Recently I have been caught up in a few projects which thrive on creative input. However at one point the creative input seems to become somewhat useless to me. I believe there should be a process to allowing this creativity to flourish, but also not allow yourself to get sidetracked from the main goal.
Today I put together a few tips or rules that I will follow from now on:

BrainStorming

At every project’s roots or beginning is a brainstorming phase. This is by far the most important step in the process. Without getting everything in your head onto some type of medium, you may spend a lot of time backtracking later on. So at this point creative input is not only wanted, but the project will fail without it.

Action 

Sometime later the project takes a certain path. This initiates the next phase in its development. The project has now quickly progressed from a thought to a set of actions. During this step I have found that it is important to watch how you balance the creative input towards the project. By now most of us have probably sought some sort of guidance with a family member or friend. Although we have previously found this to be a very good thing in the project’s development, I think it must come to a standstill during this second phase. Otherwise if you allow ideas to continually be given, you will more than likely see hesitation during the execution of your previously set actions. The hesitation is brought on by questions or phrases such as:

Is there even a point to completing this project?

I should have done it better this way…

Questions like these are indirectly trying to lose sight of the end result. Getting caught up in answering them is almost always a waste of time. Time which would be better spent completing the project.

Optimization

This next step is somewhat indefinite as to when it will occur. Usually it will occur after the actions have taken place and the project comes to another roadblock or is simple idle in development. During this stage it is a good idea to allow input to once again guide you in furthering the project. You now have a structure which you can stray from, but in most cases the structure will guide you. Creative input cannot easily hurt the progress of your project at this phase. If it doesn’t work, you can simple go back to what you had built before and try again.