HOW TO VISUALISE YOUR CREATIVE BLOOMS: Or what GTD and the picture on your seed packet have in common

Have you ever planted some seeds straight into the garden without really being sure you will be able to identify the plants when they are grown? Then, a few months later, you go out to look to see whether the seed is coming up only to find the whole patch covered with weeds. Or are they weeds? Could it be that some of those unrecognisable sprouts are actually the plants you are waiting for?

This scenario has a lot in common with David Allen's72 GTD73 concept of "What does DONE look like?" Its not that we need to know literally exactly what our creative projects will look like when they are finished but we do need to define their genus by setting goals and maybe parameters for the project.

One of the biggest reasons creative people get blocked is because we start out every piece with the wish that it turn out a 'masterpiece' and as soon as it begins to look like this might not be the case, we block.

Its not too difficult to recognise what's happened: We've set ourselves unreasonable expectations because we have no easy way to recognise when our project is completed, not that unlike planting those unfamiliar seeds in the middle of that patch of weedy soil. Fundamentally this has the same effect as not setting any parameters or goals at all.

74How much better then, when we set off to plant those seeds, to diligently weed the soil first and then to carefully put aside the seed packet with the photograph of the fully-grown plant on the front so that when the seeds start to mature, we've got a photo to help us tell them apart from any stray weeds that still come up in the same patch.

Likewise, if we set ourselves specific goals within our creative projects - e.g. I am going to paint a picture in colours I don't normally use - and resist the temptation to clarify these goals with unrealistic expectations - such as that it will be a 'brilliant' picture - then its a lot easier to see when our particular plant has matured and bloomed. We know when we have finished our project and can enjoy a sense of success at accomplishing our aims.