Prompting a caricature with ChatGPT is not real work.

That is the lesson.
I caught myself doing what a lot of us do:

👉 Gravitating toward what’s popular.
👉 Gravitating toward what’s familiar.
👉 Gravitating toward what looks “cool” online.

Instead of doing the actual work that moves the needle.

There have been times when I started a new project outside of my day-to-day event work.

And my first instinct?

✅ Buy the domain
✅ Build the website
✅ Start the branding
✅ Create the social pages

Because that’s familiar territory for me. I’ve built platforms before. I know how to do that.

But I had to pause and ask myself:
What does “done” actually look like?

❌ Not what looks impressive.
❌ Not what gets attention.
❌ Not what feels productive.
But what actually solves the problem?

So now, when I start any project, I do three things:
✅ Define what “done” looks like.
✅ Build the task list backward from that outcome.
✅ Put the blinders on and execute.

That simple shift has saved me time, money, and mental energy.
It helped me strip away all the “nice to have” activities that feel exciting… but don’t actually create impact.

As a live event producer, I’ve seen this happen at scale too. Teams obsess over stage design and flashy tech (which I love, by the way 🎥), but forget the core objective:

What change are we trying to create for the audience?

Clarity is Power. And clarity beats cool every time.

So I’ll post the caricature anyway, just as a reminder of something bigger. What projects are you working on right now?
And be honest…
If you haven’t said “no” to anything during your project, you are doing too much?

Would love to hear how you stay focused.