If You Want Something Done, Ask A Busy Person To Do It

I admit to being well over 40 when I first heard that phrase. I was in a meeting and so caught up in pondering the gross unfairness of the phrase that at first I didn’t realize I was the one being asked to take care of something – again. I can’t remember what it was I was being asked to do, and that wasn’t nearly as momentous to me as chewing on that audacious phrase.

I remember thinking, “So it is actually a known phrase that you should ask someone who has a hundred things to do to take on one more thing instead of asking someone who has 20 things to do?”  Ridiculous. Sniff. Unfair.  Sniff, sniff.  How about let’s spread the love (as long as we are into phrases)? How about let’s give everyone the same amount (basic kindergarten rule)? 

But last week, as I returned to work after an unplanned hiatus, I got more done (with my art and in household yucky chores) in the half hour after a very long day at work than I did in most days of my month-long enforced vacation. That’s not to say I was nibbling bon-bons and watching soap operas during my month off, oh no! I had the never-ending, continual Mega List of things to accomplish with my art, and I did accomplish a huge amount each day.

But I knew if it came down to it, I could get up and walk away from my laptop if I wanted to. The only thing forcing me to keep working was . . . me. No boss, nobody looking over my shoulder. And certainly nobody forcing me to do laundry, vacuum or pick up the mess in the living room!  Yes, I got lots done. And not nearly as much as I did after working a really long day for someone else, from which there is a boss and no walking away!

As contradictory and illogical as it sounds, I got more done when I had more to do and was being held accountable by someone else.  Not sure which part of that (more to do vs. being held accountable by someone other than myself) figures in to the equation more.  Either way, I was forced to manage my time very stringently, stick to a difficult and inflexible schedule, and work very quickly.

As unfair as it sounds, if you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.

And if you are that busy person, and your list of things to do has literally a hundred things on it, which means that you are hugely stressed out and not enjoying life very much, take a break. Turn it off.  Everything on the list can wait and none of them are as important as your happiness. Not to mention that it is almost impossible to be creative when you are stressed out.

My happiness break that did my heart good last week was going with the kids and dogs up to the lake for a Last of Summer Hurrah:

 

  Which contributed to today’s creativity:

Cabin Quilt Greeting Card

Cabin Quilt Initials Bag

Stay busy, but not so busy that you can't create.

How Do You Balance Your Creative Time?

We’ve all read articles on how to squeeze enough hours into the day to do both what you have to do (regular, full time job that pays the bills), dreaded but necessary house stuff (tenth load of laundry, move son’s shoes for the umpteenth time, reacquaint yourself with the concept of grocery shopping, mow the lawn), and what you want to do (be a full time writer, photographer, painter, musician or guinea pig walker, for that matter). 

No two ways about it, these articles make us rethink our schedules and level of motivation. They say things like “Schedule 10 minutes a day to take a photograph” and “Wake up an hour early to write. We need these articles. They speak the truth and they are helpful. You do have to examine your motivation and priorities and carve out the time.

But what I want are cold hard facts on managing your time after you have decided that puppetry/writing/abstract photography/guinea pig walking really is a priority in your life and you have made precious time for it.

How do you manage that time in order to both create and to market/promote?  Do you create 4 days a week and promote 3 days per week?  Do you wake up an hour early to promote and then create in the evenings (not going to work for me since I can’t think after 6 p.m.)?  Do you bounce back and forth between the two, settling on a rough formula of about 70% creating, 30% promoting?  Write for an hour in the mornings when you wake up (clock set at 5 a.m.) and promote in the evenings? Create on Saturdays, promote on Sundays?

Or do you just do whatever seems the most important at the moment?

I have to admit to spending the last month doing the latter.  And it has not been pretty.  I function best when I can gear my mind up to what I am going to do and have a schedule for it (a flexible one, but one that also pins my nose to the creative grindstone).  Focus. Organization.

You were looking for answers here, weren’t you?  I don’t have the answers. But I do have the questions to start you thinking about how to balance the precious time that you have carved out of your life for your creativity of choice so that that time is the most productive it can be. And so you don’t become what I have been in the last month: a whirling dervish expending a lot of energy but not accomplishing nearly as much as I need to accomplish.

However, that being said, my dervishness today included the creation of:

 

Now you know that is one cute dog and worth a little derv.