Pyramid Planning and Dan Blank’s “Be The Gateway”

I’m reading Dan Blank’s Be The Gateway at the moment, a book about author platform and writing that is probably as close to my own philosophy that I’ve come across thus far. There’s a focus on identities and how they shape reaction to our work, and why “just telling good stories that entertain people” is frequently a failure to understand what you’re really offering readers.

What really caught me, reading through it this morning, was an exercise on judging the priorities in your life. In it, Blank advises getting a stack of index cards and writing down all the things that matter to you, whether it’s a single word (“Family”) or a long term goal (“Take better care of myself”).

Once you’ve got everything down, try and arrange all your cards into a pyramid: one things goes at the top, representing your highest priority. Two cards go underneath it, then, three, then four. It may take time to get the order down–Blank suggests you’ll usually start with a square and then refine as you go along–but the goal is getting some clarity over what you value and where the connections may lie.

It’s a great exercise for identity formulation, but right now I’m interested in how it can be used to get some clarity on a day-to-day level.

I usually have a list of fifteen projects or so I’m working on at any given time. A combination of writing stuff, book production, uni work, and personal projects around the house. Part of the struggle on any given day is figuring out when priorities have shifted, and how to balance them–particularly in weeks like this where getting a new release together frequently impacts on everything else due to the immediacy of the deadline.

With my next monthly check-in due next week, I think I’m going to create an index card for everything on the docket and pay attention to the ways my pyramid changes in response to certain days and events throughout the month.

BE THE GATEWAY: A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO SHARING YOUR CREATIVE WORK AND ENGAGING AN AUDIENCE, Dan Blank (Amazon)