Video game design expert and author J.C. Herz has some ideas for creative professionals. She recently gave the commencement speech at Ringling College of Art and Design, in Florida, and rather than offering bland encouragements to reach for the stars or be of service, Herz got down to business, addressing the nuts-and-bolts issues of arranging your life as a creative professional.

It’s a wide-ranging and thoughtful speech that’s well worth a read if you’re a web worker who regularly has to come up with ideas for a living. Among the many tidbits of advice (make your habits intentional, procrastinate productively, join CrossFit gyms), she offered a taxonomy of different types of creative block and how to handle each:

Getting stuck is a big part of creative work, and it’s really important to be good at getting unstuck. There are two main reasons why creative people get stuck on a piece of work: The first is, you don’t actually have an idea. You may have requirements, and you may have tools. But you don’t actually have an idea that’s going to carry the day, and you’re going to be stuck until you get a solid idea.

The second reason creative people get stuck is that, while they have the idea, executing the idea takes a lot of work, and not all of that work is fun, and basically you don’t want to do the work, because having the idea in the first place was the fun part. The problem is, you don’t get to say “check mate in four.” You actually have to finish the project. So you get mystically “stuck” after the brilliant sketch is done.

It is very, very important to accurately understand which of these problems you’re having when you get stuck. If you don’t have an idea, you need to play around a little, take a walk, have a good conversation, open the aperture. As they say in drawing class, explore the negative space. If you’re balking at the work, you need to stop playing around, sit down, shut up, go offline, and focus single-mindedly on executing the work, and make it real. In either case, if you try to solve one problem when you’re really having the other, you’re going to waste a lot of time.

How do you go about getting unstuck when you feel completely unable to get down to work?

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#1 Be persistent.

Fortunately, in every one of the situations I’ve had to resolve recently, not finding a solution was not an option. Although I would have loved to give up and declare a stalemate, I knew that wasn’t possible without accepting consequences I wasn’t willing to take, so I had to stick with them until I figured out a way to move forward.

Whatever problem you’re facing, trust that there must be a way to work through it and get to the other side.

#2 Stop avoiding it.

Although I’m pretty good at not procrastinating most of the time, when it comes to solving tricky problems, I’m one of the worst procrastinators. I want to take breaks, surf the Web, and call anyone and everyone I think might be available to chat. I’ll delay and avoid until I’ve wasted the majority of the day.

With one particular issue I had to figure out recently (which I had already postponed for nearly two months), I finally decided that I simply would not allow myself off the hook until I worked it out. I paced a path through my house and thought I’d never get through it, but eventually, the strategy worked, and I was very satisfied with the outcome.

Allow yourself breaks when you absolutely need them, but if you’re anything like me, you probably know when you really need a rest and when you’re just procrastinating. It won’t work 100 percent of the time, but there are occasions when not allowing yourself off the hook can really pay off.

#3 Work in reverse.

In the recent month or so, I decided to hire a couple of interns, in the hope of finding motivated and talented people I could add to my team permanently. I started the process of locating prospects through several university job posting boards, as well as a few privately-owned sites, but the pool of potential new hires was slim.

At first, I was a little discouraged, and in an effort to fine-tune my job postings, I started searching for terms like “what interns do” and “how to be a good intern” and began stumbling on blogs of actual interns who were exactly the type of candidates I wanted: aggressive, enthusiastic, eager, etc. Of course, these interns were already more than busy, but I started paying attention to the people who were commenting on their blogs, and it turns out, many of them were considering doing internships. As I followed the links back to their owners’ sites, I started finding unique, highly talented and motivated students who were perfect candidates for the job.

Instead of going more traditional routes for solving particular problems, try to think of other ways you might connect with the solutions you need.

#4 Pay attention to what’s right in front of you.

My latest dilemma was figuring out what to write for today’s post. I had been so busy with solving the other issues, I hadn’t backlogged ideas for this week’s article. After thinking on possibilities for nearly two hours, I finally said to myself, “I’m stuck,” and then it hit me: that’s it! I could have saved myself two hours, if I had only paid attention to what was right in front of me.

