man-leaning-back-from-deskLots of ideas and you don’t know where to begin?  So much to do and not enough time to get it done?  Feeling unbalanced and unorganized?

You’re not alone.

The question is, “What to do about it and where to begin?”

The solution lies in design-thinking.  According to Coe Leta Stafford, Managing Director at IDEO U, “design thinking is defined as a process for creative problem solving”.  Typically utilized for program or product development, it can be a constructive approach to maintaining focus, balancing time and increasing productivity.

There are 3 essential aspects of design thinking – empathy, generating ideas and testing or experimentation.  You can do all of these.

Empathy

Personal empathy is about a greater understanding and identification of what you want in life.  It’s your vision.  Your vision comes from knowledge, experience, successes and challenges.   An important first step is to recognize and identify your vision and then list the goals and objectives for achieving it.  Create a vision board and put it somewhere so that you can look at it every day.

Ideation

Once your vision is defined and goals are set, have a little brainstorm session with yourself.  What are the action steps or what can you undertake to accomplish your goals? Write down as many ideas as you can.  Don’t judge or analyze it, just get it down.

Experimentation

The next step is to try out your ideas.  Give them a test.  Draw it out, write the steps you will need to take.  This part is to see if your idea will work.  If it does, you’re on to something, if not, modify and test again.

Doing this kind of activity will help your vision and goals turn into reality, and how to get there.  It will give you the motivation and incentive to stay attentive to what you want to accomplish.

When you start to feel chaotic again, look at your vision board and bring yourself back to focus.

~ Lisa