree is that criteria are ‘content-neutral’ – they could just as easily be about others’ needs or desires as your own. E.g. your plans could be about doing charitable work, or finding innovative new ways to help your customers more and charge them less.

The only ’selfishness’ involved is in taking responsibility for making decisions according to what you believe is important, rather than taking your cue from others’ demands … which only takes you back to that hamster wheel.

Over to You

Do you agree that prioritising important-but-not-urgent tasks is the key to long-term success?

How do you inject a sense of urgency into long-term plans?

How do you deal with urgent demands while trying to make progress on your own plans?

About the Author: Mark McGuinness is a poet, creative coach and co-founder of Lateral Action. For a FREE 6-month education in how to succeed as a creative professional, sign up for Mark’s course The Creative Pathfinder

I’m pleased to announce the launch of a major new Lateral Action course: The Creative Pathfinder – Your Guide to Success as a Creative Professional.

And this one is completely free.

It’s designed to equip you with the creative and professional skills you need to succeed in your chosen career path – whether you’re an employee, freelancer or creative entrepreneur.

The course is a distillation of what I’ve learned from 14 years of coaching professional artists, creatives and other creative people, plus my own experience of earning a living as a creative freelancer and entrepreneur. So it’s based on tried-and-tested solutions to the unique challenges you face when you set out on a creative career.

It offers you a ‘foundation course’ in the essential knowledge and skills you need to thrive in the creative economy. So as well as lessons on creativity that are specially tailored to your needs as a creative pro, it covers things like productivity, career paths, marketing, sales, collaboration, managing money and intellectual property.

That’s a lot of ground to cover, and I don’t like to do things by halves – so you’re looking at 20-25 weekly lessons, delivered over a period of 6 months. As well as actionable advice and concrete examples, the lessons include practical worksheets and links to additional resources.

Enrolment is now open – there’s no fee for the course, so you can have access to the entire 6-month program for free. More details on the Creative Pathfinder page.

Enjoy!

Mark

Image by Genista

Two years ago this month, Brian Clark, Tony D. Clark and I were putting the finishing touches on the videos and articles we had prepared for the launch of a new website, Lateral Action. We wanted to create a different kind of site to help people realise their creative and business ambitions.

At that stage, we knew we wanted to start with a blog and later on produce a major e-learning programme. Beyond that, we were pretty confident we’d work out what to do based on the response of our audience.

Fast forward to today, and we’re thrilled that what we’ve achieved with the site. It’s been quite a ride and we’ve made plenty of new friends along the way. We also welcomed Sonia Simone to the team earlier this year. We’re really proud of the blog and The Lateral Action Entrepreneur Roadmap – and especially of the response from our readers and members.

Having reached the initial goals we set ourselves, we’ve been taking stock on what to do next – and the upshot is that going forward, Brian, Tony and Sonia will be focusing on their other projects, and I’ll be taking over Lateral Action and running it as a one-man operation.

One reason for this is that Brian, Tony and Sonia are running several other very successful projects, as well as having some cool new things under development, which is more than enough to keep them busy. Another reason is that, having learned a lot by working with them for the past couple of years, I’m now confident I can fly the spaceship myself, so I’m very happy to be taking over the controls.

I’d like to point out that there is absolutely no truth in the rumour about a behind-the-scenes Anglo-American bunfight triggered by goaltender goalkeeper Robert Green’s howler in the England v USA World Cup game.

Dissolving the partnership has been purely a business decision, based on our evolving interests. We’re still in regular contact and hanging out together over at Third Tribe. Brian and Sonia have even let me loose on Copyblogger recently, and Tony is being very patient with my tech support questions about how to work the hyperdrive.

So what does this mean for you?

Well, on a weekly basis, you shouldn’t notice much difference. As usual, there will be a new article on the site each Monday, mostly written by me, and with contributions from our fantastic guest writers; supplemented with occasional articles during the week. Our members will of course continue to have access to the Entrepreneur Roadmap (including updates like the new module we’ve just added). And we’ve agreed to maintain the link between the Entrepreneur Roadmap and Third Tribe membership.

