hierarchy and deadwood

hello friends!

sorry I’ve been a bit lax recently about blog posting! I’ve doing quite a lot of applying for various projects: Break Media’s Prototype, the Sundance/Sloan Screenwriting grant, and the Berlinale Talent Campus. but now that all those are submitted, I have a bit more time to write other things… like blogs.

today is a GTD sort of post, I’ll be talking a bit about how I “get things done.” over the years I’ve adopted and modified several different strategies in order to keep myself organized and efficient as I work. (you can read about timer work here.) one of the driving factors for needing this sort of organized strategy is the number of different projects that are going at any one time.

this is not me bragging about “how busy I am” or “how many projects” I have going. trust me, I’d rather be working on just one thing at a time – but the nature of a collaborative art form like filmmaking means that you need other people to help you. as such, you’ll be waiting for other people. and while you are waiting – you could just play video games. which is fun. or you could work on anther project. the good part of this is that you’ll stay busy. the bad part is that you can end up with a plethora of unfinished and in-progress projects.

your mental office will get full of deadwood.* and that makes it harder to focus on any particular task.

so how does one efficiently and thoughtfully go about cleaning up the deadwood? one way would be to just throw it out. abandon the projects that don’t interest you and that you haven’t been working on. but what if you want to move them forward? what if the goal is completion? how would you approach this? I’ve found a way that is working well and I’m going to share it with you.

first off, a little backstory. for the last few years I’ve had a google doc that lists all my projects, their current to-do’s, and whatever future steps are needed. each week my wonderful associate producer (and dearest sister), Teal and I have a phone call where we go over this list.

she reminds me of what I need to do. I talk through how I’m going to do it. then she drafts an email and sends me the list of all my current projects. in general this works really well. especially when I have one of two BIG projects that need the majority of my time. for example, festival work with CERTIFIED and writing NATURAL STACHE.

but recently, I found myself getting mired down in a plethora of smaller projects.

as I worked on each project, I was cognizant of all the deadwood I was dragging behind me. before I would make any real progress on one project, I’d feel pressure to switch to another. I wasn’t spending the time each needed in order to move it to the “next step.” be it a cut of a promo video to send for notes, or a draft of an application, or research on a place to submit a short story… they were inching forward but nothing was getting completed.

after talking with my good friend Fawaz, I realized what I needed was a hierarchical list of to-do’s. each to-do needed to be done before moving on to the next one on the list. this didn’t mean that the project needed to be “completed,” just that I needed to reach “Milestone X,” before switching my attention to the next one.

let me show you how it works – here’s my list of priorities from last week.

• BERLIN: finish submission! Due Sept 18th.
• CERT: build cast bio page
• NS: find title treatment examples
• FiK: read through current version, revise
• NS: acquire and edit in muzak
• WOODCHIP: sign up for DuoTrope
• WOODCHIP: write logline/synopsis
• New website!
• continue w/ Alice’s Dark and Stormy
• FLOPPY: review footage
• VORTEX: outline season
• AVID: training

now I’ll break down why each project was put into that order.

• BERLIN: finish submission! Due Sept 18th.

this had a hard deadline which equals first priority. it was the most important thing that week because it couldn’t be done the next week.

• CERT: build cast bio page

building the cast bio page was the LAST thing I needed to do on the site. that meant after completing this, that project would be done. finishing this would clear deadwood!

• NS: find title treatment examples

it was important that I find these examples so that our graphic designer could start designing the poster.

ANY job that requires the NEXT step from someone else gets moved towards the top. the sooner I do my part, the sooner they start to do their’s, and the quicker a project gets completed. also, once you pass off a project to someone else you are FREE to think about other stuff. it helps clear mental deadwood.

• FiK: read through current version, revise

again, the sooner I did my revisions, the sooner I could send to the designer. the sooner she got it, the sooner I could print the next copy of my book.

• NS: acquire and edit in muzak

this project needed input from someone else – but wouldn’t be DONE after that input, so it went lower in the priorities. and again, once I sent it out – I didn’t have to think about it until THEY responded.

• WOODCHIP: sign up for DuoTrope
• WOODCHIP: write logline/synopsis

now that I’d taken care of the things with either 1.) deadlines or 2.) work needed for other people – I was free to work on Luke-driven projects.

submitting my short story WOOD CHIPPER is something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but haven’t prioritized. this project is a prime example of deadwood. by listing concrete goals, I’ve been able to move it closer to completion and after completing these two, I am now ready to submit.

• New website!

this needs to be done, but there is no hard deadline. it won’t be finished in a week, and it hasn’t been a “to-do” for very long. there for, not a priority.

—–

that is as far as I got. the rest of the items on the list I didn’t even THINK about.

• continue w/ Alice’s Dark and Stormy

another long term project. this is on the verge of becoming deadwood, but is a LARGER project than many of the above. since I can complete the other ones quicker, this has been moved lower.

• FLOPPY: review footage

I haven’t finished shooting all the footage for this project, so even if I were to do this, other factors would be keeping me from completing the project – or moving it to the next step (i.e. a first edit). but it does need to be watched at some point, which is why it’s on the list.

• VORTEX: outline season

a longish project without a deadline. it’s been on the list for a while, so it needs to move up.

• AVID: training

this is pretty much always on my to-do’s. if I don’t have any active “Luke” projects – then I need to be upping my skills.

—-

so that’s pretty much it. I prioritize based on deadlines, needing other people’s work, ability to complete, and duration on the to-do list.

once I start my next long form writing project, I’ll have to switch things up a bit. even though “Screenplay X” will be first priority, I’ll need to take daily breaks from writing to work on other things… but for now, this system is working great.

what about you? share your tricks and tools for GTD in the comments below!

-Luke

*totally stole that term from Fawaz. hope he’s okay with that! heh.