Some creative people believe the myth that planning reduces creativity. In fact, planning can increase your creativity and enhance your creative projects. If you’re got multiple talents and a million ideas, it’s helpful to get organized. Once you’ve selected from among the many available options and decided on a particular creative project, there are many benefits to charting a specific course of action.
Why? What benefits are there to planning your creative project?
1. Planning will organize you, your ideas and your actions.
Taking time to sketch out what needs to happen, in what order provides a framework for your many, many ideas. Include what you know and identify what you don’t. (When unrelated ideas pop up, park them in an ‘idea-capturing’ place for later). All that’s required are broad brush strokes – a skeleton on which to hang your gameplan. For some projects, this might take ten minutes of focused thinking. Others may require a day or two to sort out.
2. Planning reduces stress.
Whether it’s making an indie film or writing a cookbook or creating a one-person show, your desires can be daunting — especially something you haven’t done before. You have tons of ideas and no clear way how to translate them into your finished product.
Planning gives you peace of mind. Once you understand what has to happen, in what order by when, you understand how best to direct your efforts.
Author/consultant David Allen helps his clients get organized by having them write each ‘to do’ task, every idea, even their ‘someday/maybe’ items on separate pieces of paper. Once everything is written down, the pieces of paper can be prioritized and organized. His point is that when everything is written down, you know it’s handled, so you can relax and simply do what’s needed.
3. Planning will get you started.
Having thought about the overall project, there is likely to be the mental equivalent of a neon sign pointing to what needs to happen first. Having sketched out the whole process, you are likely to be chomping at the bit to begin. This is far preferable to the situation in which you sit paralyzed, overwhelmed by random ideas, with no idea what to do first.
4. Planning will keep you going.
By planning, you can aim towards a specific goal, monitoring your progress along the way. Ideally, you will reward yourself for every little victory along the way. When he was an aspiring body-builder, Arnold Schwarzenegger used to celebrate each rep of every work out, knowing that it was bringing him closer to his goal of becoming Mr. Universe.
5. Planning helps you handle obstacles.
As part of your planning process, you can identify possible obstacles and brainstorm how you might deal with them. Then, when your plan is actually underway, you’ll be more prepared for whatever unfolds.
6. Planning can give you a boost when you need it.
When your motivation flags or life intervenes, you can review your plan to remind yourself what you’re doing and what need to happen next. Odds are that when you step back and look at your gameplan, you’ll realize how much you’ve already accomplished, you’ll remember your fundamental goal and you’ll rekindle your initial excitement about the project. (“Oh yes! Now I remember! I’m one-third of the way through composing a banjo duet! I’ve always wanted to compose a special piece like this. Maybe someday I can perform it with Steve Martin! Why am I sitting here? Where’s my staff paper? I’ve got a duet to finish writing!”)
7. Planning gives you flexibility
If you know the overall game plan, it makes it easy to make the adjustments required along the way. If, for example, your gameplan is to write three pages a day until your screenplay is finished then you understand it will take you approximately 33 working days to write a standard 100 page script. Let’s say you commit to devoting the next month to your first draft. Now let’s say you get an unexpected writing gig plunk in the middle of that month. Or your in-laws descend for an unexpected visit. Or your pet suddenly needs surgery. You can attend to any of these, safe in the knowledge that these few days can be easily made up on your schedule. No biggie – providing you add a few pages here or there to reach your overall goal. It’s easy enough to write four screenplay pages (instead of the scheduled three) for a few days to keep you on track.
8. Planning increases the odds you’ll actually finish what you start.
It’s not a guarantee – but it sure can help. You’ve made a plan, you’ve monitored your progress, you’ve adjusted it as needed. With each of these actions, you are increasing your probability of accomplishing what you set out to do.
9. Planning increases your creativity.
It is one of life’s great ironies that structure begets creativity. When you create a framework within which to operate, you unleash boundless creativity within those borders. (And if you choose to color outside the lines, that’s fine too).
For all these benefits, planning does carry with it a few possible problems:
Trap # 1: You spend too much time and energy planning and too little doing.
It’s fine to get excited about refining your gameplan but sometimes we can get swept away by the details. After you establish a broad framework, it’s important to actually start the project, rather than filling in every conceivable eventuality. Set yourself a time limit beyond which you must move into action.
Trap #2: You become so wedded to your plan, you have difficulty adjusting it as events unfold.
A good plan is flexible, not rigid. As good as your plan is, life is likely to intervene. It’s better to adapt your plan, as needed, rather than abandon it or, worse, cling to an inappropriate course of action simply because it was part of your original blueprint.
If one avoids these traps, planning can be a godsend to those of us with too many ideas, too many talents and a tendency to wing off in random, unproductive directions. Of course, planning may not make sense in every situation…but if you’re launching a major project or establishing a new habit or practice, it can be very helpful indeed.
Don’t know how to plan your creative project? The next article in this series provides a step by step guide.
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Activity: Think about projects you’ve planned. What worked well? What didn’t? What would you do next time to avoid the things that didn’t work well?
Activity: Turn to the next article in this series to learn how to plan your creative project.
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For more, check out my book GOAL SETTING & PLANNING FOR MULTI-TALENTED PEOPLE: How to figure out
what you really want — and how to actually get it available here for only $2.99: http://amzn.to/goalsettingkindle
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Please use the comment box below to let us know what’s worked well for you and what hasn’t, when it comes to planning.
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Are you struggling with too many talents, skills, ideas? You may have The Da Vinci Dilemma™! Find tools, fun quizzes, coaching, inspiration and solutions for multi-talented people at http://www.davincidilemma.com/.
