I loved this advice from Todd Henry for staying focused through long-arc projects and remaining less prone to procrastination and the 'assassins of creativity', particularly when we start work at the beginning of the day. Instead of always beginning with the end in mind, says Henry, we should end with the beginning in mind. His two-minute strategy (and I quote):
1. Before you close out your work for the day, capture any open questions that you are currently working on. If you were to continue working right now, what would be the very next thing you would do?
2. Write those questions and the next thing you would do on a post-it, or a sheet of paper, and leave it where you’ll see it the next day.
3. Determine right then what you’ll do first when you next sit down at your workstation. Establish a starting point for your work. This will give you immediate traction. Having something to do prevents the paralysis that accompanies needing to decide what to do.
Henry quotes Hemingway who said that “The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day … you will never be stuck". Sounds like good advice to me.
HT 99u for the link
Photo Credit: jakeandlindsay via Compfight cc
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