Black Belt Productivity

If you’re like me, you’re in the office on a bright Monday morning scanning your next action contexts for the next item in your productive crosshairs. You sit behind your desk with your computer checking email and voice mail, or looking through your read/review list.

This scenario is played out in corporate offices all across the world, with a high degree of success if you believe the twitterverse and interweb. It spans accounting departments (see Jason), IT departments (that’s me), and hundreds of other departments in corporate America.

But what about the creative folks. Do they have someone to champion their rights to be productive in today’s society? Is there voice being heard above the cacophony of the non-creatives of the world?

They do now, and his name is Brad Blackman! Brad is a friend of BBP and longtime forum poster at 43Folders (as chrome47), as well as an upcoming twitter junkie (as BradBlackman). Brad is a Nashville resident who is a newlywed (CONGRATS!!), graphic designer for the Talstone Group as well as a fine artist. He says

“In my art I always strive to communicate the innate beauty in ordinary things around us, from the roads we travel to the buildings in which we spend our time earning a living. Occasionally I ponder the mysteries of life from a humorous or insightful perspective and illustrate those ideas on canvas.”

Brad has started a 5-part series on ‘Art and GTD’ at his new blog, Mysterious Flame. He talks about his love of art and GTD:

As someone who inhabits both worlds of knowledge work and creativity (I’m a graphic designer as well as a fine artist), I wondered how to tie the two together. GTD is great for knowledge work, but how do you apply the same principles to creative work? And the New Age-y principles of The Artist’s Way don’t always go over well in the business world.

He has posted an Overview of GTD, an post on being your own Project Manager and Workflow Usage to Aid in Creativity.

Brad shows the differences between us schleps that ‘crank widgets’ and the fine artists of the world that savor their studio time. AND, he paints a really mean Hot Air Balloon! (just joking!)

If you one who works in the creative arts, take a look at his posts, and his site as he is trying to create “a gathering place for all sorts of creatives to gain inspiration, share ideas, and further their craft.”

If you are a non-creative schlep like me, still go over and read how he does it. It never hurts for us to read how others have implemented GTD in their lives. There may be one or two tidbits that you can glean from him to use in your own system.

Michael