/// Tips

Surround Yourself With Progress

tip
by Behance Team
When you complete a list of action steps, your instinct might be to throw the list away. After all, the work is completed! However, some creative professional teams take a different approach; they relish their progress. Some go so far as surrounding themselves with it.The inspiration to brainstorm comes easy, but the inspiration to take action is rare. Especially for creative professionals, the constant flow of ideas is often the greatest inhibitor to making ideas happen.

Especially amidst heavy, burdensome projects with hundreds of action steps and milestones, it is emotionally invigorating to surround yourself with progress. Why throw away the relics of your achievements when you can create an inspiring monument to getting stuff done? A "Done! Wall" reminds you that you have moved forward in your journey.

Why not decorate your work space with completed action steps? While we tend to surround ourselves with art and imagery that serves to inspire us in our work, is it more inspiration that we need? Most creative professionals report that they are not short of ideas, but rather the discipline and organization to make them happen. For this reason, consider surrounding yourself with testaments to taking action.

There is no better push-towards-taking-action than action itself.

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This tip was written by Scott Belsky, Behance Team. Explore more tips, and check out Behance's guest postings for small businesses trying to make ideas happen, hosted at American Express' OpenForum.

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  • I don't care for excess. Clean and on task. I also like the "bad feng shui" comment below. True! (and it made me chuckle).
    Joyce /// 7/26/2010 8:54 pm
  • What happens when the achievements become the reason to slow down?
    chaohlin /// 7/20/2009 12:02 pm
  • Isn't this look-over-the-shoulder technique really productive? Personally I prefer a fresh start when I take up a project. Every project has it's own habitat. Mixing this with all kinds of information seems rather distracting to me.
    THTdeBoer /// 11/11/2008 11:24 am
  • Yes, what a mess. And it's bad Feng Shui, by the way, to work facing a wall. Turn those desks around.
    elmnt /// 9/8/2008 6:26 pm
  • Recently I actually tried something similar out - I got tired of those days where you finish feeling like you haven't got anything done, so I decided to start to use an 'anti to-do' list where I would write down all the things that I did through the day, even if they weren't on my original to-do list. This worked really well and helped me feel good about accomplishments and therefore relax and recover after work. Then I decided to review a weeks worth of to-do's and anti to-do's and this proved even more helpful as I could see what I was spending my time on and where I could find leverage to be more effective.



    I have got so much more done since I started this system!



    Andrew

    callitech.blogspot.com
    standrew /// 7/20/2007 1:10 am
  • Mess is More.
    undoredo /// 7/12/2007 5:25 pm
  • Big projects are messy, so is hard work. I like the idea of celebrating the progress, especially when the process is messy!
    twright /// 7/12/2007 1:48 pm
  • What a mess..
    newforcomment /// 7/12/2007 12:49 pm