A workbook designed to help you bring your creative …...If your project requires the help of other...

www.tommorkes.com | 2014 | @tmorkes

The QUICK START Workbook

A workbook designed to help you bring your creative vision to life.

http://www.tommorkes.com/


The following is a practical, hands-on workbook to help you bring your vision to life. A couple notes:

1. This workbook is for writing. Don’t try to keep it pretty. Write a lot in it. Make mistakes. Scratch things out – whatever it takes to start bringing your vision to life, DO IT.

2. You can (and should) come back to certain pages after you finish with

them. Thrashing is an ongoing process; it should cause you to scrap some things, change others, and expand on those that continue to resonate as you work.

3. Use this workbook. Nothing happens if you don’t start. Start by

writing in this workbook (see note #1). Revisit this workbook throughout your project. Change what needs to be changed as your vision evolves

After you’ve shipped, keep it as a memento and a point of reference for future projects And of course, good luck… In the trenches right beside you,

Tom Morkes, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Insurgent Publishing @tmorkes



Use this space to write out your project in detail. Write, sketch, and outline everything about it (if it can’t be explained in half a page, you should continue thrashing until it fits).

Sketch out your ideas here:



Write down your ship date and time in big, bold letters: I WILL SHIP: ______________________________________________ SIGNATURE: ______________________________________________ Note: there are no take backs. This is your ship date – period. Even if the project isn’t ready, you still ship on this date (don’t worry, the rest of the workbook is here to make sure you’re ready).



List out 3 products or projects from which you draw inspiration. Explain what you like about them and what elements you want your own project to have (having a model helps us focus and refine our vision): 1. 2. 3.



List every member of the team. If there’s a hierarchy, identify it. Identify the boss (the person who says yay or nay to ship dates). If you’re working solo, write down your name (with ‘boss’ next to it).

What and who can stop you? If you’re working alone and self-publishing / self-producing, the answer is you. If you rely on a producer, publisher, or boss, list their names here. Can you avoid them through different means if you need to?



Who are you creating this for? Is it for friends and family? For readers of your blog? For a section of a market you believe wants your product? Describe who they are and why they want (need) your product.

If everything goes wrong, what’s the worst that can happen? Explain the worst things people could say or think of you. Describe what you fear the most shipping this product to market. Now explain what happens if everything goes right:



Something sets your product apart from the hundreds of others on the market. What is it? That’s your ‘thing’ – the attribute that gives it personality and character in a sea of sameness. Are you more impactful? Do you provide better service? Is your product faster, cheaper, better? Explain.

If your project requires the help of other people, identify them here (who and what for). This includes outsourcing, mentorship, coaching, consultation, etc. (anything you can’t do strictly by yourself).



Describe version 9.0 of your project – the perfect version if you had infinite time and resources. Include all the bells and whistles. It doesn’t have to be possible, probable, or doable – it just has to be your perfect, idealized project. Describe it:

Sketch it Out:



This is your project, minus bells and whistles. If your project can’t include all the things that make it perfect – if you have to cut SIGNIFICANT pieces of your project, what would the end result look like? Describe your minimal viable product (the simplest product you could legitimately sell).

Room for Doodling:



What can you add to your minimal viable product (MVP) to make it GREAT (not perfect, just great). Examples: HD video, interviews, extra workbook, special gift basket, professional voice over, etc…sky is the limit. Note: these are the things you should try to add once you’ve created your MVP. This is the happy medium between MVP and PERFECT… 1. 2. 3.



This space is for you to write/sketch/draw out every idea that isn’t quite clear. Everything. Every piece of the puzzle that hasn’t been addressed yet.



Sometimes thrashing takes a while. Here’s more space to thrash:



1) List every task 2) Identify the person responsible 3) Identify the finish/ship date for each task 4) Chunk down further (break each task into sub tasks until they’re manageable within 1 – 3 hours of time)



More space for chunking your idea:



Shipping is important because it gives your audience the opportunity to interact with your project. But before you ship, you need to let them know it’s coming (sharing the knowledge). Once they know about it, how can they most easily purchase what you created (selling)? Use this space to identify your marketing approach (reach out to bloggers, email campaign, phone calls, etc.). Write out names and contact info where possible. If you hate the idea of selling and hope to rely on word of mouth, whose mouth do you want those words to come from, and what do you want him/her to say? (hint: this is where you reach out to that person and ask for their thoughts and help).



More Space for Shipping, Sharing and Selling Notes:



Hopefully, you’re looking at this page 30 days after you started the project. How did it go? The best way to learn from any experiment/project/effort is to review, impartially, what went right and what went wrong. Be honest, be brutal, but always critique the project, not the person:

List 3 sustains (what did you do great this time)? 1. 2. 3.



List 3 Improves (what would you do better next time)? 1. 2. 3.



So you shipped. As with every project, there are things that don’t go right, which you should capture in the previous page (the After Action Review). But there are also things you did great. If you had to ship a second version of your project, what would it look like? What would you fix and what would you expand upon? Explain below (note: this type of analysis is extremely powerful for OTHER projects as well):

More room for doodling:



For the Creative Entrepreneur, life is a series of meaningful projects. Maybe each project builds on itself, or maybe each project is distinct and entirely unique. Regardless, there is always room for growth, development, and improvement. I hope you take from this workbook two things:

1. Starting, finishing, and shipping a project isn’t

complicated. The fundamentals are in this workbook. If you can come up with an idea, thrash until it makes sense, chunk until you have a roadmap/checklist, and then take action every day, you can create ANYTHING.

1. It’s never too early or too late to start. If you’ve always wanted to write a book, please write it. If you have an idea for a business, please build it. If you have any desire whatsoever to do something bold, unique, or creative – please don’t wait. Right now is the best time to start.



If you get the chance, I’d love to hear from you and find out what you thought of this workbook (Did it help? Was it clear? How can I improve Version 2.0?). Email me at: [email protected] Tweet me at: @tmorkes If you enjoyed this workbook, here are some other things you might like:

The Creative Entrepreneur: where business, art, and charity

collide The Creative Entrepreneur is a donation-based, semi-annual business and arts journal. A portion of all proceeds (up to 100% - the subscriber decides) goes to charity to fund entrepreneurs in developing countries. The journal is “Donate What You Want” starting at only $1 / issue, so check it out, get business advice from the best in the world, and help out a good cause in the process:

www.insurgentpublishing.com/books/journal

TomMorkes.com If you’re looking for cutting edge ways to start, finish and ship your creative project (book, blog, business or something else entirely), check out my blog. You can join hundreds of other creative insurgents by joining The Resistance and getting exclusive content not seen on the blog:

www.tommorkes.com/theresistancebroadcast Good Luck. Keep Creating.


http://www.insurgentpublishing.com/tcejournal

www.insurgentpublishing.com/books/journal

www.tommorkes.com/theresistancebroadcast

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A workbook designed to help you bring your creative …...If your project requires the help of other...

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