Free Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky

to keep track of energy and where it’s being used. The Energy Line is a simple mechanism to help us measure and adjust a team’s energy al ocation. We have seen many people use similar concepts to help themselves visualize the projects in their lives according to priority. After considering your Energy Line for just a few minutes, you can get a sense of whether your energy for that week, day, or even that hour is being managed properly.
    The Energy Line exercise is also a helpful way for teams to agree on prioritization.
    Some teams wil gather around a corkboard or whiteboard and, together, write the names of al of their major projects on smal cards. The team wil then place the cards along the Energy Line according to their importance and how much col ective focus each project should get from the team. At first, you may find that too many projects are being placed near the “Extreme” zone of the spectrum. This is a natural tendency because each project solicits different levels of interest from different members of the team. Such disagreements are great because they help the team prioritize col ectively.
    As you consider your Energy Line, you wil want to make the tough decisions about what projects need to live on low energy for a while. Whether or not you use the Energy Line exercise, al teams should discuss and debate how their energy is al ocated.
    Energy is a finite resource that is seldom managed wel .
    If every Action Step belongs to a project and you have your projects spread across a spectrum of how you wish to al ocate your energy—then you wil have clear direction on which Action Steps you should do first and how you should budget your time.

Reconciling Urgent vs. Important
    While the Energy Line perspective can help us al ocate our energy across projects, we are stil bound to drift off course as soon as unexpected and urgent items arise. When something is urgent, we rush to do it. Even if it can wait—or is someone else’s job—our tendency is to hoard urgent items because they always seem more pressing than stuff associated with longer-term projects. As leaders of creative projects, we feel an impulse to solve everything quickly. I cal this “Creator’s Immediacy”—an instinct to take care of every problem and operational task, no matter how large or smal , as soon as it comes up, similar to a mother’s instinct for the care of a newborn baby. However, it becomes nearly impossible to pursue long-term goals when you are guided solely by the most recent e-mail in your in-box or cal from a client.
    Fortunately, there are ways to manage the urgent stuff without compromising progress on long-term projects. The capacity to do so starts with compartmentalization, shared values, and the power of clarity.
    If you’ve ever used Priceline.com, an ATM, or a cel phone, then you’ve used technology developed and patented by Walker Digital. Primarily a research and development outfit, this seventy-person company has developed and successful y patented a variety of ideas across technological industries. As an intensely creative company, the Walker Digital team is constantly developing new ideas and is liable to suffer from Creator’s Immediacy. Nevertheless, the company’s leadership takes pride in its ability to operate efficiently on a daily basis while also innovating with the future in mind.
    At any given moment, half the company is dreaming up new ideas while the other half is managing and licensing the patented ones. In such an environment, one might expect the urgent operational needs of the business to quickly compromise the energy al ocated to multiyear research projects. But they don’t. Walker Digital’s track record suggests that it has been able to maintain a focus on long-term projects despite the growing operational demands.
    President Jon El enthal admits how difficult it is to develop new ideas and operate a business at the same time. “Development and operations are fundamental y different