Welcome to the Action Digest, where we demystify the creative process like hot air on a winter’s windshield!

Coming up in this week’s action-packed edition:

• 💭 We learn how to avoid wasting precious time and energy from taking the wrong path on a project.

• 👑 The producer of Bridgerton teaches us a disciplined approach for exploring smash-hit ideas.

• 🏙️ An iconic architect spills the beans on his process for kickstarting a project in successful fashion.

P.s., you can check out editions 1-24 here in case you missed them, including insights such as the mindset that helped an entrepreneur build seven different billion-dollar companies, how Steve Jobs cultivated great creative taste, and why success might be much closer than we thought possible.

Seriously, there are some gems you’ll appreciate in these earlier editions ;-)

1. Sail deep into the sea of possibility before dropping your anchor

The greatest productivity hack of all time is to work on the right thing. 

If you choose to write a book that no one wants to read, build a product that no one wants to use, or work on an approach that’s a dead-end—it doesn’t matter how hard you work, you aren’t going to succeed. 

The problem, of course, is that we often have no way of knowing what the right thing to work on is. 

One solution is to push a simple version of your idea into the world as fast as possible. 

By releasing a basic version of your vision, you can test your assumptions and get feedback before investing more time and energy. 

The co-founder of the Action Method, Scott Belsky, knows this better than anyone.

As a builder and mentor for many different products over the years, Scott has helped many teams get the first version of a new product (MVP) out the door to see whether it’s worth pursuing. 

But given that MVPs are designed to save time, it may come as a surprise that Scott actually advises teams to slow down this part of the process. 

“I’ve had dozens of debates about what an MVP should and shouldn’t include,” Scott reveals, “the argument to ‘just get something out there and start learning’ is flawed in two critical ways: (1) You’ll burn early adopters fast if you don’t polish the few things that distinguish your product the most before launch, and (2) The natural tendency of every product team is to iterate around the MVP. Every MVP drops a heavy anchor in the sea of possibility and it becomes exponentially harder to explore new terrain once you start digesting data and iterating.” 

That second point is crucial for any new project or idea. 

Before you release the first version of something, you’re working with a blank canvas. Your creativity is unconstrained and you can consider many different possibilities and directions. 

But as soon as you drop that initial anchor, your focus will naturally shift. Resources and attention will start being directed towards optimizing and enhancing the existing draft, rather than exploring entirely new directions. 

This means the beginning of a new project is a special time period. You must release a simple version as soon as possible so you can test your assumptions and avoid working on the wrong thing, but you must also explore many possibilities and apply careful consideration to your early renditions before they begin exerting their outsized gravity on the path ahead. 

Your anchor should be as simple as possible—the minimum level of complexity needed to test your core assumptions—but be sure to sail deeply into the sea of possibility before dropping it. 

Read on for a deeper voyage into the seas of possibility :-)

2. Ask the most important question

The Guggenheim Museum (pictured above) is one of the world’s most famous buildings. 

It has generated billions of dollars of tourism revenue for the Spanish region of Bilbao. 

And yet, the Guggenheim as we know it today almost never existed. 

The iconic design was only made possible by the fact that its architect, Frank Gehry, was a genius at early project exploration. 

“In 1991, when Gehry was invited to join the project that became the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, regional government officials knew what they wanted,” write Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner in their analysis of Frank’s life and work.  

But the vision held by the officials looked nothing at all like the Guggenheim…

“In the center of Bilbao, there was a huge old building with impressive towers and arches that had once been a wine warehouse. Now the officials wanted to transform it into a dramatic space for modern art.”

It seems the local government had already dropped their anchor. 

But Frank decided to gently raise it back up and explore deeper. 

“With such a clearly defined project,” Flyvbjerg and Gardner continue, “another architect may have treated this as a simple choice between accepting or passing. Gehry did neither. Instead, he did what he does with every potential client. He asked questions, starting with the most fundamental: ‘Why are you doing this project?’” 

“The officials told Gehry they wanted the museum to do for Bilbao what the Sydney Opera House had done for Sydney—give the city international prominence, draw tourists from around the world, and boost the economy.” 

That’s when Frank realized that there was a mismatch between what the officials were trying to achieve and their plan for accomplishing it. 

“It was hard for Gehry to see how the project envisioned by the officials could deliver what they wanted. Although he liked the building they had selected, it wasn’t well-suited to be a space for modern art. And when had a renovation ever had such a transformative effect? But understanding the goal of the project helped Gehry form a different vision that his clients could buy into. Gehry found a derelict site on the riverfront, next to a spectacular bridge, just like the Sydney Opera House. Build something audacious there, he suggested.” 

