And of course David, in his inevitable way, gives us a practical answer: Just take his “silly” list and do the opposite. Genius I say!

For you creatives out there, don’t be afraid of the terms “scientific approach,” “Pareto Principle,” or “80/20 Rule.” It is an ironic fact that creative and so called “right-brained” people actually can adapt very quickly to the use of these tools in an organic and intuitive way.

How do I know? Cuz I are one! The only thing I would add is the now cliché-ish quote (but still oh so wise and true): “If one does the same things over and over in the same ways and expects different results, that person is insane.” (Sometimes attributed to Confucius.)

It is really, really important to make a determination of when what you are doing is not working and move on to something else. A guy named Tom Peters came up with a concept a couple decades ago called FAIL FAST, i.e., try something new and if it “fails” that’s okay, just try something else really fast (as David says in his article, don’t dwell on what is not working, try something new and move on).

I am one of those weird people that believes you cannot fail, i.e., if you try something and it doesn’t work, you didn’t fail, you just discovered something that didn’t work. So learn from it and move on to the next thing. You cannot fail by doing so, but you can learn. Wishing you continued success on the next steps of your journey.