Creative Reaction

After a long Holiday break, an office move, and a very unstructured schedule, I have completely lost traction in my blogging. For my first post of 2010, I’d like to direct everyone to this excellent post: Ten Essential Time Management Tips. In these back-to-basics reminders, I’ve found encouragement in what I’m doing correctly and practical advice to sort out the rest.

Just in time for the weekend, designer Stefan Sagmeister describes how he leverages year-long sabbaticals to boost his creative thinking. Check out this great TED video.

Ah, nothing like a good paradox, to make you stop and ponder. And I have two.

To Get More Done, Slow Down

If You Need to Work Better, Work Less

The first article is a bit of a cheat; I’ve linked to it before, though I described it cryptically with only two words. It’s an excellent anecdotal article explaining the importance of taking time off to work more effectively.

The other – OK, I cheated a bit here too because I edited the title, which was wimpy. Any advice with the word “try” in it lacks conviction and offers a way out. “I tried, but I couldn’t.” (The hair on the back of my neck is standing straight up. Deep breath. OK.) I’m not a huge Star Wars fan, though there’s a quote from Yoda that has always resonated with me. ”Do, or do not. There is no ‘try.’” And to make things worse, the title originally said “maybe try”. Aarrgghh! (Another deep breath. OK. I won’t let little things distract me from good advice.) Check out the article and scroll down about an inch to hide the title.

The second article also has to do with taking time off, even if you have to force yourself to do it. This one is backed by both anecdotes and research. Pure gold.

There are three important lessons to be learned here:

1. Our bodies and minds need rest.
2. Family and friends are vital to life, and thereby work.
3. Having fewer hours to work, forces us to work more effectively.

You need to spend more time with family and friends. If you find it hard to not work, and believe me, I’ve been there, you have to make some important choices. Start small, even if it’s just one evening a week. Shut off your cell phone and your computer, and spend some time with people you care about. Do this for a month. The guilt about not working will gradually dissipate. Eventually, you’ll be able to take a full day off, and someday you’ll discover weekends.

A great follow-up to Last Friday’s post, Focus on What’s Important, Not What’s Urgent, is an article which explains a system to do just this.

Using Time Effectively, Not Just Efficiently offers a great explanation of the “Urgent/Important Matrix” aka the “Eisenhower Matrix”.

It is a tool to keep us working on what is important, even while faced with things that are urgent (and inevitable interruptions). Focusing on the important is what enables us to meet long-term goals. Worth reading!

Slow down, focus, and be more creative. (Shortest post EVER.)

Behance Magazine has an excellent article on one of the consequences of Social Media; distraction. This ties in perfectly with one of my posts a few weeks back, “The Hidden Costs of Workplace Internet Usage“.

First off, I have to say that I take issue with their terminology. While they accurately discuss the root issue here, that of insecurity, they label the problem “Insecurity Work“. While constantly checking Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, e-Mail alerts, and Blog stats takes time and effort, it is the opposite of work/what you are paid to do/results.

That being said, check out the article: Tip: Reduce Your Level of Insecurity Work.

I have to admit that it’s a little painful to discover, or even worse, have someone point out, a weakness. The good news is that we have an opportunity to better ourselves and then help others. Isn’t that what management is about?

I came across this excellent post via an acquaintance of mine whom I follow on Twitter (@apsinkus) and since yesterday was Father’s Day, it is both timely and apt.

After seeing his daughter graduate from High School, Serial Entrepreneur Steve Blank took a look back and wrote Epitaph for an Entrepreneur.

At the core of his post is a list of “Family Rules” and I’m stunned to say I am in complete agreement.

No one says on his deathbed, “I wish I worked more”. In fact, many say, “I wish I spent more time with my family.” If you value your marriage and your children, read Steve’s post now.

Thinking time = Better innovation admonishes us to invest an hour each week to stop and think and offers some guidelines to make good use of that hour. The best part is that this can be done practically anywhere, as long as you have a means to record your thoughts. Creatives can apply this as well; just one creative challenge at a time, please.

(via Innovation Tools.)

There’s a thought-provoking post over at Harvard Business Publishing, entitled Why It’s Not Selfish To Take Care of Yourself, which happens to be a great follow-up to yesterday’s post.

Perhaps the reason it resonates with me is that I need reminders to implement this kind of advice in my life. As a husband, father of five, homeowner, business owner and church member, I have my fair share of responsibilities. Add to that a multi-generational “martyr complex” in my family (“willful suffering in the name of love or duty”) and its easy to understand why I feel guilty about sitting and watching a movie or a football game.

I would imagine many business owners and entrepreneurs face similar challenges – that of overextending themselves for the sake of several good things, and yet to the detriment of all. (This should not be confused with actual selfishness - ”placing one’s own needs or desires above the needs or desires of others”)

Quoting the post, “if you don’t take care of yourself then you can’t really serve those who depend on you.” ”While it might seem noble in the short run to sacrifice the needs you have to cultivate your mind, body, and spirit, over time it’s a recipe for burnout.”

“The key is to very specifically identify how, by better meeting the expectations you have for enhancing your mind, your body, and your spirit, you are indeed making things better at work, at home, and in the community.”

