More than once, in previous posts I’ve mentioned that I’d be lost without my lists. I’ve had a few people ask about how I use them to organise myself, so I thought I’d give you a quick rundown on my system.

If lists aren’t your thing, skip this one and we can chat more next month.

For me, lists serve two purposes. They alleviate mental load and they track progress.

Your brain can get overwhelmed a lot quicker than you might think. Did you know, your conscious brain can only process around 40 bits of information per second while your subconscious mind can process a whopping 11 million! When your conscious brain is trying to remember even a few extra things, it loses the ability to critically process additional information and you have less capacity for good decision making and creativity.

In a study by Stanford University professor Bav Shiv two groups of participants were asked to remember a number while deciding if they were going to have chocolate cake or fruit salad. One group was asked to remember a two-digit number and the other a seven-digit number. Two digits is easy to remember but in previous studies seven digits had been shown to be the upper limit of working memory. The participants with the two-digit number were more likely to make the healthier more rational choice of fruit salad, while the group remembering the longer number fell back on their subconscious impulse for the chocolate cake.

That’s only a small choice to make but it was a measurable difference when remembering just a few extra numbers. So why would you want to use up any of your precious conscious ‘bits’ trying to remember every last thing you’ve got to do.

Especially now that a lot of us have children at home full time, we fill so many different roles. These all have a set of jobs that need to be done, phone calls to make, deadlines to meet and things to remember. So many things.

My list is where I keep everything I need to do and remember so that I don’t have to remember. It frees up my brain and lets me concentrate on the task at hand.  It helps me to prioritise and make sure I’m making progress on the tasks that are the most urgent. On days when I feel like I’ve struggled through, it gives me a sense of achievement, because it’s a visible reminder of what I have managed to get done.

The first thing to do is to make a list of everything. I mean EVERYTHING, for every aspect of your life. Don’t worry about categorising them or thinking them through too much just get it all out of your head.  Try not to gloss over big overview tasks with one item. Break them down into steps so you can tackle one step at a time. I like to keep tasks small enough that I could get them finished in a day.

Now group tasks together. This could be into categories – projects, business, personal tasks, family tasks, things that need doing around the house. You might rather group them by the type of task they are – phone calls, deskwork, errands. Whatever suits the types of items you have and the way you like to allocate or block your time. If you notice that you have any large overview tasks, now’s the time to break them down into smaller components.

I have a few different places where I keep this information. For my general tasks I prefer to do this on paper and I have my list in my paper diary. In Asana I have my project process overview, yearly goals and ideas for personal creative projects, because they are less of a day to day focus. I also have some reusable lists for things like: everything I need to pack for the kids if we go away for the night or what I need to bring with me to a site measure.

At the start of every week I take some time to sit down with a coffee and review and update my list. I actually re-write it each week in my diary. I’m well aware this seems like overkill. But it removes all the finished tasks and helps clarify what I’d like to achieve in the coming week, I flag tasks that have a deadline or I need to prioritise. I enjoy the ritual or starting my week with a clear idea of what I want to achieve for the week.

To stay focussed I use a strategy of the Daily Three / Weekly One, which I first heard of through the BizChix podcast. Each day I select three tasks I will get done. Even if everything goes wrong in the day and I only get those three things done, that is enough and I’ve made progress. The Weekly One is a way to take on larger tasks. I’ve chosen to use this as one business development task each week. It helps me to make progress every week on business related jobs that are too easy to sideline for more urgent tasks.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, there’s never much time to celebrate small goals and achievements.

When you’ve finished something, get a big fat texta and cross it off your list. Take a moment to feel good about getting something done.

Part of my process review has been to identify templates to streamline the production of a project. In early design presentations these template layouts include sketches, renders, diagrams, plans and line drawings.  I had been making the layout pages in Photoshop only because this was the program I am the fastest at using.  I did have title block files set up but Photoshop isn’t made for layouts and it was certainly not the most efficient way of working.

So, I switched to InDesign, which is exactly made for doing this kind of work.

It does take a bit of time to get InDesign running smoothly which is the main reason why I hadn’t made the move sooner.

By reviewing past project presentations, I now have templates for every type of design presentation.  The templates are an outline of everything that should be presented at each stage.  They ensure the design thinking is shown in a logical way and nothing is missed.  The content will differ from project to project but the basic information required stays much the same.

