Do the Bare Minimum

Making time for creative work is hard, but what do you do with it now that you have the time? It seems like no matter what you do, it’s not enough to move the needle. What about all these deadlines, it looks like work is just piling on top of work. As soon as you complete one project, three more replace it and now you are on the hamster wheel of production.

Your creative workflow does not have to be like this. In fact, you can work at a comfortable pace and deliver completed projects to clients efficiently with the right tools. And no, this is not with the use of some flashy software as a service (SaaS) promising to optimize your workflow.

My favorite tool for maximizing the types of tasks I get done is my Three-Highlight System. Even with a lack of motivation, this gives me a bare minimum to complete so I can still attack the day without losing the momentum of consistency. By setting a sustainable “bare minimum,” I can feel accomplished without feeling burnt out at the end of the day.

What is your bare minimum? 

While it is not essential to implement this system, it is worth considering if you want to optimize your time efficacy.  When you are a content creator or work in the creative industry, it is easy to get caught up in the process of creation that completion becomes a bottleneck. This is my trick for focusing on execution and not perfection. 

What is the least amount of sustainable work you can do and still feel like you had a successful day? Be honest with yourself. You may find that you are already doing too much and you need to cut back. You should be asking yourself: Can I keep doing this for the next 30 days? If the answer is no, that is a great indicator to cut back on your daily load and find a sustainable medium.

On the contrary, you may need to increase your current workload. If the majority of your day is comprised of leisure time and you are not making progress on your goals, you need to do more of the right activities. Nothing is wrong with leisure, but we fall into trouble expecting to accomplish while relaxed and inactive. If the time not spent in leisure isn’t fruitful, you can re-evaluate a more effective use of your time.

Once you set a bare minimum, the only requirement is that you make those tasks your focus for the day. Once complete, you have the freedom to do what you want. Understanding your bare minimum is essential to hacking your creative workflow. If you keep this bare minimum in mind while you are creating, it makes it easier to maintain momentum and get the tasks done.

What are your three highlights?

Whenever I am planning my day, there are always, three ways I can categorize the tasks I want to complete.  The three categories I use are High Priority Creative Task, Low Priority Creative Task, and Admin-Level Task.

Creative Tasks

It is easier to focus my creative decisions when high-priority and low-priority creative tasks have been selected for the day. This makes it easily identifiable where the bulk of my creative energy needs to be expended. My high-priority task is going to be the project I spend the most time on or expend the most creative energy on. 

Choosing a low-priority task to do after my high-priority tasks helps to drain the remaining creative juice and shift my brain into a more relaxed state. This is the first step to creating a sustainable workflow. If a high-priority task is both creatively demanding and time-consuming, it should be the only creative task for the day. 

If your high-priority task is to edit 5 short-form videos, the low priority task should be something that requires less focus and intensity. If the high-priority task is writing-focused, the low-priority task should be something you find creative and fun. 

This allows the brain to focus on one high-priority task for the day while also using creativity in different avenues throughout the day. 

Admin-Level Tasks

These are those mundane tasks that either take up too much of your prime creative time or you always forget to do. These are those tasks that you needed to do as part of your everyday job, but hate. This category can also be used to cover personal tasks like appointments, billing issues, and miscellaneous tasks and errands.

Setting at least 30 minutes aside to handle a chunk of these tasks, frees up your mental capacity to allow for optimized creative flow. Depending on the flow of your life you may need to schedule 2-3 times a week to complete these tasks. However, if these types of tasks require more time than that to complete, it’s time to get an assistant. 

Since these tasks are usually mindless or habitual, these are best done at the end of your creative workflow. This makes it easier to finally switch off when you have run out of creative steam. Even though you are doing a mundane task, it is still rewarding to end the day knowing it is done instead of pending. Incorporating a mindless task into your wind-down period also helps to reduce the attention residue left from your day. 

Final Thoughts 

If you’re ready to prioritize your creative work and optimize your workflow, try setting three highlights for your day. These three highlights be the bare minimum that needs to be done to feel successful. Productivity is about optimizing the effective use of resources, the most sacred being time. If you want to feel productive, you have to at least do the bare minimum. If you select a bare minimum to be the 20% of tasks that make a difference, only lack of execution can stop you.