Creativity + Organization = Impact

Making Ideas Happen is a brilliant book that had me thinking every page along the way! Written by Scott Belsky, Founder of Behance and the99Percent.com conference series (and one of my favorite websites), this book takes tons of research of successful creative minds and breaks down some key strategies to leverage creativity and organization to bring ideas into action and maximize their impact!

Are Creative Minds Different From Others?

This book really gets its competitive advantage, or unique selling position, from the hypothesis that “creative minds” operate differently than others. “Creatives” are notoriously known for not being particularly organized, but Scott points out that successful creatives — the ones we all know by name — use very similar sets of organization tools and processes to turn their creativity into impact. But the organization strategy put forth by Scott and his Behance team, called the Action Method, is eerily similar to David Allen’s Getting Things Done. I will admit, however, that the stories, case studies, and explanations of how the “creative mind” works really resonated with me unlike any other book I’ve read.

The Action Method

The first section of the book is focused largely on “The Action Method” — Behance’s version of the productivity method extremely similar to David Allen’s Getting Things Done philosophy. The premise is that we need to look at our lives as a collection of projects — both personal and professional. Some are long-term, some are short-term. Each project consists of Action Items, Backburner Items, and Resources. And this is how we must capture and categorize the content in our lives. Everything should result in a series of action items, and these should be well organized! Then its all about pumping out results!

Throw Into the Mix: Community and Leadership

While I found the Action Method interesting and immediately applied it to my life, the real value in the book came from the following sections about community and leadership! It really resonated with a lot of what I’ve been going through and figuring out lately as a business owner and emerging entrepreneur. The “creative mind” tends to be fairly introverted, keeping ideas close to the chest. However, a lot of critical value comes from surrounding yourself with a community, exposing your ideas early on to build on feedback, and be held accountable by your peers. There’s a really interesting process in how ideas develop and evolve, and this was broken down into a science at Disney (an interesting story shared in the book!).

When it all comes down to it, though, it rests on your shoulders to bring your ideas into action. This is where the leadership comes into play. You have the responsibility and obligation to take control of things, inspire others to buy-into it, and to “make ideas happen”.

Who Should Read This Book?

I’ll admit, I had never really thought of myself as a “creative” before reading this book. But, as I mentioned before, everything in it from the case studies to the explanations of how the “creative mind” works really resonated with me on a deeper level than most books. I almost felt as if the author knew me! So its hard to say, “if you have a creative mind you should read this book.” I’ll break it down and say, instead, that if you have an idea or something you are passionate about getting done or seeing come into fruition — read this book! It will give you inspiration and the tools that you need to move forward! I’m sure of it!