In the next few weeks I’ll be adding a more personal touch to the About page and expanding the section about my coaching and consulting services. Later this year, I’ll open the Entrepreneur Roadmap to a new group of students (sign up here if you’d like to be first to know when this happens). And I’m excited about several new products I have under development, to help you achieve your creative and business goals. I’m also about to release a major new course, for free.

I’d like to thank Brian, Tony and Sonia for everything I’ve learned from them, originally as teachers and more recently as partners. You’re probably aware that they don’t do consulting or private coaching, so it’s been a rare opportunity for me to work with them and benefit from their expertise at close quarters.

I’d also like to thank all of you, our readers and members, for making Lateral Action what it is today. It’s a privilege to write for you, and I’ll continue to do my very best to help you become more creative, productive and successful.

And as I said, next week I’ll be launching the major new course I’ve been working on for the past few weeks.

I did mention it’s free, didn’t I? Good. Then I’ll see you next week …

I’ve been meaning to write about procrastination for ages, but I never quite got round to it.

This is one of the most frustrating and puzzling obstacles we encounter whenever we set out to create something remarkable. After all, creative people love creating things. Writers love to write, painters love to paint, musicians love to play. So why do we spend so long avoiding and putting off doing the thing we love?

I’ll offer my own explanation shortly, but I’d like to start by pointing out that procrastination is virtually epidemic among high-level creators. I used to think I was the only one who did it, and beat myself up over it. But having spent 14 years coaching creative pros of all descriptions, and heard a virtually identical story from hundreds of them, I’m convinced it’s just an occupational hazard. Procrastination is normal behaviour for creatives. So it was no surprise that it reared its ugly head when I invited you to tell us about your creative blocks:

[My block is about] Taking action. I have ideas, but seem to spend more time studying all of the new materials I have about how to implement those ideas, trying to be sure I have it just right. I need to get content written for two sites I have set up, and seem to be stuck in studying how to get started.

(Kathy Nicholls)

If you’ve been reading the creative blocks series carefully, you’ll have noticed that this isn’t the first time procrastination has popped up – it’s been a component of several of the blocks we’ve covered already:

My problem is all about execution, I get too excited at first, involved in to many projects and then I get overloaded with things to do. This makes me procrastinate, do other less important things and many things doesn’t get completed. This in turn makes me more overloaded, feel bad about myself and the threshold to to do what needs to be done gets huger and huger like an evil circle.

(Mats)

While my 9-5 job is quite creative (arts manager) I struggle to find time to write outside of work hours, writing being what I consider my first and favourite creative pursuit.

When I get home there is always something else to do – housework, seeing friends, spending time with my partner, catching up the news etc. Or else I’m “too tired”.

Suggestions and strategies would be great! Aside from “STOP PROCRASTINATING” )

(Sholeh Johnstone)

At every decision making moment along the way I question incessantly whether I’m doing the right thing. I fear that making the wrong decision will result in my work not meeting the very high standard I expect of it. Hence self-doubt, procrastination, and ultimately creative stagnation creep in. I have a ton of unfinished work. My unwillingness to commit affects not only my music but my ability to make career decisions, to find collaborators – even making everyday decisions on all kinds of things is a struggle!

(Anonymous)

So what exactly is procrastination, and what causes it?

I think of it as “Doing anything and everything but the work I really want/need to do”. We all know the tell tale signs – instead of knuckling down to work, we spend hours surfing the web, answering e-mails, tidying the house, rearranging the filing cabinet, talking to friends walking the dog or watching TV.

As for the cause, I think Steven Pressfield nails it when he says that whenever we set ourselves a difficult challenge, then an invisible force called Resistance arises, which does everything in its power to distract and dissuade us from tackling the work head-on.

Why do we experience Resistance? Because every time we set out to do something amazing, our ego (a.k.a. conscious mind) feels threatened. Threatened from the outside, because we might fail, or attract criticism or ridicule. And threatened from the inside because once you open yourself up to your imagination, you never know what might come bubbling up from your unconscious mind when you let go of control.

Pushing past the Resistance means going through a wall of fear. This is true whatever medium you’re working in, although the effect varies depending on your situation.

