Good Life Project - Serial Creation: Make Better Stuff Faster and Easier

Episode Date: January 27, 2016

The process of creation breathes me. Always has, always will. I wake up every day thinking about what I am going to create, from business to art and health to relationships.The bigger challenge for me has never been about having enough ideas, it's been about process. How do I get the most important things done AND pursue my creative quests in a way that both lets me create my best work and feel good along the way?When it comes to completing these projects, I’ve long adhered to the principle of "parallel creation" and "batched" my time. I pursue anywhere from 3-10 major projects at the same time, then segment each day into distinct chunks dedicated to a specific task and projects (three hours to write, two hours to work on web development, one hour for fitness, etc.) and work away accordingly.But after years of doing it this way, I’m starting to think this might not be the best approach.A few months ago, I decided to experiment with a new strategy—serial creation.Unlike parallel creation, serial creation isn't about batching your work during a working day. It's about zooming the lens out to 3 months, looking at what needs to happen with each major project in that window, then apportioning entire days or weeks to focus on one and only one project at a time, during that season.No other projects. No distractions. No excuses.I ran my first experiment like this while finishing the manuscript for my last book. The results were incredible. And, that's what I'm talking about on today's short and sweet GLP Riff.It'll take me the better part of winter and spring to entirely transition from parallel to serial creation. But, it works so much better for me on every level, I'm committed to the goal. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X.

Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday, we've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th.

Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot if we need him. Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk. So I don't know if you're like me, but on any given, let's say, three-month window of time, I probably have between five and ten really substantial and really important projects that I'm working on.

Now, this is above, you know, like the bazillion other minor things that really are less important that may or may not actually have to get done. It may also be largely just massive distractions from the stuff that really matters. But there are five to ten things that really matter, that I have to do, that I want to do, that are just awesome, amazing projects. So examples could be writing a book, designing a website, creating a program, developing a presentation. These are just some of the things that might be in my basket.

And on a personal level too, it may be reclaiming my health. It may be getting fit. It may be spending more time with friends and family. Whatever it is, for you or for me, there's something that I've been playing with that I thought might be really helpful to you in terms of figuring out how to approach and how to invest your energies in the projects that really matter to do two things. One, allow you to do your best work, to really do high-level creative work. And at the same time, enjoy yourself a lot more on the way feel great

about what you're doing and how you're doing it. And it's the difference between what I call serial creation and parallel creation. So what do I mean by that? Well, it's not serial as in breakfast cereal, cereal with an S like like S E RA-L. And for you computer geeks who've been around long enough, you probably recognize the old serial processing versus parallel processing. So what's the difference here? The difference is between doing multiple things in parallel versus doing one thing intensely at a time. So let's say you have three really important projects that all have to go from where they are now to complete within three months, right? Here would be the parallel approach to doing those projects. Spend a little bit of every day allocating your time to

all three. So maybe, you know, you're going to spend three hours writing a book in the morning. Then after lunch, you're going to spend two hours painting because you've got a gallery show that you've got to get done in three months. And then you're going to spend another two or three hours later in the afternoon developing something for a client, a long-term client project. And every day looks a little bit like that. You've got these three big projects that you're kind of moving forward in parallel. And at the end of the three months, they all have to get done. Now, the serial version of this

would be to actually take a look at the entire three-month window and say, okay, over this three months, what's the total amount of energy that I need to invest in each one of these things to actually get them to where they need to be? And instead of splitting my day between all three, I'm going to devote entire chunks of time to only one and just dive

fiercely into that one until it's either done or it's reached a logical point where I can set it aside or give it to a team to work with and then focus all of my energies 100% on the next thing. So using the example that I just used, I would, instead of splitting my time between writing a book, painting, and doing a big client project every single day, I would say, okay, over three months, it's going to take me probably about two weeks of full-time effort to finish this book. So I'm going to block off two straight weeks and do the book and nothing but the book. All of my time, all day long, all of my creative juices, my energy, it's going to be 100% on the book. And then I'm going to hit the button. I'm going to submit the manuscript. I'm going to turn around. And then the next two

weeks are going to be devoted entirely to just painting. I'm going to do like nothing. I'm going to turn around and then the next two weeks are going to be devoted entirely to just painting. I'm going to do like nothing. I'm not going to split my time, my energy, my effort. There's no distractions. It's all painting all the time. And then, you know, like the next window of time, I'm just going to like fiercely focus on doing everything I need to do to get this big client product to where it needs to be. So that's the difference. You know, the difference is doing multiple things all simultaneously, or just focusing intensely on one. So I ran this experiment pretty recently in my own life, because I had gone partway there. So I went from just

