Clearing the Way to Do Artist’s Work: some time-tested solutions

Creative Workout: Do a prep task, lasting no more than 4 hours using David Seah’s productivity sheets. Note whether stopping regularly helped with deferring procrastination or interfered.

Artists can feel mad, as in crazy-mad because they often feel like they are tossed about a million times over in an effort to get their left and right brains in gear. And because  they have to do what often feels like endless setup just to begin.  The plight of us all!

The trick is to use what you can to get settled quicker.  It’s an area I think I could help you with, since I’ve been on the lookout these days for some how to’s.  Sustained focus isn’t exactly easy when constant distractions fall into your lap, and when the chatter of our mind insists on taking care of every little thing.  But hey, there’s a limit to this, and you might as well heed it.

In this workout, identify your task and break it down into its key components.  It can be a task that is four hours or less. Then, locate the productivity sheet of David Seah online.  If you find you like less structure to your task tracking, check out this, more open-ended Task Tracker for Creative Types. Then, get yourself some beautifully colored markers and color in your progress with each fifteen minute increment as you go.  It’s a simple device to bring your attention back to where you are in pursuit of completion of the whole.  It also serves as a great reminder about how you actually end up spending  your time.

By the way, if your task is longer than four hours, it is probably not a single task and not one that will make this productivity sheet suitable.  Instead, make sure your overall goal is pretty much what you want to accomplish in a four hour slot, and then, reward yourself for moving forward on your path.  The strategy may not work for everyone but there’s nothing like seeing the results of your sustained attention, especially when it is towards doing what you really want to complete.

So, what about you?  What visual devices do  you find useful?

Have You Exercised At All Today? No, I mean, exercised your brain!

There’s a book that’s been around since ‘99, but one which is the forerunner to many since. It’s called Keep Your Brain Alive by Lawrence Katz and Manning Rubin, and they’ve named their fitness practice, Neurobics.

The premise is that to keep our productivity up, we need to be exercising our brain — daily. For example, learning something new every day, like waking up and smelling something unexpected (vanilla instead of coffee), putting a chess game in a collaborative space so with each person throughout the day is responsible for making just one move, doing common tasks but with the hand you don’t typically use, and placing different gelatin filters over your lamps, (which create new associations).  These simple activities all lead the way toward increasing your mental fitness.

I particularly like the one that makes the shopping list into a treasure hunt. Instead of listing the ingredients, describe them so the shopper has to work a bit to figure out the ingredients for dinner.  Oh, and have a backup plan, just in case.

Both playful and very serious, Keep Your Brain Alive sells at Amazon.

Help in the Modern Age

This is not my strong suit, this business of asking for help.

I’ll admit it. My will to figure things out on my own inevitably interferes, and I’d willingly go ’round and ’round with something myself, sometimes for many painful hours on end, than stop the swish in my brain to find another way. The sad fact is that I’m stubborn, and can refuse to let in what would make my efforts easier.  Doesn’t have to be your fate though.  Interested in some valuable tips?  Read on.
 

 
 NAME WHAT YOU NEED

First, it’s a good thing to name what it is you actually need. For me, the passage of time and the chance to be still usually hint at where I’m lagging. Then, I follow that up with a written plan of my top 3 strategic goals and my most passionate implementation ideas, both which become incredibly useful devices for helping me see my own needs. And finally, there’s nothing like the evidence of what never seems to get done at the end of the day to amplify the ways I am simply standing in my own way (just in case I might prefer to forget!).

No, you aren’t perfect and no, you can’t do everything yourself.  But, there’s good news awaiting. Name the thing, maybe even two things, to turn things around for that day, that week, that month, and you’ll do a whole lot better.  To get closer to what this might be for you, consider naming:

• what it is you are going for so you remind yourself where your energies are best placed,
• what those things are that are not getting done, and preventing you from reaching any kind of task closure, those times when even your body feels like a slug, and you’re going ’round and ’round, and
• those small steps you can take that will pull you up and out. If you don’t know them, read ahead.

It’s an ongoing cycle, this process of checking in, naming, and moving forward by the way. And we’re not done yet!