So I dedicate this final thought to myself as I try to squeeze 20 hours of studying for a certification exam into my week:

“What have you done recently to take better care of yourself and strengthen your ability to perform well in the other parts of your life? In these stressful times, it’s more important than ever that we all do so.”

37Signals had an excellent post last Spring entitled Sleep Deprivation is not a Badge of Honor, in which David speaks frankly to recovering workaholics (myself included). His apt analogy equates “borrowing” sleep with borrowing money from a loan shark; you pay a high interest rate with high stakes.

The costs of not getting a healthy amount of sleep include:

• Stubbornness
• Lack of creativity
• Diminished morale
• Irritability

I would dare say this is rampant problem. In fact, creative people tend to brag about how little sleep they got (along with other aspects of the previous evening’s exploits). This is clearly to the detriment of business and creativity.

Managers and owners, adequate rest is all the more vital for us! We must be “always on”. Being well-rested enables us to be agile, keep a healthy perspective, be able to make decisions quickly, and have the emotional energy to inspire others. Our employees depend on us.

Aside from strongly encouraging (and allowing!) employees to get healthy amounts of sleep, and leading by example, is there more that we can do? Do we have a “napping” policy and the means to accommodate napping? Do we downplay the “masochistic sense of honor about sleep deprivation” in our offices? Do we manage our businesses in a way to allow our employees to “have lives”, being able to spend time with their families, be involved in creative endeavors, volunteer their time and/or spend time outdoors, perhaps by shortening the work week?

We owe it to ourselves and our employees. (And our employees should give their best to us and each other.)

The romantic notion of being a creative recluse in a cabin by a lake in the woods is far from the day-to-day reality of a collaborative creative business. Time management as well as the “management” of interpersonal relationships is an integral part of work.

Making Time to Make by Merlin Mann of 43Folders deals with exactly these concerns from the creative person’s perspective. We’re going to repurpose Merlin’s article to take a look at meeting creatives’ needs from a managerial perspective.

One of the keys to productivity is making a conscious choice to determine the most important thing to be working on at any given time. Of course, this choice alone is not enough; structures and conditions must be present to shelter creatives from distractions and the office environment must be conducive to creativity. Ultimately, it is up to managers to ensure these conditions are present.

Merlin’s article is primarily about interactions with people and determining what is appropriate; specifically, interacting with people “enough”, yet not so much that work is inhibited. It asks a series of questions (and I’ve added a few of my own) to optimize both work and creative output.

Environment/Conditions:

• What kind of environment does my talent need to do its best work? The needs may change depending upon personalities, moods, energy, and even the time of day.
• What can I change today to protect that environment for extended blocks of time?
• How much busy work is expected of the creatives? Meetings? Paperwork?
• Does the busy work support the creative work by optimizing blocks of time or inhibit it?
• Can you assist with the busy work or hire an assistant to do this for the creatives?

Time to Create:

• How can we allow our creatives to be “unavailable” for blocks of time?
• How can we keep interruptions away from them?
• Can we shield them from phone calls, e-mail, IMs, and meetings?
• How can we structure work schedules to allow blocks of time to work?

We need the entire company as well as clients and collaborative third-parties to understand the reasoning for this.

Finally, creatives need to be trained to be social and yet stay on task. “Creative breaks” such as foosball or video games are healthy in small doses.

• Which kinds of interaction with clients and co-workers are necessary?
• Can we encourage mealtime interaction?
• Do co-workers make unnecessary demands on your creatives’ attention?
• Can we run interference if need be?

We may need to be the bad guy for them. Enforce a kind of elitism where you help shape interaction to focus on the bigger picture, whether that be the current project, client service, or long-term career decisions. Some requests for attention do not even deserve a response.

Ultimately, this is about keeping perspective. Creatives’ ideas are our company’s products; they’re often the primary source of income. Everything that gets in the way of ideas is a waste of precious talent, so let’s allow creativity to flourish!

Author and keynote speaker Stephen Shapiro had his BlackBerry stolen in Malaysia at the beginning of a three week trip and has been detailing his “withdrawal”. In Stay Connected by Disconnecting he explains the difficulties involved and in CrackBerry Addiction he has had 24 hours to contemplate his dilemma, and decided that periods of “disconnection” are healthy, as they “should improve your productivity, increase your ability to stay focused, enhance your relationships, and reduce your stress”.

USA Today had an article Monday on Utah’s efforts to transition its state employees to a four-day work week. Utah has numerous reasons for doing this, largely centered on the state saving money. While the governor says it will also improve customer service, he admits state residents will have to adjust to the Monday through Thursday schedule, albeit with longer hours, and while the employees will soon have Fridays off, little is said about the impact this will have on working parents, who likely will see even less of their children on workdays. I’m not sure the trade-off is a good one as a longer work day may be less productive.

Contrast this to 37Signals’ four-day work week, which I blogged about here, which endeavors to not only allow employees to have Fridays off, but also be more productive within the shortened work week. Now that’s ideal. Of course, we’ll have to decide for ourselves what’s best for our departments and businesses.