What You Don’t Know About How to Think
October 28, 2011 by Alison Marks
Filed under Organization and Systems, Productivity, Systems Thinking
by Alison Marks
Earlier this year I hosted a telesummit. This was a huge project that took months to plan and produce.
One day about a month into the event, I had to go back and re-think how I was doing something. I had to tap back into that original creative energy that the telesummit was born out of. And I literally couldn’t do it!
While I stayed very connected with the vision of the thing from beginning to end, there were some distinct periods in which I was called on to bring forward very different parts of myself.
It’s like that for any project, isn’t it?
1. At the beginning, there is the creative cauldron… what is your vision? What do you want to create for people? How do you want to craft it? What is the flow of the project, and what details will make it come to life for you and others?
2. Then you move into bringing that creative energy into form. This is often where the work is most intense, where you’re actually setting up all the details so that things will go the way you want them to. Sometimes this includes hiring and managing other people to take on parts of it for you.
3. Implementation – when you’re actually delivering the project – can sometimes (though ceratinly not always!) be the easiest part, especially if you did thorough set-up. You just do what you set out to do.
4. Celebration and integration can happen throughout a project, especially at the end.
Who you have to be in each of these stages, the skills that you call on, is very different, and it’s not always easy to jump from one to another.
It makes our jobs so much easier when we understand the flow of a project, and honor where our energy is at each stage. This way, we can give ourselves the time and space to fullly occupy each necessary period. For example, so many people get down on themselves for not implementing when they’re still in the creative stage.
Ultimately, when you’re paying attention to the bigger picture in this way, your work is able to flow so you can serve more people, more fully, and make more money while you’re doing it!
What project are YOU working on? What stage are you at? Any insights to share about this from your own experience? Share with us below!
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