Continuing with Making Ideas Happen, Scott Belsky share another very important concept he calls “The Energy Line” where you start on the left side of the spectrum with PROJECTS (remember for Scott EVERYTHING is a PROJECT!) labeled Extreme followed by High, Medium, Low and finishing on the right with Idle. As you can see this refers to how much ENERGY you will be expending with each project. If this is a ACTIONABLE one then you will want to place it at the Extreme area. If it is that novel that you plan to write when you retire then that will be all the way to the right at Idle.

Scott was speaking directly to me when he also said that you should not have more than FIVE personal and business projects on your plate at one time! Ouch! So I have had to determine where my current FIVE projects fit on the spectrum. This has been a very eye opening experience for me and I bet for you if you are a Creative.

Most of us entrepreneurs have a problem with letting go of TOTAL CONTROL of our projects and DELEGATING. Here is another technique Scott shares called “The Responsibility Grid”. On the top of the HORIZONTAL x axis you put the name of the people associated with the project. Down the left VERTICAL y axis you put the ACTION Steps needed for the project. Then you put a check mark in the box that corresponds to the name of the person/s and the Action Step/s delegated to them. Now EVERYONE associated with the project KNOW who is RESPONSIBLE for which part of the project. He suggests that you also have everyone in the meeting (which should preferable be done STANDING UP!) repeat back what Action Step/s they are are responsible for so that everyone is CLEAR on what needs to be done, by whom and by WHEN.

Does this make TOTAL sense to use both The Energy Line and Responsibility Grid? Oh, don’t forget about the MAX of FIVE projects!