Each one has three types of Master Pages with title blocks and scale bars – 1:100, 1:50 and Not to Scale. These Master Pages are used for every page other than the front Title page.  I use a non-printing reference layer for additional notes, instructions or anything I might forget.

There are a couple of tricks I’ve included in my templates that I wish I had know about sooner:

Table of Contents:

In the top menu select LAYOUT > Table of Contents.

In the pop-up box write the title you want to appear at the top of your table of contents.

Create a new Style called “Table of Contents” (you can of course call it whatever you like but why overcomplicate things?).

This Style will need to be assigned to the title of each page you want to have appear in your table of contents.

In the same pop-up box you can edit how your numbers show up. You can also change how your table of contents looks using the paragraph styles tool.  It can be as complicated or simple as you want depending on how far you go into changing settings.

When your document is finished with a title on each page, make sure the table of contents text box is selected.

Then in the top menu select LAYOUT > Update Table of Contents.

Like magic the table of contents will populate itself, no need for manual updates. Hooray!

Cross Referenced Text:

If you have the same text in multiple places then Cross Referenced text is your friend.  For example, you can write the project details once on the cover page and have them update in the title block on every page.

Make a text box on your title page.  Write your project title and address in the box.  This is your Master Text.  I have put an orange square around any Master Text in my reference layer so I can easily see everything that needs to be updated.

Create another text box in the title block of your Master Page or Working Page.  Click into the box so your cursor is showing.

In the top menu select TYPE > Hyperlinks & Cross-References > Insert Cross-Reference

In the pop up box, select the paragraph you want to use as your Master Text. It will populate the second text box with the same text as the Master.

When you have made changes to your Master text, in the top menu select TYPE > Hyperlinks & Cross-References > Update Cross-Reference.

Just like the table of contents it will update all text linked to that reference text.

There is also an option similar to Cross Referenced Text called Synchronised text.

Draw a text box and type your Master Text in.  Select the text box.

In the top menu go to EDIT > Place and Link and draw a new text box.  The text will automatically appear in the new text box.  Repeat this process for additional instances.

You can format the secondary text boxes if you wish.  If you make changes to the master text, you will get the yellow triangle icon on the text box alerting you that it has been changed.  When you update it will revert to the Master Text.

This option will work between multiple documents, if the changes are saved in the document.

I prefer to use Cross Referenced Text because it doesn’t copy the Paragraph Style into secondary text boxes.  I can use a large bold style on my title page and reduce the text in my titleblock.  The text will update but not the style.  The Synchronised Text method updates the text and the paragraph style so they all look the same.

Automatic Date:

The last tip is to automatically date your pages to show the date you print the document.

Draw a text box

In the top menu select TYPE > Text Variables > Insert Variables > Output date

It won’t necessarily show up correctly but will update when you print

You can edit how the date is shown by selecting TYPE > Text Variables > Define

Double click on “Output Date” where you can change the Date format to suit the way you want it to show up. For design presentations I use the month and year only. This means I can PDF a file ahead of the actual day I’m presenting it without having the date show incorrectly.

I hope these help you to streamline your workflow. If you have any tips of your own, let me know.

I have always felt that ‘Home’ is an important concept. So much so that I have chosen to focus Maike Design Studio on creating and investigating residential design. Now that we are spending more time than ever inside, the importance of finding or creating a place to retreat to that makes us feel at home should not be underestimated.

There is a beautiful phrase in The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard that for me perfectly sums up what a home is:

“…the house shelters day dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.”

Architecturally, a space is a house – a container. It is the act of living in the space that creates a home. A dwelling (noun) collects us together with our loved ones but is nothing without the act of dwelling (verb) within it to animate and fill its spaces.

A home is not a transformative tool, but rather provides the space and stability to just be ourselves. It is without outside expectations and is a base that provides us with stillness and rejuvenation. It represents what is secure and familiar, in contrast to the potentially unknown world outside.

A home is mentally quieter, even when we are physically closer to the noise and demands of members of our household.  We allow people into our homes on our terms and control (or rely on social etiquette to dictate) the line between public and private. The ability to control and layer the graduated relationship between us and the rest of the world defends the intimacy of our home.

Within a home we’ve also got to think about the dynamic between all members of the household. One characteristic of 21st century housing is the importance placed on separated, private spaces. The provision of individual spaces for every family member can be seen now in Australia across all socio-economic groups.  Interestingly this contrasts with the parallel development of open plan living.