ASK FOR HELP

You’ll need to ask for help next. There can be loads of things to say about this and nothing really to say.  Or to put it another way, you’ll either ask or you won’t (sure, since it’s always easier not to.  Avoiding keeps our super person fantasies alive). Nevertheless, it really feels like crossing a threshold when you finally can make asking primary because suddenly you’ll find many people can be helpful. Letting yourself be available to influence brings a whole lot more serendipity too.  A story someone casually shared when you asked suddenly becomes the subject for you–a useful article, angle on a creation or job lead.  It’s all good.

One caveat.  Always stay true to your overriding intention or goal. If you subsumed your own interests, now is the time to put an end to that. Instead, use your metaphorical sword and shield, remember its use.  Because to continually return to what it is YOU are going for, that’s what matters. It’s the bigger picture, the grander idea you are hatching, that even our closest friends may sometimes not truly get.  So, deflect idle comments as much as possible.  And if you’re the type that’s easily thrown off course, make sure there’s a place you pass by every day that showcases a reminder photo or  mind map to help you stay on course.

ZERO IN AND GET SPECIFIC! (what really needs a boost: managing quality, cost, service or time?) 

I’ll add that knowing where to get help is certainly going to up your chances of following through. It’s distinct for each one of us.  If you are underhanded, think virtual support or sources of volunteers. If you are time-starved, timely reviews so you get to the point of what’s primary to take care of.  If you feel distanced from your own goals and/or out of the flow of the networks you want to reach, identify a few ready advisors whose guidance can get you closer. Here are some strategies for all these areas.

• Do a google search on virtual assistants (there are hundreds but check here and there) to give yourself a little relief. Some of them are good and affordable–even in our recession, 
• Check out mentoring blogs to see who you can line up to give you feedback (the words “mentor” or “coach”,  your geographic location and area of need are worthy searches to do online), 
• Get active on social networks that pull together people around the same issues as yours, 
• Put the word out to friends, online and off, who can give you leads on where they turned.

Of course, you can also check out my previous posts on good sources for volunteers and how to find good advisors.  And if anyone out there has found their own great options, please feel free to leave your helpful comments below. 

DEVELOP NETWORKS BY BECOMING USEFUL! 

One parting thought: Getting help is a new pattern for loads of us out there and quite frankly, it’s not always clear how to get within some people’s sightline. But using our networks and continually putting our real needs out are perhaps some of the smartest ideas one can have on staying afloat.  Don’t think you always need the sturdiest of vessels to close the gap between what you don’t yet know and what you think you should; an inflatable raft is really just as good.  Need to borrow one?  Ask!

Time Out: Hanging out with Carmen

I’m really taken with dramatic tales that pack a punch; in other words, drama where everything seen and heard has a reason and so, keeps you riveted and present.  The movie, Carmen: The Cullberg Ballet (1994) by Mats Ek’s is one of these gems.

It’s got incredible choreography, more modern than ballet, which beautifully punctuates and follows the music — inventive as well. Ana Laguna is a mesmerizing and irresistible Carmen, with Yvan Auzely and Marc Hwang as her rival lovers. The mysterious character M. is a dancer that is equal in character to Laguna’s.  You can’t take your eyes though off any of these performances and it’s a film you can relax by (an hour’s diversion, no more).

So, go for it, rent it from Netflix.  it will let you slide back into a beautiful rhythm, what we all could use when we are “too full” with our own work.

Writing Your Way to a Sale

It takes me many edits to get to the beauty of a simple phrase. Could be because the nature of writing is reciprocal while my writing nature isn’t.  Let me explain that.  Typically, I want to indulge just the first part, to get down a cascade of thoughts and feelings, and take leave. But just beyond my word dumping lies a magical gang of invisible word mover volunteers who clean up my wordiness, rearrange my phrases, and ultimately reveal back to me a far simpler way of saying what’s on my mind.

I just have to stick around to witness meaning taking form.

But most of us don’t stick around and we think of writing in only one direction. We want to unload and call it a day. We feel our best bet is to use words that are familiar…and safe-feeling. Many of them are overused, like unique, or leading provider or robust system or cost effective. We copy those words because we’ll look like everyone else, slide in under the credibility radar. Except people glaze over the verbiage; and it doesn’t help sell for you.

So, what I find interesting are a new set of tools online that assess how gobbledygooky our writing can be. Hubspot has one. It’s called gobbledygook.grader.com. No kidding.

You cut and paste your text (whether it’s a press release, website copy, whatever), and it will spit back a score. That score will also be based on whether or not you’ve observed standard formatting. It’s great. Use it to match your creative masterpiece. It can’t hurt.