A Bingo Board for Task Focusing

I have created an Activity Bingo Board to accompany the Master Planning Collage (image link) from last month's GHDR Progress Report. The board is intended to serve as visual reminder of what kind of stuff I ought to be working on. I find visual representations like this much more engaging than lists. I'm calling it a "Bingo Board" because (1) it's fun sounding and (2) the term hints at the emergent choices I make every day to make progress on one of a couple dozen goals. As I mentally log progress in each of these blocks, I am likely closer to some kind of BINGO moment from the accrual of new capabilities.

⊕ show captionThe Activity Bingo Board can be viewed larger on Whimsical

The Challenge of Restarting a Design Practice

There are three pillars to my design practice restart:

1. Blog prolifically on topics of interest on the open social web
2. Represent my skills and experience through sharing tangible artifacts that people can play with
3. Engineer the conditions where people want to explore, learn and build together to create a shared pool of benefits

The Bingo Board is to help me visualize the second pillar of my strategy more clearly.

• On the left side of the Bingo Board are 12 blocks. These are projects that I have been working on for a number of years if not decades. All of them fit the tangibility criteria of being perceivable, manipulable and most importantly shareable. These represent the projects that I think I can bring to market quickly to demonstrate what kind of stuff I make, and by extension introduce myself to new audiences.

• The upper right side of the Bingo Board are more "stretch goals" and "personal goals". I've separated because they demand higher level effort. For the yellow boxes, these require finding committed project partners, whereas the green boxes require lots of learning time and equipment to turn them into tangible artifacts that I'd want to share (e.g. a nice drawing, a cool piece of music). Therefore, I'm considering them more as aspirational hobbies that I find really exciting.

• The lower right side of the Bingo Board are intended to acknowledge that I'm easily distracted by situational high-value opportunities. For example, someone might ask me a question and I know I can easily make some kind of thing that helps them...I'm a total sucker for that kind of thing. It's not a waste of time, as these kind of impromptu interactions often lead to future collaboration, but it does mean I'm not focused on the main blocks.

I can print this diagram out and use it in my morning reflection as I pick tasks for the day. While it may look rather simple on the surface, each block is backed by many years of self-reflection and experimentation with various productivity methods. I think it's my best such diagram to date, and I look forward to giving it a workout!