Tag Archives: Planning

Information Overload and How to Avoid It

Comment and Opinion, Creative Management, Teaching Resources, , ,
When I think back to earlier in my career, there are hundreds of memories that spring to mind. In and amongst these is a vivid image of my desk, which zooms in on my computer screen to see hundreds upon hundreds of emails. Emails I’d read, emails left unread, but all piling up. It characterises how I used to work: controlled by my email inbox, struggling to lift my head above the parapet and consumed by the stress of information overload. It doesn’t have to be this way.  I’ve changed. You can too.   Continue reading Information Overload and How to Avoid It →

In Praise of Happy Accidents

Comment and Opinion, Creative Management, ,

“So the devil sings higher – ‘Oh just look at what you’re doing!’

Yeah, he’s joined by a choir of doctors and statesmen

who plan their sorry lives till their last days’ end.

But look at all the happy things that happen by accident!”

Polly Paulusma, from ‘She moves in secret ways’.

I have written about serendipity and the work of Sebastian Olma before, but here, guest blogger Graham Allcott of Think Productive offers his advice on ‘happy accidents’.

When we think about accidents, our risk-averse brains take us straight to thinking about “consequences” and the mess we’ll have to clear up.  When we think about serendipity or happy coincidences, we think only that these things must be magical or that we struck lucky for a day.

But what if you could make your own luck?  And what if accidents weren’t bad, but were opportunities to be relished, celebrated and capitalised on? Continue reading In Praise of Happy Accidents →

Managing Projects: Creatively & Productively

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Project management.  It’s enough to strike fear into many a creative professional.  It conjures up images of gantt charts or spread sheets, long meetings and complicated software.

 

And yet the uber-detailed project planning we may aspire to may not even be the best way after all:  too much planning can actually be a bad thing!

 

It is more important to be ultra-agile than to be over prepared. For day-to-day projects, we should think in terms of 20% planning and 80% regular management, re-alignment and steering.

Continue reading Managing Projects: Creatively & Productively →