Planning Without Process

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An avid and devoted vegetable gardener got me thinking after I he said, “The seed catalogs will arriving soon.”

Early January and he’s already planning his summer garden!

Then, I remembered the insight I discovered while writing the Row By Row chapter of the book. Cecelia had an annual plan for her bulb garden that was segmented into seasonal processes.

The key takeaways from the story are planning, research, and experimentation.

Cecelia’s Creative Counsel: 

Practicing strategic creativity by recognizing patterns and developing a plan or system to take advantage of the pattern.

Planning is an important step in executing a creative plan. In this scenario, recognizing the cycle of growth of the bulb varieties for the garden.

Research the topic and/or data can help eliminate early mistakes. Learning from trusted resources. Extracting and applying the most useful for the execution of your own project/plan.

Experimentation is execution. The learn from failure stage. It must have taken a couple of years to perfect the system for this bulb garden.

Cecelia’s motherly advise was tender and firm. Coercing you to think about the next series of actions (or new plan). The past few weeks, I’ve been stuck between research and experimentation of the next phase of my creative career.

Action steps seem fuzzy and self-doubt can be stifling. Cecelia would be asking me what the most logical and important action I could take that would contribute to the Plan.