I’m going to assume that you’ve clicked on this article, that you’re looking for a way to organize your life, maybe even get a clearer picture of the path forward. I’m going to share with you how I do it. It’s easy to get lost in the weeds, but fortunately, I’ve found that with a few simple practices, I can look at my life and myself more clearly and see what I need to do.
I’m going to divide it into three parts.
Step One: Fireworks
You can use a journal or software if you want. The important thing is to keep all of these ideas in one place, because being disorganized where you offload these ideas can potentially cause you to lose them.
I’m a firm believer in analog, which means pen and paper, and nothing digital – at least not at this stage. In my opinion, there is no productivity app or piece of software that comes anywhere close to the power of pen and paper.
Another thing to think about is that whenever you’re on your phone or your computer, you’re always two clicks away from a distraction. It’s not your fault if you had a brilliant idea and you go to your phone to write it down, and you get distracted by a notification that takes you to a video of a dog petting a cat (which exists).
Do yourself a favor and put it all away, and try going old school for once. I think it’s worth it..
So why am I calling this first stage “fireworks”? You know that scene in Ratatouille where Remy watches fireworks while tasting different foods? That’s how I feel when thoughts run through my head and my hands. I have always found this feeling very exciting.
And I would just say let go of expectations. It’s normal not to feel clear about your future. There’s so much going on in all of our lives and in the world today. I think it’s better to embrace it than fight against it.
The order will come later. And if ever I am unhappy with the way I present my thoughts and ideas, I can always rework and rewrite them. I think refinement is perfectly fine, and I will do it often, and each time brings greater clarity.
The point here is to see what’s going on in your mind, and there’s great power in seeing it instead of thinking those thoughts. So often, that’s what I have to do, these are my doubts, these are my questions. I often wrestle with ideas or themes or concepts, and I regularly challenge myself to visualize these things – like come up with a visual that I can draw that pairs with that thought or idea or concept.
So for example, failure. This is something I did recently on “No Backup Plan.” I found myself thinking about failure, and so I took the time to get my thoughts out on it. I had a visual thing with a timeline that I thought would be nice to see, and I went through the process. I think I took it out maybe four times, and each time I explained more and more about what I had in mind.
But obviously, at first it had to come out, because I wasn’t sure where it would take me.
There is one skill that I find people sorely lacking – that is competence, the ability to express your ideas. And this is where the star comes in.t.
Step Two: Prioritization
I talk a lot about two resources that we all have in limited quantities, and that we all have to face and deal with in our own ways. And those two resources are time and attention. In order to have limits on those two resources, we need to prioritize.
You can’t do it all. I wish I had a thousand lives, that I had time to do all the things I want to do, to create all the things I want to create. But I don’t. I have this life. And so the next best thing is to make the most of it.
There is a whole range of different approaches that you can prioritize. And for example, one idea that I’ve seen recently is what’s known as the Eisenhower Matrix — made famous by former President Eisenhower, who would outline the things in his life that he considered important and not important, and urgent and not urgent.
What matters more than the system, whether you use this kind of matrix or not, is this kind of thinking. This kind of distinction is between what needs to be done and what doesn’t need to be done.
My favorite way to do this, believe it or not, is actually through conversation. I think conversation is underrated in so many ways, and I find that when I bounce ideas off, I walk away with a lot more value.
Of course, ultimately, I’m the one who makes the decisions about what’s important to me and where I spend my time and energy. But it doesn’t hurt to have some outside perspective. For example, I’ve found that I tend to be quite unrealistic about what I can accomplish in a given period. So it’s helpful to have people who bring you back down to earth.
I could say a lot on this topic, but the people I find most valuable in bouncing your ideas off are those you respect, those who believe in you, but who are also willing to tell you the truth and not be “yes yes” men.
Step Three: The Timeline
What I’ve found in my experience organizing myself and my life and my thoughts is that I can’t see more clearly than three months from now. Actually, I think the magic number is like two, two and a half months – but three months is a very round number that I like to work with.
That’s a manageable chunk of time to work on. That’s a quarter of a year — 90 days. A lot can happen in 90 days, but at the same time, it’s not too much to handle. I think in 90 days, you can see measurable progress, even if it’s just a small amount.
What I do is I copy a lot of my notes and crazy writing, and chaos from the first phase, with a deep understanding of what I need to prioritize from the second phase, onto a hand-drawn timeline that I create for myself. And it helps me to see when certain projects are happening, and what comes first and what comes later. And seeing all of that
Often, I separate the different types of projects I’m working on along a vertical axis, which helps me see them more clearly. You know, you can color code it, you can do whatever you want.
Now again, there are a lot of ways you can actually do this. It doesn’t have to be a literal timeline. Years ago, I would create a mood board for myself based on a similar concept of what I wanted to focus on over the next three months.
Things never turn out 100 percent as we planned them, but I have found that in a three-month time frame, you can consciously work towards specific goals that you create for yourself.
Final Thoughts
It’s extremely important to get your thoughts out of your head first — write them down, list them, get them out. It doesn’t matter. Get them out of your head, and make it your skill where you’re not editing, you’re not stopping it from happening — you’re just going for it.
For example, it’s hard to be specific about what you need to prioritize when you don’t even know what you’re prioritizing. And that’s the second step – prioritizing.
And finally, I present these tasks, these projects, these ideas in a timeline. What do I want to focus on in the next three months? And if a timeline doesn’t work for you, a mood board or something along those lines is another alternative. There’s another way to approach it.
