The first time I wrote a piece of theater, a colleague showed me how to reverse engineer the process on paper as we sat at a cafe in the East Village. Somehow it amazed me. She started with the date of the opening performance and we worked backwards from there. For some reason, I couldn’t conceive of this alone.
The one element that allowed us to create this plan was having a deadline to work backward from.
Having a deadline is the bedrock of Creative Project Management, Creative Process Management, ADHD Productivity Hacks, or whatever you want to call them. Having an endpoint in time so that there’s something to plan for is fundamental to getting anything done in relation to the rest of the world.
I also think they’re called ‘deadlines’ because we’re all gonna die. And just as none of us know when that will be, project deadlines don’t have to be written in stone.
If you have ADHD, I don’t recommend planning your projects in a vacuum. Do it with someone out loud. This helps with brainstorming around what’s involved on a granular level. That’s difficult to do in isolation with a neurodivergent brain.
If you’re not sure what’s involved at all, start with a mind map: Put the goal in the middle and surround it with every relevant stage or task you can possibly think of.
Now you have actions to put into order in relation to a date along our shared space/time continuum. Doing it in reverse is easier because once you think of the endgame, you have to consider what needs to be in place just before it, going backward to where you are right now.
Your time frames won’t be ‘right’ so don’t worry about that. Most likely you’ll discover you’ve forgotten a step or two..or three. This may necessitate your moving the date(s) up or down. The main thing is to get something on the calendar so you begin the process of bringing your projects into the world!
