Ultimately, successful creativity comes down to one thing: impact. The ability to act with conviction and move projects relentlessly forward time and time again. Now, here’s the truth of it: the majority of creatives, most people actually, simply aren’t good at making impact. Most of us get so frustrated that our ideas aren’t going anywhere that we hop from idea to idea always looking for excitement. When we don’t find it we become depressed at our seeming lack of creativity or we quit altogether.
But what is the difference between creatives with a high impact ability and everyone else? I can tell you. It’s simple because they are more organized and live with a bias toward action than others.
CREATIVITY X ORGANIZATION = IMPACT
I stole this equation from a guy named Scott Belsky and I think it’s brilliant. It will give you an idea of what I’m talking about. I know several creatives who would score a 10/10 in creativity. They have ideas that seem divinely inspired. They’re always “on”. But most of them would score 1 or 2 in organization. So…
CREATIVITY (10) X ORGANIZATION (2) = IMPACT (20)
Now take someone who ranks a bit differently, someone who would score lower on the pure creativity continuum, but has the ability to consistently organize, pursue, and finish their ideas.
CREATIVITY (5) X ORGANIZATION (9) = IMPACT (45)
They are more than twice as productive as the “creative genius” though they are supposedly half as brilliant. Which would you rather be? Yeah, me, too.
Here’s how I would grade myself:
CREATIVITY (7) X ORGANIZATION (9) = IMPACT (63)
How would you rank yourself right now? How would others rank you? I asked my wife last night and she ranked me a 9 for CREATIVITY and a 7 for ORGANIZATION. I’m less organized at home than at the office apparently. I’m going to ask five people that today and see what they say. This number floats depending on the day, I know. Nothing hard and fast, but keep it in mind. It’s a good benchmark to gauge yourself. Be a doer, not just an idea machine, even if it means putting some ideas on the sidelines for awhile.