Reading ‘Making Ideas Happen’ by Scott Belsky over the holiday break was somewhat of an epiphany for me. I’ve been a casual fan of The 99% and The Behance Network through distracted twitter check-ins… but it turns out that Scott Belsky has so much gold to share, he wrote a whole book about it.

His basic premise is that the same forces that make us creative – playfulness, and an unstructured way of looking at the world are the same reasons that many of us suck at organising ourselves. In examining some of the most prolific creative people of our time, such as Walt Disney, Seth Godin and my personal favourite Steven Sagmeister (swoon*), he noticed a common theme – an overwhelming ability to ‘ship’ ideas into reality.

The book describes a range of strategies for making ideas happen through a system he calls the ‘action method’. He suggests that we should identify the references, notes and clutter that go along with our creative pursuits and ruthlessly separate these from the action steps required to bring ideas to fruition. He also explains ways to capture those back-burner ideas that pop into our heads while sitting in the bath, riding our bikes or suffering from a mild but fruitful hangover.

So for the first week in 2012 I’ve give the system a go, and I must say.. I have made more stuff happen. Belsky has even created some pretty sweet merch – the iPad app is easy to use and the delightfully designed stationary will help even the most distracted ad dreamer stay on track.

Read this book if you’re interested in improving your team’s creative process or if you just want to make more stuff happen for you in 2012.

Happy New Years Scott Belsky. We salute you.

Stationery – http://www.creativesoutfitter.com/products

Book – http://www.creativesoutfitter.com/products/104/books

iPad App – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/action-method/id305796271?mt=8

P.S. Thanks to our Head of Brand Art, Dan Bradley, for dropping this book on my desk… I swapped him for The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyenga… he probably got the raw end of the stick.