Stuck? Get your PROTOTYPE on.
Here's a personal story about decision making that might be helpful to you as you make your next round of tough, complex, or creative choices.
Here in Rhode Island, it's been snowing.
Snow is the only thing (short of a natural disaster) which can completely alter the landscape and the light in a very short period of time, and throw you into an altogether different experience of the world. It gives me a feeling of timelessness and restlessness.
So the other night found me soaking in the bathtub, allowing myself a wallow in discouragement after a wildly unproductive day of half-fiddling with my 2021 business plans which I was so excited about the sunny day before.
The impending snow was already changing the quality of the dusk sky and the feeling of the air. It slowed me down enough that a quieter voice inside me could speak up a little - the one that knew something wasn't right.
My sense of doubt about my plans pissed me off and scared me. I resisted it. I got more discouraged. I wanted answers. And action! I grabbed my journal and pen right next to the tub, which was tricky of course because of all the water, and tried to make my decisions again on paper. Wet paper.
And then I remembered, as I often do when I move from the rambling yard sale that is my brain on decision-making to the organizing tools of pen and paper:
Our job as creators (of businesses, or art) is not to decide. Yet. The job is to prototype.
What is a prototype?
A prototype is a little model of the thing you are considering or designing. You need it so you can externalize your idea, bring it from fantasy to reality. Make it tangible. Back away from deciding, and re-enter testing and learning.
A crucial aspect of a good prototype is that it's the quickest, dirtiest, easiest, lowest-investment way to get your idea out of your head and into the world where you can see it more clearly.
If you are an architect, your first prototypes might be folded paper or blocks. You might do many of these before committing to a more detailed model.
If you are designing products, you might first do some with cardboard or clay or paper and see how it looks and feels. You'll keep doing these until the best form comes into view.
If you are designing a course or program in a new way, you might do some quick beta workshops or presentations to a focus group to see how it feels to teach this way, and how people respond and feel.
If you are making strategic plans for your business, you might just take one page in a journal for each version of the scenario ahead. The exciting one, the boring one, the hard one, the easy one. Make a full outline of each one like you are fully committed to it, without judging it yet.
That last one is the one I ended up doing after I got out of the tub, rescued my journal from all those water droplets and snuggled into my jammies for an evening of prototyping.
I had to coach myself to BACK OFF from KNOWING. I had to un-commit from the ideas I was so excited about the days and weeks before. I had to go back to the critical question:
What if?
This question is the starting point for every prototype.
All of this may seem obvious. Prototyping is just a fancy word for something we all do naturally as we make and learn.
But I have observed that nobody I know, including myself, slows down enough, or plays for long enough, to let prototyping work its magic. The need to know is too strong. Our industrial-era educational system of testing has its grips on us. We want the right answer, and we want it now: our grade depends on it.
We need to be reminded: the answer is not available until we play, test, learn.
My prototypes also helped me notice my feelings; some of which were simply there to be felt and let go of, and some which were there to point me towards factors I hadn't considered. They helped me spot holes in my plans. They helped me reclaim things I had discarded, and discard things that aren't meant to travel from idea to reality.
In the end, I was able to make decisions. The prototyping process reminded me that there is more than just one path forward. They showed me that the best of my ideas can all happen, but that they need to happen in a different order and in a different way than I had originally planned when I was operating with my old habits. My prototypes helped me shed those, and find solutions that I would have otherwise discovered the hard way.
So here's my question to you:
In what area of your creating and/or planning for your business this year can you slow down, stop forcing the final decisions or product, and simply prototype possibilities? And how can you prototype them quickly, directly, simply?
Start each one with "what if" and then work it out on paper, with play-doh, in a conversation, on video. Play "make pretend" and see what emerges.
Time for a boost of big picture thinking?
Prototyping is something I often do with my clients in the day-long Creative Direction Retreats. If you are wanting a big blast of 1:1 attention from a design thinker, artist, entrepreneur and branding specialist to get your 2021 plans in fabulous shape, let's get our "what if's" on and make you some beautiful, intelligent plans so you can have a big breakout year. I have 2 spots opening up in March. Apply here.
People have used these retreats to knock out their brand guidelines, make business plans and more: whatever that big push is that is waiting to happen, and needs some butt-kicking AND handholding through the swamplands of creative process to that shining place of clarity you seek.
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