When you feel like you’ve searched high and low to find a solution, ask yourself if you’re missing the obvious. Turn to the resources immediately available to you, like pulling from past experiences or relying on your network of business contacts, family, and friends. Many times, the answer is not that far away.

What tricks do you use for getting unstuck and solving challenging problems in your business?

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I just finished one of several big projects I’ve been working on lately. It was probably one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done, and several times throughout the project, I could easily see why most of us:

• Don’t take on big challenges at all,
• Procrastinate when needing to deal with big challenges, or
• Quit halfway through them.

There are tons of obstacles that get in the way and make starting and completing big projects or challenges very hard to do.

Obstacle #1: Fear

Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, fear (of success and failure, of ticking people off, of looking stupid, etc.) is debilitating. A lot of times, it’s easier to just keep our heads down, avoid eye contact, and not raise our hands (even when we know the answer). We ask ourselves:

• “What if it doesn’t work?”
• “What if it gets me fired?”
• “What if I do this, spend a lot of time/money/energy, and it gets me nowhere?”

Fear is always going to be present, but nine times out of ten, the thing we fear doesn’t even eventuate. Yet we still let it hold us back, even though we know it’s not likely to occur.

Obstacle #2: Avoidance

More often than not, we know what we need to do, yet we make excuses about why we can’t or haven’t made progress. Maybe we need to get that new marketing strategy off the ground, maybe we need to start that new business, or maybe we need to write that e-book. Whatever the case, we don’t get it done or don’t even get it started and instead say things, like:

• “I would have started it, but I’ve just been so busy at home.”
• “I’ve been meaning to finish that, but I’ve been swamped lately.”
• “I got sick, then the kids were off a week, then my in-laws came to visit, and I just haven’t had the time.”

We convince ourselves that our complete avoidance of getting things done is caused by legitimate delays and distractions, because they are legitimate. The question is, how badly do we want to complete that big project/challenge? For example, how much do we really want to get our businesses off the ground, or how much do we really want to see them succeed?

Obstacle #3: Motivation (Or Lack of It)

I think a lot of times, we say we want something because maybe we should want it (or think we should want it).  Maybe we say, “I want my business to make more money,” but in reality, we’re pretty comfortable where we are, and even if we’re not completely comfortable, the discomfort is not so overwhelming to make us want to put out the extra effort to effect change in our situation.

If there is no real motivation to do something, we have to admit it, own it, and say, “I don’t even want that,” and so, it’s not necessary to put out all that effort to complete some arbitrary project or challenge. If we can’t at least get to the place where we can accept our lack of motivation, then there’s this feeling of obligation or guilt that constantly nags at us.

Obstacle #4: No Map

Sometimes we’d do what we needed to do, if only we knew where to start or how to get it done. Especially in business, there are times when we walk around clueless and have to figure things out as we go, and that leads back to the first obstacle. If we don’t know what we’re doing, how can we get people to believe in us, and how do we avoid looking stupid when people figure out that we don’t know what we’re doing?

Seth Godin talks about working without a map in his book “Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?“, and discusses about how we have to be OK with working without a map and just get used to not knowing our way around. If there was a map, everyone else would be following it, and then the journey and destination would probably not be as worthwhile.

It can be hard to take on big projects and challenges and even harder to actually complete them, but by identifying the root cause of our hesitation or procrastination, we’ll be much more likely to tackle those big challenges and get things done.

What are some of the biggest obstacles that hold you back when it comes to big projects and challenges?

Photo by Flickr user The U.S. Army, licensed under CC 2.0

As someone who spends a considerable amount of time thinking about productivity, I realized that over years of testing and experience, the blockers don’t really work in the long run.

Don’t get me wrong — there are instances where a blocker might work. If an app, tool or hack can shut out things that you can’t control — such as noisy neighbors or needy pets — then they’re a must-have. Things that fall under this category include sound-proofing your office, or creating a separate room for your work. Blockers can also be useful if you need an urgent fix, but as a long-term strategy they tend to fall short.

