Always pull up.
How the “Pull Up” method makes a big project manageable.
EFFIGIES — Bringing nerds together to reveal the hidden wisdom of comics for fuller, more productive lives!
What’s Inside:
What is the “Pull Up” method?
How I use use the Pull Up method in Notion to stay organized.
The benefits of using the Pull Up method.
Later this year, I’ll be launching the Kickstarter campaign for my newest comic book series No Heroine: Second Chances. Running a successful Kickstarter campaign is no easy task. Done right, it involves at least a couple of months of prep work and a lot of moving parts. As I’ve started to work on this major undertaking, I’ve been relying on a particular productivity strategy that I want to focus on today—the “Pull Up” method.
With so many moving parts involved in a campaign like this, staying organized and focused is crucial. If you’re tackling a major project of your own, let me share how the Pull Up method is helping me keep everything on track.
What is the “Pull Up” method?
The Pull Up method is all about zeroing in on the most important tasks at any given time. Instead of getting lost in a sea of to-dos, I organize everything related to the Kickstarter campaign into a database, which is less complicated than it sounds.
A database is essentially an organized collection of information. It allows you to easily store, retrieve, and update data, making it useful for keeping track of tasks, projects, or any kind of information you need to organize. In many ways, it’s similar to a spreadsheet, but with more options for organizing the information you're tracking.
In the Pull Up method, you keep a list of tasks that need to be completed and tackle them one or two at a time based on priority. You have a to-do list and a doing list. When you have your to-do list, you take the most important item from it and promote it to the doing list. When it’s done, you mark that task as complete and pull up the next most important item from the to-do list to the doing list.
It’s that simple.
How I pull up.
Let’s take a look at how I’m implementing the Pull Up method right now. For this Kickstarter campaign, and in general, I work with a free product called Notion, which is somewhat of a cross between a word processor like Google Docs and a powerful version of Microsoft Excel. One of the best features of Notion is that you can easily create a database, which, with minimal effort, can be turned into a powerful productivity tool.
When I started this planning process, I created a new database in Notion. Then, in the rows, I listed the major tasks I need to accomplish to get the project done (a list that is always growing). Once I had a decent list to get the ball rolling, I added two columns—one to tag line items with a priority (Low, Medium, or High) and one to tag them with a status (Not Started, In Progress, and Done). In less than five minutes, I had a database that looks like this:
The “pull up” part comes from a database feature called “Grouping.” Grouping allows me to instruct the database to create groups based on the tags I created in the columns. For this project, I created a grouping based on “Status” so that I could easily see what’s currently on my plate, what’s done, and what hasn’t been started. Now, when I change the tag on a task to “In Progress,” it pulls up into the corresponding group, allowing me to easily see what I am working on right now:
You may also notice that the “Priority” tag is sorted from highest to lowest. Sorting is another feature of databases, and it makes it even easier to choose which tasks need to be pulled up. “High Priority” items always get pulled up first.
If you’ve never worked with a database before, I can definitely sympathize if you feel a bit overwhelmed, but it’s really not that complicated. Sure, there’s a learning curve, but that’s the tradeoff with useful technology. Remember the first time you got behind the wheel of a car and how scary and complicated it all felt? After years of practice, you probably don’t even give driving a second thought anymore. Investing a little time in learning how to use a product like Notion can pay dividends quickly, and there are plenty of benefits to using databases to tackle big projects.
About those benefits.
The Pull Up method has been a game-changer for planning this Kickstarter campaign. It’d be hard to cover all the ways it’s keeping me on track, but I’ll focus on a few of the big ones below.
I’m not overwhelmed. With so many components to juggle—artwork, marketing, logistics—it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. By focusing on just a few key tasks at a time, I stay clear-headed and confident, knowing I’m steadily moving closer to the launch.
My focus has improved. With a concentrated task list, I can give each task my full attention. Rather than being distracted (or paralyzed) by the many tasks on my plate, the “Priority” tag combined with the “Pull Up” method allows me to easily choose the one or two most important things that need my attention right now, while all the other tasks are noted and waiting to be pulled up when their time comes.
My prioritization is simply better. Having a “Priority” tag ensures that I’m always working first on the tasks that will have the biggest impact on the campaign’s success. Whether it’s crafting a compelling story for backers or securing early media coverage, the Pull Up method helps me stay aligned with my goals and ensures the most important tasks are being tackled.
I have more flexibility. Campaigns can be unpredictable. Maybe an artist has a delay that changes the timeline, or feedback from early supporters prompts me to tweak the rewards. With the Pull Up method, if a task is stalled or a new one appears, I can pivot quickly and keep the momentum up.
I have a global view of the project. Regularly reviewing and pulling up tasks keeps me in control of the campaign. Everything is organized in one place, so I’m less likely to miss important deadlines, and I can quickly adapt when new tasks arise.
As I mentioned, there’s a small learning curve, as there is with any new experience. But once you build a simple Pull Up-style database using a tool like Notion, you can unlock these amazing benefits. Whether you’re running a Kickstarter like me or simply keeping organized on a bigger project, using the Pull Up method will keep you organized and focused.
- Frank
I’m Frank Gogol, writer of comics such as Dead End Kids, No Heroine, Unborn, Power Rangers, and more. If this newsletter was interesting / helpful / entertaining…
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After credits scene.
As the summer draws to a close and I chip away at this Kickstarter campaign, I’m going to take a short break from sending the newsletter. We’ll be back on a regular weekly schedule in two weeks. In the meantime, here’s another sneak peek at the new No Heroine series coming later this year:
Criss and Shawna Madd are bringing their A-game to the art and colors on this series, and I absolutely cannot wait to put this book out into the world.
Can't wait til this launches, we've missed you in the comic fandom!
Nice! I use Notion on more of a micro level to track page progress across all of my collaborators, so I don't have to hunt through emails, DMs, etc. to figure out where things are and where there might be bottlenecks.
But I also like your Pull Up method for higher-level tasks.
Good luck with the Kickstarter! I ran one at the beginning of the summer and am mailing out the books this week. It was a lot of work but very rewarding to be able to get the comic out into the world.