Jocelyn K. Glei - Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind

Text copyright 2013 by Behance
Awakening to Conscious Computing copyright 2013 by Linda Stone
Scheduling in Time for Creative Thinking copyright 2013 by Cal Newport
All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Amazon Publishing
PO Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140

ISBN-13: 9781477800676
ISBN-10: 1477800670

For the creators

Foreword: Retooling for a New Era of Work
by Scott Belsky, Founder of Behance

Laying the Groundwork for an Effective Routine
by Mark McGuinness

Harnessing the Power of Frequency
by Gretchen Rubin

Q&A: Honing Your Creative Practice
with Seth Godin

Building Renewal into Your Workday
by Tony Schwartz

Making Room for Solitude
by Leo Babauta

Scheduling in Time for Creative Thinking
by Cal Newport

Banishing Multitasking from Our Repertoire
by Christian Jarrett

Q&A: Understanding Our Compulsions
with Dan Ariely

Learning to Create Amidst Chaos
by Erin Rooney Doland

Tuning In to You
by Scott Belsky

Making E-mail Matter
by Aaron Dignan

Using Social Media Mindfully
by Lori Deschene

Q&A: Reconsidering Constant Connectivity
with Tiffany Shlain

Awakening to Conscious Computing
by Linda Stone

Reclaiming Our Self-Respect
by James Victore

Creating For You, and You Alone
by Todd Henry

Training Your Mind to Be Ready for Insight
by Scott McDowell

Q&A: Tricking Your Brain into Creativity
with Stefan Sagmeister

Letting Go of Perfectionism
by Elizabeth Grace Saunders

Getting Unstuck
by Mark McGuinness

How Pro Can You Go?
by Steven Pressfield

For too long, the creative world has focused on idea generation at the expense of idea execution. As the legendary inventor Thomas Edison famously said, Genius is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent perspiration. To make great ideas a reality, we must act, experiment, fail, adapt, and learn on a daily basis.

99U is Behances effort to provide this missing curriculum for making ideas happen. Through our Webby Awardwinning website, popular events, and bestselling books, we share pragmatic, action-oriented insights from leading researchers and visionary creatives.

At 99U, we dont want to give you more ideaswe want to empower you to make good on the ones youve got.

The world we work in today is not the world of Michelangelo, of Marie Curie, of Ernest Hemingway, or even of Paul Rand. It is a new world, empowered and entranced by the rapid-fire introduction of new technologiesa world where our metaphysical front door is always open, where anyone can whisper in our ear, where a room of ones own no longer means youre all alone.

Creative minds are exceedingly sensitive to the buzz and whir of the world around them, and we now have to contend with a constant stream of chirps, pings, and alerts at all hours of the day. As these urgent demands tug us this way and that, it becomes increasingly difficult to find a centered space for creativity.

Taking stock of this challenging new landscape, 99Us Manage Your Day-to-Day assembles insights around four key skill sets you must master to succeed: building a rock-solid daily routine, taming your tools (before they tame you), finding focus in a distracted world, and sharpening your creative mind.

Dedicating a chapter to each of these focus areas, we invited a group of seasoned thought leaders and creativesSeth Godin, Stefan Sagmeister, Tony Schwartz, Gretchen Rubin, Dan Ariely, Linda Stone, Steven Pressfield, and othersto share their expertise. Our goal was to come at the problems and struggles of this new world of work from as many angles as possible.

Because we each have a unique set of strengths, weaknesses, and sensitivities, it is impossible to prescribe a single approach that will work for everyone. The right solution for you will always be personalan idiosyncratic combination of strategies based on your own work demands, habits, and preferences.

So rather than lay out a one-size-fits-all productivity system, we provide a playbook of best practices for producing great work. Our hope is that these insights, taken together, will help you shift your mind-set, recalibrate your workflow, and push more incredible ideas to completion.

JOCELYN K. GLEI, editor-in-chief, 99U

RETOOLING FOR A NEW ERA OF WORK

Scott Belsky, Founder of Behance & author of Making Ideas Happen

Prepare for a highly concentrated dose of insights that will prove both enlightening and uncomfortable. This was my own experience, at least. My review of the early manuscript for Manage Your Day-to-Day raised some glaring concerns in my own mind about my productivity and mindfulness.

These new perspectives caught me off-guardI realized that much of my most valuable energy had been unknowingly consumed by bad habits. My day-to-day practices had devolved to a point where I was at the mercy of everything around meeverything but my goals and true preferences.

It was clear that I was long overdue for a self-audit of how I manage my time in a rapidly changing work environment. So much has shifted in just the last few years: My calendar and documents are now all in the cloud. I have more devices, apps, alerts, and utilities than ever before. And with the new ability to work anywhere, the outcome of the work I do has unintentionally changed. Meanwhile, Ive been out there in the thick of it, working hard but never taking stock. If you keep playing without any time-outs, your game starts to slip.

Of course, every great leader must face his or her demons in order to overcome them. Ive always known this, but I wasnt aware of any immediate problems. But these days the demons are more insidious; theyre the everyday annoyances, the little things that suck away our potential to do big things.

OWN THE PROBLEM

Ive spent much of my career promoting strong business practices in the creative industry. Throughout my travels for Behance and in researching my book, Making Ideas Happen, I have spoken with countless creative people and teams about their projects and careers. With designers, writers, and entrepreneurs of all kinds, I have tried to advocate for the roll-up-your-sleeves productivity and management skills required to push ideas to fruition. My mantra has always been, Its not about ideas, its about making ideas happen.

Frequently I am asked to speak at conferences and companies about creativity. I always respond with the preliminary question, Do you have ideas? The answer is almost always Yes, but followed by a series of obstacles like: We work in a big company and its hard to pursue new ideas, We get overwhelmed with the day-to-day stuff and struggle to make progress on new stuff, or Our leadership asks for innovation but keeps getting in the way.

Alas, when folks want to talk creativity, what theyre really seeking is help with execution, ways to take action more effectively. Once the true problem becomes clear, the blame quickly shifts to the ecosystem. The company is either too big or too small. The management is screwing things up. Or its the process that gets in the way.