Here’s why: if a blocker is removing a distraction or obstacle that’s within your power to control like, say, checking your email or looking at Facebook updates for the umpteenth time, then the fix is no more than cosmetic. It’s like sticking a Band-Aid on your problem and telling yourself that it’s cured.

Apps can be disabled and uninstalled. The same goes with the manual tweaks you do to “block” distractions, such as tinkering with your hosts file and whatnot. Some developers of blocking tools know this, so they add certain features that make it difficult for you to disable the app. But there’s always a way to disable a block if you try hard enough. If you’ve muted your ringer, you end up looking at your phone to check for messages. You reconnect to the Internet and uninstall your site blockers to see if someone’s emailed you or commented on your latest Facebook or Twitter update. We easily give in to disable a block “just this once” and, in doing so, give in to distractions which may eat up the rest of your day.

The funny thing about this is that your “productivity tool” is actually making you more unproductive at being unproductive. You need to jump through all these hoops just to give in to procrastination, which you need or want to do for one reason or another. And the reason I know this phenomenon so well? Because it happens to me, too.

So what really helps? Using aids rather than blockers. Finding our own internal ways to block out distractions. At the same time, we really need to be easier on ourselves and allow for slips in our productivity. This is especially true for knowledge work, where the difference between procrastination and healthy play may be blurry.

If we’re to become truly productive people rather than just “productivity people,” we need to develop our own distraction blockers that can’t be turned off by a “Disable” button. They have to come from our own efforts to change our habits and behavior. Not enough is said about this, probably because it’s a difficult, lifelong, and highly individual process. Maybe that’s why it works.

Have you tried using distraction blocking tools? How did they work for you?

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The smartest thing you can do is start.  — Unknown

In the past, I’ve gotten caught up in perfectionism, procrastination, fear (of both failure and success), over-planning and analysis paralysis (to name just a few of the mental obstacles that can get in the way of starting something). However, over time, I’ve managed to get to a point where I’m much more likely to just start things off and correct my course as I go. Here are a few examples of ways you, too, can begin overcoming those mental blocks and start getting things underway in your business.

1. Deadlines are your friend

I recently started a new radio show. While there are plenty of imperfections in its setup, by focusing on my weekly deadline, I’m much more concerned about rolling out the show and am concentrating on the content, rather than things like sound quality and making the product super-polished, at least at this point. If I got too wrapped up in those kinds of details, the show would never get produced, so instead of focusing on perfection, I focus on the deadline and on lining up the best possible topics and guests that I can for each show. Certainly, not having a stellar setup comes with its own set of challenges, but already, the show has led to some amazing opportunities, which wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t started it.

Sure, as time goes by, I’m fine-tuning my show. I’m modifying the segments, making tweaks to the lineup, adjusting the setup, etc., but the content and the deadline take up the bulk of my attention, and as I find the time, I polish it in small ways.

2. Find another route

Many times, it’s our own creativity (or lack of it) that gets in the way. We think we have to do things a certain way in order for them to work, when really, if we’d just think outside the box a bit, we could get them off the ground sooner and perhaps even more successfully than if we went the more “traditional” route.

For instance, I recently was thinking of creating an e-book. I had been asked by many people about a particular topic and decided that there was an opportunity for me to write a book around it, but who has time to write a book? By the time I’d written it, I would have forgotten who was interested in it! Plus, that’s deferring all the benefits that might come from creating it to well after I write it, which would take months — that’s not very motivating. I have bills to pay and other obligations that need my attention right now.

What’s the alternative, though? I’ve certainly seen some very successful membership sites, where the founders create their content over time and subscribers sort of “pay as they go,” but the thought of creating a membership site and building it to a respectable and worthwhile size seemed very intimidating.