An ill-conceived large space that combines all the home’s living activities does not allow for retreat or differing activities. The only retreat option is to absolute privacy – individual bedrooms and separate studies. There is no middle ground. Not allowing for a range of functionality and spatial qualities has led to the replication of spaces. Kitchens sit alongside a fully equipped butler’s pantries, theatre rooms or retreats counter the open plan lounge.

It is not the size of the house but the spatial quality, adjacency and function of shared family spaces, considered both individually and as part of the whole that create a delightful home.  Finding the balance of zoning, screening and visual connection between spaces provides unique areas, each suited to their function but in constant dialogue with those adjacent.  This allows for differing functions to co-habit the same space.

The opportunity to create this sense of home for other people is a huge privilege and one I enjoy immensely.  During this period of social distancing, I hope that the safety and familiarity of your home is bringing some calm to your days.

I know that we’re all creative and every project is different … except they’re not.  The concept and design of every project is different BUT the framework for the process can and should be reused and refined as much as possible.

With Australia in lockdown there is a lot of uncertainty around projects and workload.  Many of you are working from home and I know that while there is a lull in project work, discussion is turning to taking some time to work on your business.  So, although being stuck inside on your own is not great and things are stressful right now, lets keep busy and start documenting your workflow.

Before I started, capturing my process was a bit overwhelming.  I know I’m not alone and plenty of people are putting it off because it seems like such a huge task.  If you’ve got children at home at the moment, it is still really achievable – you can easily use small blocks of time to review individual sections.  There isn’t anything in this post that is particularly difficult or a secret hack for getting it done.  I’m pleased to say, it’s really not as bad as it seems and you should just get started.

Here is what I did.  I hope it gives you some perspective and perhaps a starting point if you’re doing the same.

I looked at a few different tools to capture my workflow.  There are plenty of digital tools, from complex mind-maps and project management apps, through to good old pen and paper.  I started on pen and paper, because I tend to think best when I’ve got a pencil in my hand but quickly became frustrated by running out of space as I added tasks on top of each other.

After testing quite a few project management programs I settled on Asana as my documentation tool.  I have been using Asana as a to-do list and since I’m a list kind of person, decided it was a good fit for this process.  I wanted to document a full scope project as the base template for future projects that would become a ‘shopping list’ of tasks for any smaller scope project.

Asana is a powerful project management tool which I’m completely underutilising for lists.  It does have great features like sub-tasks, notes, descriptions and integrations with the time tracker Harvest.  In the future I’ll be able to see the work times attached to this shopping list of tasks to help plan workload and project allocations.

I pulled out a bunch of past projects, both successful and challenging, and looked at how they were structured.  I did have a loose process I had been working with but with every project the process would change slightly.  When I was looking through the projects, I tried to define what contributed to the success of some that was missing from others.  I looked at everything from how the design was presented to when information was provided.  From this I ended up with a defined set of stages.  Each of these stages is a clear deliverable package – either a design presentation or set of documents.  These became the SECTION headings in Asana and each has an associated list of tasks.

Under these Sections I got everything out of my head in one go and listed every single task I could think of.  Everything from sending meeting reminders, which consultants need to be involved, what the package includes, right through to invoicing at the end of a stage.  I revisited the list over a couple of weeks, adding layers of additional detail.  It took a few goes to get everything down… all 19 pages of it!!

The idea of documenting this process is to make it repeatable.  Once I had the list there were three questions I asked about each task that would make it possible for anyone to complete it:

Does it break down into smaller tasks?

For example, the task ‘Site Measure’ includes a sub-task list of all the little bits and pieces beyond overall room size that needs to be documented and measured to accurately capture the existing conditions but could be easily forgotten.

Is there a template that could apply to this task?

This could be a canned email response, a drawing or document template or an information sheet.

Are there any documents associated with this task?

This refers to items like consultant documents, meeting minutes, contracts or photos.  If there are, I noted where they should be digitally filed in the project folder.

Creating a clear and detailed workflow gave me a set of templates that I need to create and showed me where I couldn’t articulate my steps as clearly as I would like.  I learned that my process was not clearly defined in the initial contact and pre-briefing stage.  I have since spent time working closely on what I want that experience to be for potential clients and how I can provide them with all the information they need to confidently start their projects.

There are so many details in this process that I can’t write about them all in one post.  If there’s any you’d like to know more about specifically please get in touch.