The idea behind plate-spinning productivity is to keep multiple andAS diverse projects active and “spinning”, with as little effort as possible. Before you start, check out this video: Eric Bren, Plate Spinning Wizard, to see the basis of the metaphor. You can read more about it in the series that starts here, or just dive in headfirst with this Quick Start and wait for me to explain more later.

Setting The Stage:

—Step 1: List Your Projects/Tasks

Jot down about seven of your projects or task categories: These are the “plates” you’ll be spinning.

Don’t make the list too detailed, and don’t try and prioritize it – just a simple list is all we’re after. If you find you have many more than seven, lump some of them together into categories.

—Step 2: Mark any plates that seem *Fragile*

*Fragile* plates are those that will break if they stop spinning and fall out of your attention. Anything that requires constant attention (like feeding the baby) is “fragile” – likewise, anything with a looming deadline, or anything that has a high financial or emotional cost if ignored.

—Step 3. Mark plates according to Spin-Status

Spin-status:annoyingly alliterative refering to the project status. Don’t fret too much about deciding which project is in which state — just answer intuitively, and any slight errors will correct themselves as we go along.

Is it currently active, in progress, and on your mind? Feel good about how it’s going? Mark it as Spinning.

Has the task been pushed to the bottom of your inbox, where it’s threatening to come to a screeching, crashing halt under the weight of all the other tasks you’ve been more involved with lately? Mark it as Wobbling!

Has it come to a complete halt, lost all momentum, and fallen out of your awareness, so that when you think of it(if you think of it) it’s with a sense of regret? Mark it as Crashed.

Are some of your tasks not really up and running, but still in the early planning/material gathering stages? Mark these as as Prep.

Putting It In Practice

It’s time put some actual spin on the plates/projects. The trick is to prioritize not in order of importance, but to keep momentum going on each project, even those you aren’t currently focused on. Maintaining or correcting project momentum takes a lot less effort/time than building momentum from scratch. So here’s where the priorities should be:

—Priority 1: Attend to any Wobbling Plates

You don’t need to spend much time or effort here. You’re applying just enough “spin” to put the momentum back on the project, to bring it back into your conscious awareness, and make sure your subconscious is working on it, as well. It may take as little as five minutes, and should take no more than two hours (make it less, if there is anything marked fragile)

—Priority 2: Attend to any *Fragile* Plates

Even though they may not be wobbling yet, “fragile” projects need a bit of extra spin and attention, to keep them in the safe zone -these are projects you can’t afford to have crash.

I can’t really tell you how much attention or time, because it will vary according to the type of task, just make sure they’re taken care of.

*Important Note: Clearly, the MOST important are any fragile/wobbling plates. Do not let a Fragile plate start to wobble, because you’ve gotten caught up in a wobbling project. If you find you tend to do this? Make “Fragile” projects the top priority.

—Priority 3: Everything Else, to “Fill The Space Between”

If you watched the video I linked to earlier, you’ll notice that Mr.Brenn has a lot of “spare” time between when he actually gives the plates a spin. He has time to set up and perform separate tricks, as well as to prep and set up new plates on the sticks, and on the table. You get the sense that if he hadn’t been so intent on performing more tricks, he could have plonked himself down in a recliner, read the newspaper and ruminate on the state of the world, before having to get up and spin a plate again.

This is the “Space Between,” and it’s a miraculous thing. It’s free time and space, it’s room to breathe, room to make choices on what to work on. immerse yourself in whichever project is inspiring you, or whatever project you’re obsessing about.. You have time to restart any crashed projects, prep future projects, or to just kick back, relax, and ruminate. Enjoy it.

If you’re about to immerse yourself into an all consuming project, you may want to give some or all of your plates a little extra spin, to be sure they maintain momentum. It’s a good idea to set up a few priorities for filling this space, too — consider reinvesting energy into crashed projects, and prepping any new projects, before immersing yourself in inspiring projects. But the priorities at this stage are just guidelines. As long as the plates that are up in the air keep spinning, and don’t lose momentum, you have a lot of wiggle room. Choose your own preferred projects.

The In Progress Review (In Your Peripheral Vision)

This is probably the trickiest part of plate spinning: learning to keep the plates, and their status, in your metaphorical “peripheral vision”.It’s so tricky, in fact, that I’m not going to try to teach that skill in this article; it will have to wait till a later date. For now, I’m just going to plant the suggestion that in time, the skill to automatically monitor your plate-spinning status will develop naturally, without conscious effort or anxiety.

The Formal Review (In Pixels or Paper)

Periodically, you’ll need to sit down and do a formal review of plate status by repeating step one. Sit down with your list of projects, and note their “spin-state”. Remove any completed projects, drop any that are no longer relevant, add any new projects, and note any wobbling or fragile plates.

If any projects have crashed, examine why they crashed: Did you have too many plates spinning at once? Did you not notice when they were wobbling? Was there some outside force that caused the crash?

The “when” of this review depends on your type/length of tasks scheduling and deadlines, as well as how immersed you tend to become in your projects. You might want to review daily or every other day. Longer term, a standing weekly review is certainly a good practice. I find I’ve been taking a more flexible approach lately: I review whenever I notice something has thrown my rhythm off, and momentum is stalling — usually 2-3 days into an intense project. You’ll find your own review rhythm with a little bit of practice.

So There You Have It

A rough and dirty first draft of the Quick Start to Plate-Spinning.In the works are more examples of my own lists, some charts to help track progress, and information on how this relates to other productivity systems like GTD or the Four Hour Work Week. It’s an interesting topic to pick apart and examine, but really, all you need to know is the basic concept of plate-spinning — it’s all about maintaining momentum, and making use of the space-between.

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MindTWEAK: Managing multiple projects isn’t always about
importance or focus or schedules — It’s about MOMENTUM.

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