Hey everyone,

I’m still working on the second edition of Organizing Creativity.

It takes longer than expected (it is a spare time project), so, I’m putting the current draft version online.

It contains the content of the wiki I had here, so I have removed it.

Like I said, it’s a rough draft — some parts are (almost) finished, others are missing in part or completely — but to make the best of the longer work process, posting it online gives me the opportunity to ask for feedback. This is your chance to influence the final version. What do you think of the content and/or the layout? Any suggestions for improvement? I’d like to hear them. Drop me a line at danwessel@organizingcreativity.com or write a comment.

All the best

Daniel

“But I thought YOU did the backups …”
Unknown

Many people work collaboratively while never trained to do so. Collaborative task management — who does what, who does how much, what are the next steps, etc. usually becomes a nightmare. Working in an interdisciplinary, multinational EU project I can only say that a good tool would have helped. We tried using a Wiki (at least internally), but that didn’t cut it.

I talked to a colleague of mine about it and, having the same problem, she searched around to at least coordinate the work tasks within her workgroup. She recommended Asana. Looking at the video:

it really looks like the kind of tool we could have used — and should have used. Seems to do exactly what is needed and on multiple devices …

If you work in a team, perhaps Asana is something for you …

How this feels is I’m just another task in God’s daily planner: The Renaissance pencilled in for right after the Dark Ages. The Information Age is scheduled immediately after the Industrial Revolution. Then the Post-Modern Era, then The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Famine. Check. Pestilence. Check. War. Check. Death. Check. And between the big events, the earthquakes and tidal waves, God’s got me squeezed in for a cameo appearance. Then maybe in thirty years, or maybe next year, God’s daily planner has me finished.
Chuck Palahniuk

I’m currently trying out OmniFocus as task manager. I tried out some other programs before (including Things), but difficulties with synchronization made Things not that comfortable to use. OmniFocus seems to solve the matter much better and the interface is really thought out well, especially on the iPhone (and you can configure parts of the desktop version). The main disadvantage is the price, if you want to use the desktop (63€) and the iPhone version (16€) it’ll cost you (no reduced price for both!). On the other hand, this program does not make that much sense if you do not have it available on your mobile and on your desktop. Currently I spend the time walking to the office planing my day, but using only the iPhone version is not comfortable enough. At least you can trial the desktop version for 14 days.

I could write a little about task management here, but for the moment I’d like to point to the excellent series about OmniFocus at asianefficiency.com. I think it covers a great deal of the things you might want to know about using task management systems and I can highly recommend it.

“I have plotted it out — now I only need to write it.”
Some New Yorker Comic

A colleague of mine writes the papers for his dissertation at the moment — using mind maps. While I prefer Circus Ponies Notebook and Outlines, I think his approach has a lot of merit for the more visually minded.

The uses the nodes of the mind map to create a structure he can easily grasp and the commentary fields to the nodes to write the text. The mind map structure gives him a hierarchical order (indispensable if you want to make a text out of it) and the ability to quickly reorder elements of the text. If the work is finished, he exports the mind map as text, which gives him a good first draft of the final text.

According to my colleague, a lot of people work this way and use the platform-independent and OpenSource program Freeplane.

Perhaps this approach is something for you.

Images Copyright by Christian W. Michel

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.
Mark Twain

I’m currently reading a “self-help” book called “What’s Stopping You? — Why Smart People Don’t Always Reach Their Potential and How You Can” by Robert Kelsey. I love the subtitle which by no means states that the reader actually is smart. Judging from the first 30 pages, it should contain some helpful tips. Mostly because the author has digested a lot of self-help books and actually refers to psychologists and their findings (which usually are ignored by self-help authors).

In other words, the author has realized that many self-help books take the reader out for a ride without leaving him with anything in the long-term — and he looks at aspects that might be helpful.

One interesting tip was regarding todos — his advice is to deal with the worst thing first. He refers to other books that recommend a similar approach and yes, it makes sense. If you deal with the worst thing first on your todo list, then with the next worst thing, etc., your day improves as you knock off the things on your todo list. You will be inclined to do the things on the list as early and fast as possible in order to reach the pleasurable todos. If you would go the other way (starting with the best thing first), your day goes downhill and why would you hurry — you would only reach worse and worse todos.

Of course, this means that you must have pleasurable todos on your list and that you do not betray yourself and drop some tasks.

But it seems like a good tip and I’m curious what else is in the book.

I have translated the poster I did for the MinD-Akademie 2011 in English. I love it — it shows on one (very large) page the whole concept that I try to convey with “Organizing Creativity”. If you prefer it in German find the German version here.

I will probably do a similar version for the second version of the Organizing Creativity Book (still working on it) and use it as navigation help for the Organizing Creativity Wiki (likewise still working on it). But until both are ready, have fun with this poster (note: due to the size — DIN A0 — it is about 7 MB).

The poster shows the different steps that are necessary in organizing creativity. While the process goes top down (yellow arrow in the horizontal center), each step is also another occupation with the topic (yellow arrows upwards to occupation with the topic), which leads to further ideas. I have left the footer for the moment — in case you are wondering it translates as “MinD-Academy 2011 — Future and Research”.