Now that Frank had a better location and the ability to build something from scratch, the next phase of exploration commenced. 

See, Frank was also one of the first architects to realize the power that computer software held to revolutionize his field.

At the time, architects would have to build physical models. 

This was slow and expensive and so the number of models that could be created was limited. 

But Frank was a pioneer of computer software that allowed architects to build and test thousands of models on a given project. 

This allowed him to build 100x more models than before and explore a much wider sea of possibility. 

By going deeper into the exploration phase, Frank could incorporate curves and shapes in his designs unlike the world had ever seen. He was also able to deliver projects faster and cheaper than anyone else. 

Another example that testifies to the power of early exploration is Frank’s building at 8 Spruce Street in New York. 

The client told Frank he wanted to build a 50-story building in Manhattan. 

Frank responded with his famous question. 

“Why?” 

When the client said that his goal was to “make a prominent addition to the world’s most famous skyline,” Frank said the building needed to be 76-stories instead—the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, and would need to push the boundaries of design. 

Frank proceeded to cycle through 74 different iterations and rounds of feedback. 

When the building was opened in 2011, The New York Times described it as “the finest skyscraper to rise in New York since Eero Saarinen’s CBS Building went up 46 years ago.”

Before you lay the first brick, write the first line of code, or pen the first sentence—explore. Ask why you’re doing it, ask whether your approach will actually achieve your desired outcome, consider if there are better ways, and entertain a broad spectrum of possibilities before zeroing in on the best approach.

3. Exploration isn’t an excuse to obsess over inconsequential details 

Shonda Rhimes has written and produced some of the biggest shows on TV including Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and Bridgerton. 

This has left fans and aspiring writers alike wondering where Shonda gets her ideas from. As with Scott and Frank, Shonda casts a wide net at the beginning of a project: “People always ask like where do your ideas come from? Where do you get your inspiration? And for me that is such a crazy question. I don’t know how to answer it all the time and I think it’s because my ideas come from everywhere. Your ideas should come from everywhere. They come from a conversation I have with somebody, they’ll come from a fight I overhear while standing in a coffee shop, they’ll come from, you know, I’ll read some tiny little thing in an obituary somewhere and I’ll go ‘ooh, that’s a funny little detail.’” 

And even though Shonda has a clear bias toward action—known for churning out an entire episode of a show each week for months at a time—she also takes her time with this early exploration phase: “Frankly you have time before the show starts to actually do that kind of research and to come up with those kinds of ideas, once the train starts going, once the show gets picked up and you start production it’s way harder to come up with things. So be useful, use that time, do some real thinking about what you want your show to be,” she advises. 

But there’s a vital caveat to creative exploration.

Shonda’s exploration isn’t meandering. She’s laser focused on what matters most (character and story) and nothing more: “Everything is about the journey of the character, who is this person, what journey are they on, and what are they supposed to learn, what do they need, what do they want, and what are we giving them, what are their obstacles? It’s really about that.” 

Everything else, including music, character names, and even the title of the show—is omitted from Shonda’s ideation process: “Show titles are very interesting, people feel as though they really need to know what their show is called really early on. Every pilot I have ever done has been written, pitched, and shot, as The Untitled Shonda Rhimes Project. Every last one. Mainly because it’s too difficult to try to come up with a title but I never can settle on a title until sort of right before it’s time to start marketing the show. And I don’t think it matters. The title of your show is not what matters. It’s best left to the marketing Gods, honestly.” 

Scott has similar advice when it comes to what to include versus omit from an initial product launch: “Optimize for the problems you want to have. You WANT customers to get into your product and adopt it so fervently that they quickly suss out and request features to go further. You DON’T WANT anything that obstructs customers from finding immediate value.”

Give yourself permission to explore at the outset of a project but maintain a disciplined focus on what matters most.

Exploration isn’t an excuse to obsess over inconsequential details. The subject of your exploration should be reserved for those questions that will contribute the most impact toward achieving your end goal.

_{Source: Shonda Rhimes Teaches Writing For Television}

4. Working with a bias towards action is the ultimate competitive advantage

When you study the world’s most prolific creatives, athletes, businessfolk, etc, you see the same pattern over and over again.

Working with a bias towards action is the ultimate competitive advantage.

That means always knowing your next move.

And it means building a habit of turning your ideas and notes into action steps.

The Action Method journaling system makes it easy to do exactly that.

Each page includes a dedicated Action Zone that encourages you to stay action-oriented.

That means getting more done, seeing more results, and feeling more satisfaction.

You can pick up or replenish your supply here. 

We’ll leave you with this…

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