Getting Creative Things Done: How To Fit Hard Thinking Into a Busy Schedule | Hacker News Reader

Getting Creative Things Done: How To Fit Hard Thinking Into a Busy Schedule

the99percent.com

66 pointswidgetycrank5 comments

Here's a trick that works for me:

I've noticed that creative ideas often pop in at random times when I'm doing something unrelated to the idea. So I created a little script that, upon hitting the F10 key, opens a dialog. I type in my thought and it writes it to a file called jot.txt. At the end of the day, I review jot.txt and act on the ideas. This allows me to capture interesting ideas when they happen without losing my current train of thought.

If you're interested in adapting this script for your own use, I've published the script here: http://techiferous.com/2009/12/streamlining-your-workflow-wi...

I use something similar to that. I run Guake so that I always have quick access to a terminal. I have an alias set up called "idea" so that it opens a file called ideas.txt in Vim.

As a side effect of opening the file up, rather than entering it in a dialog, it refreshes my memory each time I add a new idea.

I use remember-mode in conjunction with org-mode for the same thing. Random notes go in my personal file or the file for the client/project they relate to. Then periodically I review the "notes" section and work it into the doc better.

I think that for me this only makes sense for projects that have no explicit deadline. For a procrastinator, a deadline is the only thing that matters. I can block off all the time that I want to for a project, but if my brain is in procrastination mode, virtually nothing productive will get done.

Early on, I imagine that guilt about doing nothing during the creative blocks would motivate me. Over time, I suspect whether anything got done would roughly break down based on whether there is an explicit deadline. With no explicit deadline it would depend on how excited I was about a specific creative project.

If you're doing creative work for a living, I don't think that you can assume deadlines away.

Some kinds of creative work have deadlines that aren't on the same kind of timescale that procrastination happens on, though. Writing a book, for example—you're given an advance and six months to write the thing; whether you waste an hour watching TV when you could be writing has a negligible effect on how much time you have left to write.

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