I needed a way to start faster than that and really get over those mental blocks that come along with the magnitude of writing a book (a whole book) or starting a membership site. I decided to create my own sort of “mash-up” which is half book, half membership site so that I could get over my intimidation. Instead of thinking of it as a book or as a membership site even, I thought of it as a “program,” or an ongoing class, in a sense. That made it much easier for me to wrap my mind, was far less intimidating, and instead of thinking about creating content for an entire book, I would only have to think about this week’s “lesson,” which was much more doable.

3. Play “Red Light, Green Light”

Back in my real estate days, I operated by the book “The Millionaire Real Estate Agent.”  It was my bible. In it, Gary Keller says that you have to play “Red Light, Green Light” with your expenses, and I was reminded of it just a couple of days ago. My accountability partner was thinking of starting a newsletter, and we were brainstorming ways she might brand it, which immediately made me think about the look and feel for the design. I was imagining all the cool ways we could design it, and for a second, I thought, “Well, what if she wants to create something very customized?” I then thought about a person who could design something for her from scratch, but I stopped when I realized that would set up the likelihood of procrastination, which wouldn’t help her get her newsletter off the ground.

I think that’s a common sticking point. In her case, to overcome it, she could think about getting a general look and feel to start, something that’s quick and lower in cost to set up.  Then as her vision develops, she can spend more time, energy, and money in perfecting and polishing it.

So many factors can get in our way and prevent us from launching that new business, product, newsletter, etc. We have great ideas, but getting from Point A to Point B seems too far a leap. Sometimes, as the saying goes, you just need to jump and trust that you’ll either fly, or find ground beneath you.

What’s your best story of making a leap — and finding your wings or new ground?

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When did Noah build the ark, Gladys? Before the rain. Before the rain.
- Nathan Muir, Spy Game

In recent months, I’ve become acutely aware of how life and business can easily conflict with each other. It seems that the work involved in creating a successful business is never done, and if there’s an avalanche to come in life, it’s going to happen when there are deadlines looming and there’s a mountain of work to be done.

I’ve had a series of avalanches lately, which reminds me:

• There will never be perfect balance, peace and harmony between work life and personal life. Adjust accordingly.
• It’s important to avoid procrastinating and allowing things to pile up, whether that be work-related to-dos or the laundry and dishes. When avalanches strike, you’ll appreciate not feeling more burdened and overwhelmed by those little reminders of chaos and unrest.
• Try (at least the majority of the time) to honor a daily routine, a daily practice that keeps things humming along slowly but steadily. When things get crazy, the cushion built by that daily practice will allow for greater flexibility.
• Take regular time away from the business. Mental and physical stamina comes in handy during times of stress or when there’s more work than usual to be done.
• Remember that it’s not the big stresses, but the ongoing daily ones that cause more harm over the long term. The work will get done, eventually, so ease up where possible.
• Build (and learn to more steadily depend upon) a team of people to keep the business going, not only during challenging times but every day.
• Time flies whether you’re having fun or not, so why not have more fun?

Entrepreneurs, frelancers and small business owners have a tendency to run at a dangerously fast pace all the time, forgetting how important it is to step back and look at the big picture to make sure it resembles the vision and life they intended to create for themselves.

We can try to run at high speeds all the time, but life will inevitably throw up walls to slow us down. It’s important to intentionally steady the pace to account for those unexpected obstacles and be able to safely navigate around them. For me that means starting with a few simple steps:

• Being more selective with my work and obligations and saying no a lot sooner and a lot more frequently.
• Becoming diligent about honoring a regular stop time for work and learning to shut the office door behind me (and leaving it closed the entire time I’m off).
• Incrementally delegating routine tasks that tend to pile up and leave me strapped for time to focus on the most important things in my life and business.

It’s easy to ignore the rate at which we work and then become overwhelmed when the unexpected inevitably occurs. The easier option is to start making changes now to prepare for those times when you need more flexibility and wiggle room. While it’s impossible to plan for everything, it’s helpful to have a few safety nets in place to support you during challenging times.

How do you accommodate for the avalanches in life while still steadily building a successful business? How have you learned to prepare for rainy days while the sun is shining?

