Planning for creative minds - with SWING

Long, confusing to-do lists are a nightmare! 

Like me, many creative people often don't get on well with long to-do lists. Somehow these lists seem so overwhelming, so busy and stiff.

In addition, tasks are often complex, varied and interlinked. And it's boring. Everything looks the same.

Of course you can use highly developed project management tools. In my publishing house  Down to Earth we also use such tools because otherwise it's easy to lose track of things in the team.

I also always treat myself at the beginning of the month Days of reflection and looking ahead. Nevertheless, I prefer not to do the really big planning digitally, but in the classic analogue way with pen and paper. And colourful.

This is particularly helpful for me when I'm planning longer periods of time - in the example below, the tasks for several months.

My colourful notes

I therefore use square pieces of paper in different colours for my planning:

yellow-orange: Things I want to learn, specialised knowledge I want to acquire.Vision.

white: all publication projects. Simply „normal“ work.

blue: Organisational tasks. Building good structures.

green: Marketing. That makes something grow.

The colours according to SWING - the holistic concept for a balanced life

The colours are adapted to the Swing concept according to which I organise my life (see graphic on the right).

Yellow has to do with vision. In order to achieve my vision, I need to acquire new knowledge and skills.

Blue stands for order and structure.

Green for productivity - that includes marketing.

White I use it for all „normal“ projects and tasks.

Of course, you could also add to this: More cards for highlights, celebrations, etc., so that you can set specific goals for all areas of your life. For the professional area, the four are enough for me.

My approach

Step 1; I write down all the bigger tasks I have in my head on square pieces of paper in the relevant colour. I like squares. They give me clarity and an overview.

Step 2: I sort them by colour.

Step 3; I sort them according to the expected order in which I want to complete the tasks.

Step 4: I look at everything again and think about whether I have forgotten something (there are still three slips of paper missing from the picture), should cross something out or need support for something.

Step 5: I put the notes in a pile and take them out when I go into detailed planning for shorter periods of time, e.g. weeks. I don't have enough wall space on my boat. But if I had enough space, I would hang the notes on the wall to keep an overview.

Step 6: When I have completed a project, I put a big green tick on the note and put it in the pile of completed projects.

Step 7: Every now and then I look at the pile of completed projects. And I'm happy about what I've developed. Then I'm grateful and proud.

More tips: 

• You want to know how to plan and organise your work so that you can get everything done. There are tips on this in the affordable Quadro booklet Work organisation. Order it now here:
• If you are really serious, have had enough of stress and overwork and want to learn how to get through your working day in a relaxed and easy way, I recommend a course that I developed together with coach Christoph Schalk. In three months, you will learn to get a good grip on things with 2 training emails per week. Find out more here: SAM - Mastering your work.

I wish you every success with your planning and realisation and look forward to your feedback.

• What do you think of the ideas?
• How do you plan?