Taking Back Monday

I Love Mondays print by Judykaufmann

Let's face it, Monday gets a seriously bum wrap. There's something about letting go of the weekend that just puts us in a bad mood. I was thinking about that last night as I lay in bed waiting to drift off and I realized just how blessed I am to be in the apparent minority of people who actually LOVE Mondays. This sounds a little strange even to me, but it took me long enough to fall asleep that I think I've actually got it figured out.

Yesterday morning after my husband woke up and got enough coffee into his bloodstream to be able to focus he looked over at me thoroughly engrossed in taking notes on my latest read, Blogging All-in-One for Dummies by Susan Gunelius and said, "Wow! You're already working!" You see, I started this blog with the goal of promoting my shop and am blessed enough to be married to a man that acknowledges that even though ScrappyTudeStudios isn't bringing in a whole lot of money in these early days of operation, it is indeed a business. But a funny thing happened when I started blogging...After months of thinking it was something I should do but was totally resistant to because I had no experience with the technology and major fears about not knowing what to write, I discovered that I really enjoy and look forward to blogging regardless of the impact it has (or doesn't have) on my shop traffic. It seems my mother was right (GASP!). I'm a writer.

So what's all that got to do with Monday? Well, most Mondays this miraculous thing happens at my house (which is where I work): everybody but me leaves by 7:30. Does that sound horrible? Like I can't wait to get rid of my family? Please don't misinterpret what I mean here. I haven't been a stay-at-home mom for 17 years because I don't enjoy my family. I absolutely love being with them and wouldn't trade a moment of it for anything! But after all these years of major togetherness I have a deep appreciation for peace, quiet and uninterupted thought. For me, it is the perfect environment for creativity.

So here's to Monday! I know they're not for everybody, so if you're one of those many Monday-haters head on over to my playlist and check out The Boomtown Rats song I've added to my playlist just for you :).

Time Management for Creatives, Part 4

Today's post comes to you live from my driveway where I'm multi-tasking while participating in a neighborhood-wide yard sale . As I'm clearing out some of the precious items ;-) my family no longer has a use for I thought it would be the perfect time to wrap up my series on time management. After all, researching the series is what inspired me to clear out and destash my hoard of fabric and beads (and what doesn't sell today will be showing up in my shop this week, so stop by if you're interested).

This post, as promised, addresses what to do with all those tasks that you've "bucketed", because let's face it, just putting them in an appropriate bucket is only a small part of the battle. If you don't actually address these bucketed tasks you've won the battle but lost the war. So now it's time to Review Your Commitments (Time Mangagement for Creative People by Mark McGuinness, p. 25).

Before sticking your hand into a bucket and just tackling the first thing you pull out, it's a good idea to take te opportunity to look at the bigger picture of what needs to be done. If I have effectively uncluttered my mind (and freed myself up for being creative) by dumping all my tasks into the proper buckets, chances are I won't remember every little detail of each project that needs to be done, or which task is the most pressing. If I do a quick review every few days I can take an organized approach and potentially avoid a lot of backtracking (and apologizing) that can occur when working inefficiently. This isn't a raffle drawing in which you can stick your hand in and pull out the winning ticket!

Raffle Tickets from Helloprettypackage

In addition to this quick review it is also important to set aside a larger chunk of time once a week to really dig deep into those buckets and empty them out.  This may not be as challenging as it sounds, as you may find that items you bucketed earlier in the week are no longer important (this often happens for me with items I've set aside to read) and sometimes you may even find that issues have een resolved with little to no intervention on your part (I'm a parent of teens and am amazed at how often this happens). What a gift!

So what's the bottom line? What should we creative types take away from this series?

• Prioritze work that is important but not urgent
• Determine the time of day that you are at your best and use it exclusively as your creative time
• Cultivate an environment that gets your creative juices flowing
• Don't be a slave to your to-do lists and the demands of others, rather have a system for prioritizing tasks
• Find out what your organizational style is and put a system in place that suits it
• Use this system to categorize tasks and create "buckets" to put tasks into so that you can clear your mental clutter and free yourself up for creative flow
• Have a schedule for reviewing your "buckets" and acting on the items in them, cleaning the buckets out completely weekly.