Image from Flickr by Joe Shlabotnik

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Recently I was sent an interesting piece on “motivating yourself when you just don’t feel like it.” In other words, how to slay the demon procrastination.

The suggestion of this article was particularly timely as I’ve been feeling somewhat adrift for the last few weeks. I’d already overcome my inertia, but I realize that some of these tips could have been useful in getting me going again.

In the post, Jason Barr suggests eight techniques, but I particularly like these five:

• Let fear take hold. Use the “fight or flight” response to scare yourself into acting — and working!
• Keep the finish line In sight. Avoid natural tendencies to look simply at an immediate objective and focus on the ultimate goals.
• Make it a game. Figure out ways to measure yourself — then try to beat yourself
• Tell someone else. Sharing a goal or objective can bake in some social pressure (something that we’ve written about before).
• Break it up. Break your “big hairy goal” up into into more manageable steps.

Most of Jason’s suggestions seem fairly obvious but I’m intrigued by the suggestion to make your work tasks into a game. There’s been some interesting discussion recently on using gaming metaphors to change behavior — everything from the RPG-like metaphors of Weight Watchers, to the underlying psychology of Nike Plus, to the MPG readout of Toyota’s Prius and smart meters in homes reducing energy consumption. The first step in changing your behavior is generally to “instrument” and measure it.

I’d love to see the mostly dry GTD and productivity tools re-imagined as role-playing games, complete with leaderboards: “Can you ‘level-up’ and deliver that annual report?”

How are you measuring yourself and your work?

Read more at “8 Great Ways to Motivate Yourself When You Just Don’t Feel Like It.”

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Not often, but it happens. Sometimes I get so intimidated by work that I end up procrastinating online. I started my workday at 6 a.m. last Monday hoping to get the week off to a good start, but I found myself reading a Wikipedia entry on the many versions of “Blade Runner” three hours later.

While these incidents are few and far between, I’d rather avoid them altogether. Every time I catch myself returning to bad habits, I take the following steps to get right back on the wagon:

Step One: Identify where your attention goes. The best way to identify time sucks is to track what you do with your time. For many people, there’s a gap between what they think are their time wasters and what their actual time wasters are. Having accurate data on your hands bridges this gap and gives you the facts.

We’ve covered several applications that do this, but there’s nothing wrong with auditing your time using pen and paper. The disadvantage to this analog approach, though, is that you might not remember to do it the entire day. It might be helpful to keep the pen and writing pad always in plain sight.

Step Two: Block them. While there are paid apps you can download to make site-blocking easier, I prefer free methods because you spend less time worrying about the pros and cons of each app. It’s better to just install the first free option you can find and see if it works for you. After all, you just need something that blocks URLs. It doesn’t have to be feature-rich.

If you’re often using Firefox, you can automatically block certain domains using add-ons such as Leechblock and Invisibility Cloak. For advanced users, there’s also a manual way to do this.

But what if your time suck isn’t a web site? It could be a game or an instant-messaging app. If it’s something you can live without, take the plunge and uninstall it. Alternatively, you can remove easily accessible shortcuts to the program, blocking impulsive access.

Step Three: Know why you’re doing this. For any of this to work, you need to know why you’re taking such drastic measures to eliminate time sucks. This will be your primary motivation. Are you trimming your schedule so you can spend more time with your family? Or do you want to use it to work on personal projects?

Also, apart from simply knowing the reason, you need to have a visible reminder. I like to keep a sticky note near my monitor. On the note is an arrow pointing to the screen, with the words “Is this really what you want to be doing right now?”, which is based on an undistraction created by Merlin Mann.

Step Four: Set goals. It’s hard to quit aimless Internet surfing all at once, so start with modest goals to avoid feeling frustrated. I started with a goal of spending one work hour each day avoiding Internet fiddling. After I found this acceptable and easy, I raised the bar a bit and went on two hours. Whatever your goals are, write them down to get your commitment on paper.

