The Power of Plotting: A Roadmap to the Finish Line

My last creative love, writing, brings us this gem of a coaching tool; plotting your creative process to manage and promote progress in your creative projects. Plotting has the added bonus of sounding downright villainous and who doesn’t love a good villain era moment? Much like programming our creative practice to work for us and our rhythms, plotting adds structure to the process of how we operate within our practice, giving us direction and focus. This is strategy, organization - a road trip with an old school map. 

Setting intentions and knowing the goal

Rather than big picture thinking, plotting asks us to look at the destination and plan how we are going to get there in actionable, small, consistent ways. Creativity is always all about the journey, yet we are always working towards something - even if it’s not a classic destination, deadline, or piece. Knowing where we want to go is the first step to actually getting there.

Intentions: For plotting purposes I want to look at overarching goals more like intentions. As we know creativity requires flexibility and grace at the best of times. Setting intentions for how you want to work is paramount to knowing how you want to show up to meet these destination goals - which we’ll get to in a moment. 

Intention planning looks something like - I want to show up with a centered focus. I will engage in my practice with tenacity. This sets the tone for the session, the project, the practice. It sets you up to attack the project in the best way to make progress. 

Destination: Goals look more like - I want to finish this draft. I will hang this artwork in my livingroom. These are final results. We decide where we want to end. Now all we have to figure out is how we’re going to get there.

We know where we are and where we want to go, but how are we going to get there; we need a route. 

Build a roadmap with rest stops and check points

Now that we have a destination we need to plot a timeline and a route, including rest stops, check points, and allow for detours. Creativity is never strictly linear, therein lies the beauty of the practice, but we do need a plan to know we are making progress, moving in the right direction and not simply paddling around in circles the exhaust and dishearten us. These are the events you want to have happen along the way. The meat and potatoes of the plot beats. 

Rest stops are to set the pace and give you space to be a human. For example you may plot three days of hour long sessions in the studio before adding a rest stop day to recharge and reconnect with your source inspiration before moving onto the next step. 

Check points are the landmarks or the places you want to acknowledge that you pass along the way. Perhaps by the end of two weeks you have a check point to ensure you remain on task and get the first sketch outlined on the canvas in preparation for the second leg of the journey. This is about adding pace and structure to how you want to move forward with your practice or this project. It allows you to plan for the intentions you set in the beginning and apply specific timelines to the destination goal you are striving for. The question now is how do we travel this route successfully.

The nitty gritty plotting is the act of micro process goals - the driver of action and the how behind moving through process to make progress. 

We have our practice, we know the steps, what is the process - process = progress

Process goals are the nuts and bolts, the vehicle with which we drive forward our progress. These micro goals are the actions we take each session to see our project through. These pieces of plotting are detailed and organized, building slowly one on the other until we arrive at the destination. It might look something like planning to sit down for 30 minutes twice daily for three days of the week with the goal of writing 250 words per 30 minute session. This is the process. The doing of the thing. It is not glamorous or exciting or loud, but it is the building block of consistency, it is the proof of showing up with diligence and commitment. In the process we create a pattern of tenacity, we learn grit, and creatively we discipline ourselves to trust that by following this meticulous process we will see progress on that roadmap towards our goals. 

Ironically this is the shortest of the series and the least structured. However plotting will have varying levels of detail - some may look more like an outline than a detailed spreadsheet. However you plot your process, make sure that it aligns with your rhythms and lifestyle.