I was recently introduced to a technique that many of you have probably already heard of but which was completely new to me, a technique called Mind Mapping.
Mind Mapping is a visual way of representing a thinking process, and it works particularly well for people like myself who find even the smallest problem insurmountable. I'm told that the name for what I do is "catastrophising"; it's where if something goes wrong it triggers the thought that everything I know and do is also somehow flawed or wrong. Mind mapping is helping me overcome that.
The technique is simple - you decide upon a goal and write it in the centre of a piece of paper. Around that you write down all of the things that appear to be standing in the way of achieving that goal. Then you go through those things one by one; for each one you branch off lines of what you'll have to do to make those things happen. Perhaps that will be the end of the process; more likely you'll find that one of those problems can be spun off into a set of further problems, and so on and so forth.
The end result is that rather than having one huge, seemingly insurmountable problem, you end up with a lot of tiny, infinitely more solveable problems. Then you can set yourself achievable goals by compiling lists of these smaller problems and working your way through them one by one. For someone in my position (i.e. an unemployed crazy person) it's very useful to have a system that means that I have definite set goals to work towards.
Now I'll be honest with you - it sounds like management bullshit. I realise, reading back the previous paragraphs, that I've even written it like management bullshit. My fingers want to insert phrases like "blue sky thinking." I'm one step away from suggesting we helicopter the idea around the room and see where it lands.
But it works. It genuinely does. I've used it to plan out some of the things I'll need for a festival I'm going to soon, and I've gone from running around the room in a blind panic screeching like a gibbon with a stubbed toenail to merely panicking quietly to myself, which is far less distressing for the neighbours.
Try it for yourself. If you can overcome your scepticism you may just find it useful. I did.
Now, if you'll excuse me I'm just off to harness some strategic cross-media system paradigms in order to deliver out-of-the-box integration models and leverage analogous pinch-point synergy differentials. And then scrub the inside of my brain out with bleach.