It also helps to schedule these blocks during times when you’re performing high-attention tasks such as writing, rather than low-attention tasks like checking email or scheduling your week. This gives you a better chance of focusing on the task at hand rather than letting your attention drift.

Step Five: Reward yourself. You should have something to look forward to after you’ve reached a milestone or goal. This can be a special home cooked meal, an extra hour of sleep, or going out with friends. As for me, I prefer to keep things simple. Spending more time working on my fiction and comics is enough.

Once you’ve taken control of your compulsive web fiddling, it doesn’t mean that the process is over and you’re completely cured. As I mentioned earlier, it’s easy to fall back on bad habits, particularly if you’re scared or if you lack the motivation to do the things you have to do.

Do you find yourself compulsively surfing the web no matter how productive you usually are? What do you do to avoid it?

Image by ugaldew from sxc.hu

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1. Admit it: You’re procrastinating.
I usually try not to admit that I’m procrastinating. I pretend I’m doing “research” or tell myself, “I really do need to get more organized.” But the first step in beating procrastination is to face up to it. Yes, I am procrastinating. It’s only human. But if I want to send another invoice one day soon, I’d better get over it.

2. Figure out why.
I usually procrastinate for one of two reasons. The first is that I’ve had a crazy week working long hours, and now I just don’t seem to be able to focus on anything. Sometimes that’s OK. Once I realize my brain needs downtime, I’ll scan the task list, knock off anything that’s urgent, and take the afternoon off. After long periods of doing things for other people, it’s only fair that you’re able to do something for yourself — time permitting, of course.

The other reason I procrastinate is that at least one of the tasks I have to do seems “too hard.” Once I realize that I have a “problem” task, I’ll decide not to commit myself to knuckling down and getting it done. Instead, I tell myself I’ll “look at it more closely.” Yes, I have to trick myself into overcoming procrastination.

3. Take a break.
My next step is to take a break. Having made the decision to consider something that’s daunting me, I take a five-minute break from the desk. I might make a cup of tea or play with the dog. The break makes me feel rewarded for deciding to look at this daunting task, and lets me recharge, so I can come back to the desk in the right frame of mind.

4. Break the task down.
OK, break’s over. It’s time to consider the nightmare. Recently, I was procrastinating over interviewing a finance expert. It all seemed too hard. But when I looked at it more closely, I realized that there were multiple hurdles: not only would I have complete my research and conduct the interview, but I’d have to go into the subject’s office in town, the logistics of which were likely to be a pain in the neck.

At this point I usually get a pen and paper and start listing the components of the task. What exactly will it entail? What will I need to do to achieve each part of the job? By doing this, I can identify problem areas that call for extra attention.

5. Problem-solve.

This is about figuring out how you’re going to tackle each of the task components.

I had to do some serious research for my interview but I wasn’t sure where to start. I worked out a few options, one of which involved talking to a few contacts in the industry to get their advice. Also, since I’d received the job brief, I’d had a few new ideas about the project. I’d need to speak to the client to make sure these fit with the overall plan. I’d also need to look at the public transport timetables, and call the subject’s office to arrange a meeting for the interview.

6. Schedule time to complete each task.

I then schedule the time it will take me to complete each task so that I have a clear plan of how I’m going to get everything done.

Suddenly my horrendous task had dissolved into a series of smaller jobs, some of them quite enjoyable (like brainstorming with friends). As I dropped them into my schedule I realized I could probably knock a few of these jobs over before the day was done!

7. Get started.
Once the plan is in place it’s time to get started on the actual work.

By the end of this process I usually feel like I’ve actually achieved something. But, more than that, I feel inspired to get started. I usually try to knock over some of the smaller tasks on the same day so that when I get up the next morning, I feel like I’m already on my way to getting the job done.

If you’re looking for more techniques for avoiding procrastination, Darrell shared some great strategies in “Road to Recovery: Tools for Web Working Self-Control and Productivity.”

That’s my strategy for beating procrastination. What’s yours?

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