I hope you've benefited from this series (as I have) and can use some of the suggestions to maximize your creative potential. I'd love to hear from you about successes, challenges and resources you have found to be helpful in your quest for organization and better time management. The last chapter of McGuinness's book is all about resources that he recommends, so if you're interested follow the link in each of the posts in these series.

Here's to a great fall!

Time Management for Creatives, Part 2

Today I continue my summary and critique of Mark McGuinness's ebook Time Management for Creatives with his third suggestion, which is to avoid the "Sisyphus effect" of endless to-do lists. For those of you who don't recall Sisyphus from your lessons in Greek mythology, he was the unlucky chap who was imprisoned in the underworld and forced to roll a gigantic rock uphill for eternity as punishment for earthly crimes. Sounds pretty grim and definitely something I personally would like to avoid!

McGuinness likens a typical day with its interruptions of email, phone calls, texts and the demands of bosses to Sisyphus's punishment--we are allowing ourselves to push the boulder of other's requests up the hill to keep us from engaging in our own creativity. By constantly reacting to the inflow of requests coming our way we are allowing our concentration to be broken repeatedly, and as the author illustrates nothing is more detrimental to the state of creative flow. On this point I wholeheartedly agree! But what McGuinness suggests next is that we follow the advice of Mark Forster in his book Do It Tomorrow by, you guessed it, doing it all tomorrow. A google search revealed that not only has Mr. Forster written a book by that title, but you can also purchase software or download free apps for your iPhone or Droid to help you live the Do It Tomorrow lifestyle. What's next? A line of "Procrastinators Unite" products?

I do agree that we need to "install a buffer between others demands and your response" (p. 16) but that's where my agreement ends. McGuinness's fifth point focuses on how to "get things done by putting them off till tomorrow" (p. 17), but having a system in place for prioritizing seems a much better way to approach this problem and here's how I intend to go about it.

• In regards to email, create two folders entitled Action and Read. Anything that simply CANNOT wait is addressed immediately and not moved to a folder. Anything that requires action, but not immediate action, is moved to the folder of that title and addressed within the week. Those items that are educational or entertaining in nature go into the Read folder and I set aside 30 minutes a day to go through the materials in it. Any item in the folder not read within a week is deleted. All spam is deleted, but only after I have gone through the process of unsubscribing from whatever source sent it to me. This entire email process will be given 1 hour/day or less.
• In regards to phone calls, I cannot simply let every call go to voicemail. I have 3 children at various schools and am often enough waiting to hear back about scheduling apts. for them, etc. These calls must be answered, as must any calls from clients who make my creative business possible. All other calls will be allowed to roll over to voicemail or answered briefly with a promise of a return call during non-work hours. Creative time IS work time!
• Utilize my ListPro app to capture and prioritize tasks to be completed. This is a great little app that I got for my iPad that allows me to keep all my lists in one place (I don't know about you, but I tended to lose those little slips of paper I used to write lists on). It allows me to rank action items according to priority and date to be accomplished by. There are many tools out there that help you do this, so find one that works for you!

I hope you've found something in this post that can be of use to you! Perhaps for some, Mr. McGuinness's approach of organized procrastination would work, and if so I encourage you to head over to his ebook and read more.

What have you found to be effective tools in managing your time and tasks?

Time Management for Creatives, Part 1

Today marks the start of a new season at my house. This morning all 3 of my kids went back to school. We had a fun, albeit short, summer break together in which we traveled, played and fought a little (like most families). They are quickly growing up and 2 of them headed to high school today, one already in her junior year. As they begin the next level of their education I am reminded that structure is returning to their lives and it should to mine as well. I need and even crave structure and organization probably in large part because it is an area in which I am fairly challenged. I often find myself using the "but I'm a creative person and that's just the way we are" excuse, but today I've decided to take the bull by the horns and seek out some good resources to put me on the right path. So if you're like me and could use a little help in this department, read on...

I began my search in my usual spot--Google--with a search on "time management for creative people" because I'm pretty sure that time management is not a one-size-fits-all deal, where I could successfully employ the same techniques that would work for say, an engineer (like my husband). That yielded 77,800,00 results which is pretty much a nightmare when you already struggle with managing your time...Lucky for me, though, the first page of results brought me to a great free ebook entitled Time Management for Creative People by Mark McGuinness. You can follow the link and read it all for yourself, or you can follow my blog for the next few days as I read and summarize it here for our benefit.