If you’re a performer, you have an audience waiting, so when it’s showtime you need to stand there and deliver. You may even have someone barking “lights, camera, action!” to help you push through the fear. It’s very intense – and explains why actors and musicians are more likely to complain of stage fright than procrastination.

But if you’re working alone in your office or studio, it’s easier to shy away from Resistance and start procrastinating. After all, who would ever know if you spent another 30 minutes in Google Reader or pottering about in the kitchen?

So for all of you reading this when you should really be doing something else, here are seven tried and tested ways to blast through that wall of Resistance and STOP PROCRASTINATING.

1. Decide in Advance

This is critical. If you leave it until Monday morning to decide whether you’re going to start work on that Big Scary New Project or rearrange your CDs into alphabetical order, then you don’t need me to tell you which is most likely to win.

If you wait until work time before deciding what to do, you can always persuade yourself that it would be better to start the difficult work ‘later’. But if you plan ahead, then when it comes to the crunch you know you’re either (a) working on what you promised yourself you’d do, or (b) procrastinating. It’s a lot harder to admit to yourself “I’m going to procrastinate” than it is to fool yourself by saying “I’m going to start work later”.

Decide beforehand when you’re going to start work. Then when the time comes, you’ve got one less excuse for not doing it.

2. Make a Habit of It

This follows on from 1. and makes it even more powerful. If you know you’re supposed to be painting/writing/rehearsing every day at 8am or 3pm, then even harder to pretend you’re going to do it ‘later’.

I’ve written quite a lot about the value of routines and rituals in getting creative work done, so I won’t labour the point here. I’ll just highlight a couple more ways they help you to beat procrastination:

• Momentum – doing the same thing day after day can build up momentum that crushes procrastination.
• Association – you come to associate certain times, places, people and objects with focused creative work. In Pavlovian fashion, each time you encounter the same circumstances, you experience emotions and behaviours associated with creative work.

3. Pretend You’re Not Going to Do It

I love this one, from coach Mark Forster in his fabulously-titled productivity book Do It Tomorrow. When it’s time to start a challenging task, this is what you say to yourself:

I’m not really going to start work, I’m just going to get the equipment out.

For example:

I’m not really going to start learning my lines, I’m just going to get the script out.

I’m not really going to the gym, I’m just going to pack my kit in the bag.

I’m not really going to start writing, I’m just going to open the Word document.

I’m not really going to make that difficult phone call, I’m just going to get the phone out and look up the number.

Mark’s theory is that telling yourself this kind of white lie somehow short-circuits the part of the brain that resists getting started. Once you start taking action and get out the kit you need, you’ll find yourself starting the task almost automatically, with much less Resistance.

I’ve tried it, and it works! In fact, I’m so intrigued by this that it’s actually fun to do. I tell myself I’m just opening up Dragon NaturallySpeaking so that it will be ready ‘for later’. And just writing the title of the article so I don’t forget it. And just jotting down a few quick notes …

Half an hour later I’m happily absorbed in the writing process, striding up and down the room and dictating to the computer with music pulsating from the stereo. Having so much fun I wonder why I didn’t start earlier.

4. Accept that it Will Never Be Perfect

This is the antidote to “trying to be sure I have it just right”. Tell your self that you will never get it “just right” – i.e perfect. There will always be something you miss, something that could be improved.

And that’s OK. Because it’s better to finish something imperfect than never to let it see the light of day. Depending on the nature of the project, you may get the chance to revise or tweak it, and send your customers an updated version.

But even if you don’t, even if this is your one and only shot, you still have a choice between shipping something that’s 90-99% good enough and learning from the feedback – or never finishing, never shipping, never delighting anyone with it, and never reaping any of the rewards.

I know which I’d choose.

5. Break It down

There’s a (possibly apocryphal) story about a man who ate a tractor by grinding each piece down into a fine powder and sprinkling it on his porridge every morning. I don’t recommend you try this at home, but you can apply the same principle to your work.

1. Think of a big, complex, challenging project that you’re working on at the moment. Imagine all the tasks involved and all the time and effort they’ll take. How do you feel? A little overwhelmed?
2. Now isolate out the very first task you’ll have to do. Imagine doing that. How does that feel? A bit more manageable?
3. Now think of the very first step of that very first task. E.g. if it involves creating or modifying a computer document, the first step is simply opening it. How does that feel? A piece of cake, huh?

Whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed, run through this process – grinding the task down to the smallest possible next action.

6. Sprint against the Clock

Use a timer to create an artificial deadline. This is how the Pomodoro Technique works – you set the timer for 25 minutes and work flat out until the bell rings, then reward yourself with a 5 minute break.

Studies have shown that we can’t concentrate on a task for longer than about 20-25 minutes, so dividing your worktime up into Pomodoros helps you make the most of your concentration span. The 5 minute break also acts as an incentive to get things done during the Pomodoro, and reduces the temptation to look for distractions.

7. Put Yourself on the Line

This one is the antidote to the “No-one would ever know if I spent the whole morning reading the paper” excuse. Make a public commitment to one or more people who you will report back to once you’ve done the work (or not).

Some writers have ‘writing buddies’ who are responsible for egging each other on and holding each other accountable for completing their daily and weekly quota of words. National Novel Writing Month uses the same principle – every year, hundreds of writers commit to writing a novel in 30 days, and updating each other of their progress.

Coaching clients often tell me that one reason for coming to see me is because they know they are more likely to take action towards their goals when they have to report back to me.

I used the same principle a couple of years ago, when I told my blog readers at Wishful Thinking that I was going to meditate every day for a year – and report back to them at the end of the year. Can you imagine how I would have felt if I – the coach, the agent of change! – had had to report back that I didn’t see it through? There were a few days when I was really tempted to skip my practice, and one of the biggest thing stopping me was the thought “what will you tell your readers?”. (Here’s how I got on.)

Over to You

When and where are you most likely to procrastinate?

How do you beat procrastination?

About the Author: Mark McGuinness is a poet, creative coach and co-founder of Lateral Action. Subscribe today to get free updates by email or RSS.

We’ve done our best to draw out the practical implications of the book, both in the call and in a Worksheet full of questions to help you reflect and take action towards becoming a Linchpin in your own sphere of work.

Thank you to everyone who sent us questions about the issues raised in the book. We did our best to cover as many of these as possible in the call (and there are some e-mails on the way to those of you whose questions we couldn’t fit in).

Here are some of the topics we addressed during the call (which ran to 48 minutes):

• Can anyone be an artist (not just the guys with paintbrushes)?
• Are any of us truly indispensable?
• Is it easier to be a Linchpin as an employee or entrepreneur?
• How can you tell what your gift is?
• What can you do when the gift you give through your work is rejected?
• What are the rewards of doing emotional labor?

The audio file and worksheet are both released under a Creative Commons licence – which basically means you’re free to download and share them, with no opt-in required, as long as you credit us as the authors and don’t use them commercially. So do pass them on to anyone who you think would find them helpful.

Special thanks to Cynthia for suggesting we do this, it was fun and I hope the materials will be useful.

Enjoy!

Download the mp3 here.

Download the Worksheet here

Stop the busywork and start the work that matters.

Michael is the founder and Principal of Box of Crayons, a company that works with organizations and teams around the world to help them do less Good Work and more Great Work.

Michael’s latest book Do More Great Work was an Amazon.com best-seller. It’s written to support and enable managers and leaders to do more Great Work. It has 15 practical exercises in it, as well as original contributions from people like Seth Godin, Leo Babauta, Chris Guillebeau, Michael Port and Dave Ulrich.

As a coach myself, I appreciate the way Michael has written the book – he doesn’t just describe Great Work or give you an instruction manual. Instead he uses challenging questions, activities and visual ‘maps’ to take you through a process of reflection, decision making and action.

In other words, it’s a workbook, not just a book about work. If you do it with honesty and commitment, it’s the kind of book that can help you make big changes in your working life – and your life full stop.

1. Thanks for agreeing to tell our readers about your approach to work. Can you start by defining what you mean by ‘Great Work’?

