Get it DONE: An info graphic for the creative process

Infographics are like design and word porn all rolled into the nerd porn of learning something new. It’s a porn-as-metaphor trifecta!

I absolutely adore this little gem of an info graphic that I found today: The DONE MANIFESTO. Collaborators Bre Pettis and Kio Stark gave themselves 20 minutes to drum up these 13 maxims for taking an idea from mental fluff to doneski.

As a freelancer, I welcome any strategy to keep myself from getting distracted or discouraged. This is a simple, piquant (and let’s not forget pretty) reminder of just how to go about it.

It gets even better when you pair each illustration with its corresponding maxim, listed below:

1 There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.

2 Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.

3 There is no editing stage.

4 Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.

5 Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.

6 The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.

7 Once you’re done you can throw it away.

8 Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.

9 People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.

10 Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.

11 Destruction is a variant of done.

12 If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.

13 Done is the engine of more.

So, friends. The bottom line is, there are no excuses, no judgements and no boundaries! Just get something done, then relish the feeling you get upon completion and use it as your fuel for the next project.

Go on!