To put it differently: You are highly qualified people who should not be wasted in the wrong job. You are ambitious, in the sense that you want to accomplish something, be advanced, move forward. Choose the right environment if you can. PhD positions are qualification positions — it is not sufficient that you do your work well, the work must also allow you to move forward and improve/qualify yourself.
Presenter Note from “The Future of Your Research — How to organize a scientific work?”

I’ve finally translated the presentation I did at the MinD-Akademie 2011 regarding “The Future of Your Research — How to organize a scientific work?”. The slides include the presenter notes, which in turn include the script. It’s not my best translation work, so don’t be surprise to see a lot of “broken English” — but at least it’s readable, I think.

Note that due to copyright constraints, I cannot show the pictures I did show in the presentation. I have replaced these images with grayed out placeholders and an image description in square brackets.

Click on the slides to see the presentation as PDF (about 5 MB).

If you have further points that should be included in a presentation like this, I’d appreciate a comment. The recommended literature is also shown here as a separate posting.

Kurz gesagt: Ihr seid hochqualifizierte Leute, die man nicht auf der falschen Stelle verschwenden sollte. Ihr seid ehrgeizig, im Sinne von ihr wollt etwas erreichen, gefördert werden, weiter kommen. Sucht euch das passende Umfeld genau aus wenn ihr könnt. Promotionsstellen sind Qualifikationsstellen — es reicht nicht, dass ihr die Arbeit für die Stelle gut macht, die Arbeit auf der Stelle muss euch weiterbringen und euch selbst weiter qualifizieren.
Vortragsnotiz aus “Die Zukunft deiner Forschung — Wie organisiert man eine wissenschaftliche Arbeit?”

Note: The following presentation (PDF with Notes, which contains the script) is about ways to organize a scientific work. I did this presentation at the MinD-Akademie 2011 in Hannover and thus it is in German. It was my best presentation ever. Loved the audience . Regarding an English version, I’ll be doing a translation soon. [Update: Translation is online in this posting.]

Auf das Bild klicken um die PDF angezeigt zu bekommen (ca. 5 MB). Ein Teil der Bilder in der Präsentation sind ausgegraut, weil ich leider nicht das Copyright für diese Bilder besitze. Das mindert die Qualität der Präsentation, auch wenn sie nur zur Illustration eingesetzt wurden. Auf der anderen Seite sind alle wichtigen Informationen in den Notizen vorhanden. Das Design der Folien beruht zum einen auf ein Template von Apple’s Keynote (Cover), wobei die Seiten von den Aperture/iPhoto Photobüchern inspiriert sind. Die Angaben zur empfohlenen Literatur ist hier als eigener Eintrag verfügbar.

English Note: This posting is about a poster I did submit to the MinD-Akademie 2011, showing on one (very large) page how one can organize one’s creativity. It was accepted and well received. The poster is in German, but I will do a translation soon. [Update: Translation is finished and available in this posting here.]

Das Poster zeigt die verschiedenen Punkte die wichtig sind, um Kreativität zu organisieren. Während der Prozess von oben nach unten läuft, ist jeder Punkt auch eine Beschäftigung mit dem Thema (gelbe Pfeile nach oben) und führt entsprechend zu weiteren Ideen (mittige Pfeile nach unten). Auf das Poster oder hier klicken, um das Poster als PDF in DIN-A0 zu sehen (die Bilder selbst sind runterskaliert, so dass die Datei “nur” ca. 7 MB groß ist). Die Datei ist in der Dateigröße reduziert, die Bilder sollten aber trotzdem in druckbarer Qualität sein. Das Poster, das ich ausgestellt hatte, habe ich in Hannover gelassen (vielleicht hat es ja ein nettes Heim gefunden, sonst wurde es halt entsorgt). Ich musste los, habe mein Poster nicht gesehen (oder ich war grad blind) und ich habe mich auch von einigen Leuten nicht (bzw. nicht richtig) verabschieden können (war auch was k.o., auch wenn’s/weil’s riesigen Spaß gemacht hat). Ich hoffe, ich sehe ein paar Personen bald wieder, auch gerne mal zu Besuch in Tübingen, auch wenn ich die Namen grad nicht verfügbar habe (ich denke, ich habe den Networking-Workshop wirklich gebraucht — war gut und eine gute Erinnerung).  Ich wünschte halt, ich hätte mir die Namen notiert, von den Personen, mit denen ich interessante Unterhaltungen geführt hatte (hmm, in der Badewanne eben gab’s eine nette Idee für eine App bzw. die Fortführung einer älteren Idee dazu  … ).

“I wrote them down in my diary so that I wouldn’t have to remember.”
Professor Henry Jones, about why he and his son need to go into the lion’s den to save his diary, in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (1989)

I’m currently preparing a presentation for a student group about organizing an academic work (focus is on a dissertation thesis, but it can be applied to any major written work). Interestingly, there are currently a few questions about establishing academic work flow, esp. regarding storing citations. The discussion is going on in the posting about Circus Ponies Notebook for Academic Writing (e.g., Thesis Writing).

If you have ideas I’d like to hear them — how do you manage your sources?