sporadically doing a lot of different projects all the time, to batching my time and batching is sort of like a big word in the creative and productivity world. It's like, well, don't just keep switching around, you know, because there's a ramping cost of batch your time. So when you're on the phone, just do all your phone calls at once for like 45 minutes. When you're answering emails, do all your emails at once for an hour. When you're, you know, working on client work, do it. But the notion of doing that over a given day was still you mix, you batch your time between these different things over the course of a day. So I thought, well, what if I actually zoom the lens out even bigger and say, like, I don't want to actually do all these parallel things in the course of a day. on doing one project with the vast majority of my efforts so that there's zero distraction from anything else and everything else can and will wait, even if I'm freaked out about the fact that

it won't. What would happen if I did that? And that's exactly what I did. So I did that when I needed to work on the manuscript for the book that will be coming out later this year. And I was on this really intense deadline, but I also had really big, cool, awesome other major projects that I knew had to get done by the end of the year or by the January or February of this year. And what I realized was that I was working on all of them in parallel. I would write from 9 to 12 in the morning, and then I would do web design for a chunk of time in the afternoon,

and then I would do program design, curriculum design later in the afternoon. And they were all moving forward kind of, they were all moving forward slowly. But I also realized I was not doing my best work in any of them because I kept having to switch. I kept feeling like just as I was getting into the groove, I would have to ramp up to the next thing. And I kept having to do this, even though each one had a substantial amount of time. It was really frustrating to me. And I also realized that I couldn't drop into this massively hyper state of like almost completely absorbed state where I started to be able to actually get into like on almost ritualistic rhythm, and just create on a really extraordinary level. So I decided to put

everything else on hold. And in the last three weeks or so of my book, just do that and only that. And I knew that everything else could wait. And I got to tell you, wow, the change, both in my quality of what I was writing, so much better. The speed at which I was able to write, once I actually realized that all I was doing was writing, the speed at which I was able to write, I was able to get into this ritualistic rhythm. And the volume of what I was doing was really picking up too. So that by the time I actually hit the submit button on my manuscript, I was done a tiny bit early and it felt amazing about what I had created. And then I got to set it aside and I said, you know, what would happen if moving forward after this experience, I took all the remaining major important projects,

and instead of doing them in parallel, you know, a couple hours a day, every day, I looked at a three month window, a longer window and said in three months, where does each one of these projects need to be done? Where do they have to be? And then what would happen if over that three month window, I spent three weeks doing this and only this. And then I spent another three weeks doing the next project and only that. And that's basically what I'm doing right now. I completely restructured my schedule so that I've moved beyond batching three to five projects into one to two-hour windows within a single day. And I've now moved into a much more macro scale batching where it's really no longer creating in parallel anymore. I'm doing it in a serial level. So it's one at a time rather than in parallel, multiple simultaneously. experienced working on the manuscript for the book is now flowing through to my other projects. Yes, there's a little bit of FOMO. There is like, well, is this other project really going to wait

for me? But what I know is that in the bigger horizon, you know, when we hit that three month window or whatever is the relevant window for you, every project is going to be where it needs to be. And I'm very likely actually going to get there faster because I don't have to keep switching and ramping between them in parallel. And because I allow myself to fully immerse myself in a much smaller number of things and go deep into it and spend all my time in it, the ideas and the connections, the quality of my work skyrockets.

And because I feel so much better about what I'm doing, I enjoy the process so much more. what I'm doing, I enjoy the process so much more. And I don't have to constantly feel like, well, but I have to jump over to this other thing because I have to keep that ball in the air. And I have to jump to this other thing because I have to keep another ball in the air. I can just say, this is the only thing. Everything is going to get where it needs to be in that longer term horizon on the date it needs to be there. But right now, this day, this moment, this week, this is what I'm focused on. And it feels freaking awesome. So my

invitation to you is to run a similar experiment. Ask yourself, what if I took a longer term horizon? What if I took the 1, 2, 3, four, five, six important projects and said over a longer term horizon, where do each one of these need to be? What are the real, the legitimate deadlines for each one of these? And what if over that longer horizon, instead of working on all of them a little bit every day, I created a serial creation process rather than parallel. And I went deeply into one at a time. So try it on for size. It works for me. And if it works for you the way it works for me, it will make a pretty profound change, not only in what you're capable of doing, but in the way you experience the process of creating along the way. Hope that mattered to you. As always, thank you so much for hanging out

with me today. I so appreciate it. And I will to you. As always, thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I so appreciate it. And I will see you next time. If you found something valuable, entertaining, engaging, or just plain fun, I'd be so appreciative if you take a couple extra seconds and share it. Maybe you want to email it to a friend, maybe you want to share it around social media, or even be awesome if you'd head over to iTunes and just give us a rating. Every little bit helps get the word out and it helps more people get in touch with the message. I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever.

It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results

will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be funny. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk.