Arthur Andersen

Making Ideas Happen

by Scott Belsky

I liked the book. It targets creatives that do not have much structure in their lifes. As I am already quite knowledgable regarding GTD methods and alike I did not learn so much about processes.

But, I still learned a bit about the shallow psychological parts of the book. It discusses the phenomenon of `restistance`. And how we are looking for novelty when tasks get too dull or repetitive.

Especially the idea of `project plateau`. Every project has plateaus after the initial excitement wanes. At that point the maker needs to persist and persevere, but creative types often hop over to other, more interesting endeavors, which may lead to a backlog of unfinished projects, frustration and maybe burnout.

  • Be attentive to the urge of starting something new and persevere

Also it made clear that the creative need processes and structure alterating between different roles. You need to be manager and artist at once. Only in this fashion can we plan, create and bring forth our projects.