We like to think of creativity as a space for untrammeled imagination, free from all constraints. Yet while freedom, rule-breaking and inspiration are undoubtedly essential to the creative process, the popular image of creativity overlooks another aspect: examine the life of any great artisit and you will find evidence of hard work, discipline and a hard-won knowledge of the rules and conventions of their medium.

I'm a big reader of fiction and can get so lost in a book that the house could practically burn down around me without my noticing, but when it comes to non-fiction I need it broken down into digestible chunks and really appreciate the list or bullet-point approach. Lucky for me, McGuinness presents his recommendations in just this format. Today we'll tackle the first two of his suggestions.

Borrowing from Steven Covey (whom we all know is Highly Effective) McGuinness recommends that you begin by prioritzing work that is important but not urgent. This is not to say that you should ignore those "urgent" deadlines hanging over your head, but to give you permission to spend a portion of each day working toward your own goals rather than those of others (generally what falls into the urgent category). Our creativity flows from a deeply personal and individual place within ourselves and if we are constantly reacting to the demands of others it's easy to run headlong into creative burnout.

Another way to increase your effectiveness is to pay attention to your body's natural rhythms and determine your best time for creating, then take that time captive and use it exclusively for the creative act. For me (but not everyone) mornings are it. If I allow myself to sleep in, I set myself up for failure. Of course, this also means taking those nighttime hours captive and not allowing myself to wallow in front of the television until all hours of the night. When sewing was just a hobby for me I structured my day much differently than I do now. Morning was the time to run errands and do household chores. Only after my household list was tackled would I allow myself the reward of indulging in my hobby. Now sewing is a business and I need to treat it as such.

In addition to the rhythm of a schedule, also cutivate an awareness of "physical triggers" or components of your environment that aid you in your creative process. For instance, music is an important part of my creative environment. When I am sewing I like to listen to my favorite radio station, WYEP, streaming live online, or my Indie Singer-Songwriter Pandora station that I have customized to my own specific taste. However, when I am writing or reading I need either silence or instrumental music. Lyrics will distract me from my own words, yet there are times when I need a still need a soundtrack. My customized Accoustic Folk Pandora station (minus any and all banjo) is perfect for this purpose. For you it might be a certain paintbrush or favorite pen. Maybe you can't possibly create at home but need to go to a coffee shop in the next town to connect with your muse...Think about those times when you've felt "in the zone" creatively and conjure up the setting and tools that were present.

If you've found the time you invested in reading this helpful and inspiring as you embark upon the next phase of your creative day, stop back tomorrow when I unpack the next few points in McGuinness's book.

I'd love to hear from you about your creative environment and any help you've gleaned from this post, so please leave me a comment! Let's share our insights and maybe help eachother out!

Philly airport, 6:15 A.M. & what happens to your blog when you have a new iPad...

It's only 6:15 in the morning and I already have a sense of accomplishment. Kids up (including teens), luggage loaded, car turned over to valet, luggage checked and we're through security and at our gate breakfasted and ready to board in plenty of time. Not bad for someone who only slept about three hours...

That's how my ambitious, if slightly deluded, day started about 18 hours ago. You see, I arrived at the airport thinking that the new iPad my sweet husband bought me last week would be my ticket to staying connected (and particularly jumping into blogging with both feet). I didn't factor into that vision the appeal of said iPad to my 14 year old son who HAD to play Fruit Ninja and rent and download a movie before our flight boarded. I decided that I would set a good example in sharing and indulge him, because I was certain that while we were waiting for our connection in Chicago I could hop online and get right down to business. Who knew Chicago wouldn't have free wifi?

Next stop, Denver...deplane, find badly needed iced soy latte, grab bags off carousel (ALL OF THEM! God is good :), meet up with my mom, picnic lunch at Red Rocks (and I have to say WOW! I need to go back there when my daughter is feeling better and I can roam around with my camera), and then an hour plus in the car before finally arriving at Mom's in Leadville. All-in-all a really good trip that went very smoothly, but here it is almost 11:30 here (1:30 am in my body) and I'm finally finishing this post.

So all of the deep and inspired things I hoped to share today have been lost in a haze of fatigue and oxygen deprivation (elevation here approximately 11,000 feet). But I have met my goal nonetheless and completed another post. I hope you've enjoyed your visit!

G'night...

Don't be a stranger!