Thanks, Mark – I’m excited to be talking to fellow Lateral Action readers. You can think of all you do as falling into three buckets – Bad Work, Good Work and Great Work. These aren’t labels of quality, but labels of meaning and impact. So Bad Work is the work that’s pointless, meaningless, a waste of time, energy and life. Good Work is solid, productive, important – but not anything you’re particularly thrilled, excited or stretched by doing. And Great Work is the work that’s meaningful, important, and makes a difference. It’s the work that stretches you and inspires you, the work that sits at that crossroads between excitement and anxiety, the sweaty-palm feeling of taking on something that really mattes and you know will call you to be your best.

2. What are the biggest obstacles to doing Great Work? How can we overcome them?

There’s a ton of little things that get in the way, but when you get to the heart of the issue it’s a question of what are you saying Yes to and what are you saying No to. That sounds simple – and it is – but it’s also difficult. It’s why I say you need three core things to do more Great Work. First, focus – clarity on what matters to you, and clarity on where are the opportunities for Great Work in your life. Second, courage – the willingness to start your Great Work even though it’s more comfortable and familiar to stick with your Good Work. And finally, Resilience – a willingness to keep going when things get uncomfortable.

3. One word that comes through loud and clear from your book is ‘Purpose’. Why do you think more and more people are looking to find purpose in their work these days? Given the state of the economy, isn’t the struggle for survival a big enough challenge?

The struggle for survival is absolutely a big challenge. And what you’re looking for is the right mix for you, whatever your situation, between Good Work and Great Work. It’s different year to year, person to person. But if you’ve got a job, you’ve got the basics of survival covered, the question then is – for the sake of what? Is this sufficient? And for a host of reasons – your happiness, the impact on those around you, the impact on the world – it’s worth continuing to seek a sense of meaning and purpose and impact in the world.

4. I love the innovative structure of your book – instead of just using written chapters, it’s based around visual ‘maps’ for readers to complete by answering questions. What made you choose this format?

If I had to give myself a label – something I resist most of the time – it would be ‘facilitator’. I see my job as creating and holding the space and the structure for people to figure stuff out for themselves. So I really wanted to create book that *really* sparked action. I know I’ve got too many on my shelves which were interesting, but didn’t make me do anything differently in the end.

5. You say “Right now it’s not that easy to do Great Work” – because of busywork, meetings, overconnectedness via technology, and the economic pressures bearing down on us. While I agree with you, I’d also like to play Devil’s Advocate and suggest that in some ways technology does make it easier to do Great Work – by connecting people, ideas and opportunities. Do you agree? If so, how can we make the most of this without the downside of overconnectedness?

You’re spot on – it’s all about are you using the technology, or is it using you? For instance, there’s a ton of research so that shows the price you pay for being constantly interrupted – meetings, email, whatever. It means you never get down to grips with really thinking and strategy and engagement with your Great Work. And at the same time, you and I are talking now because of the marvel of technology and connection. So for me, it’s about setting up structures that allow you to use technology without becoming its slave. For instance, I don’t have a Blackberry (or equivalent) even though I lust after an iPhone, because I know the prize (totally fun) is outweighed by the punishment (my lack of will and therefore the need to check email all the time).

6. Do you believe it’s easier to do Great Work if you’re self-employed than an employee in the proverbial cubicle? Or are the external circumstances not the most important thing?

These two basic contexts are different, and it can always feel a little like the grass is greener on the other side. I’ve been in both. As an entrepreneur, you do have more freedom and a wider range of choices but you’ve also got the drive to find work and make money and the sense of responsibility for everything. As an employee, you’ve got the safety-net of a regular income and the blessing of a more limited scope – and the fact you have less control over your time. So both have challenges, both come down to making some choices about what you’re saying Yes to and what you’re saying No to.

7. Any final tips for Lateral Action readers who want to do Great Work?

I’m a fan of projectization. Projects have a start, a finish and a way of measuring success. So you can chose more clearly whether it’s going to be Good Work or Great Work. So pick something to work on that will be your Great Work Project, and go for it.

Michael Bungay Stanier is the founder and Principal of Box of Crayons, and works with organizations and teams around the world to help them do less Good Work and more Great Work. Learn how to apply the principles to your own work with Michael’s latest book Do More Great Work. You can follow Michael on Twitter @boxofcrayons.