Doing vs. Being
July 30, 2005
This one’s for Pixie – this is the same squirrel from yesterday’s entry after he had a snack. He needed a little rest after he ate.
I wrote yesterday of my focus on August as my month of refusing to make plans so that I can focus solely on all the projects I have been unable to dive deep into this summer. Naturally, plans I cannot avoid are starting to creep in and it is completely and totally stressing me out. A dentist appointment here, a friend from out of town there, a wedding, a doctor appointment – little bits and pieces that in and of themselves are not necessarily significant, but everytime I add an entry to my calendar my stomach tightens. At this very moment I feel like sobbing.
Perhaps it is because I feel as if I am about to burst with creative ideas that are screaming to be expressed. Perhaps it is because I still don’t have my printer – it has been in the shop for a paper jam problem for more than a week. Perhaps it is because I feel totally disconnected from my fiancee because of a busy week where I feel more like he is my roommate right now than my husband to be. I know this is the way life goes sometimes – and we are disconnected because of our schedule and not because we are being complacent. I still can’t seem to avoid getting totally cranky during these weeks when our calendar takes over our lives.
This is something I have been struggling with for a long time now, and I can’t seem to find a place of balance. I tell myself not to make plans and a day later I find myself making plans, justifying it by saying to myself, "Well, I’ll make an exception because I haven’t seen this person in a while." And when I look at the things that pull me away from work, it isn’t as if these things are not fun, meaningful experiences. The problem is that I feel like distractions are everywhere – there is always dry cleaning to pick up, groceries to buy, a friend to see for lunch who has been out of town for a month, an important phone call to make that lasts an hour, laundry to do, photos to upload and archive, a family member who needs a new business card…and on and on. Things that need to be done, that are gratifying in their own way and that do, indeed, fulfill me. But that, over time, make me feel like I get nothing done.
For a long time my focus was my business and my career, and my personal life suffered. Then for a long time I had no choice but to make my personal life the priority, and my career suffered tremendously. I have no regrets, but I am ready to create more balance between the two and for some reason I can’t seem to find a way to do that. It seems like it should be an easy problem to solve, but here I am feeling overwhelmed by it all again as my August calendar starts to fill up.
Any advice?
Sincerely, Overwhelmed & Cranky
Plans are inevitable…there is no way around weddings, out-of-towners and going to the grocery store. My advice would be to “schedule” a chunk of time during the day where you can turn off the phone, the computer and any other distractions. Then hole yourself up in your studio with some good music and create. (For me, the music is key…it helps to block out all the things on my plate and gets the creative juices flowing.) Even if it is an hour a day. The laundry can wait but your creative energy (and sanity!) can not.
Hope that helps a bit:)
Noelle
This is the best photo !!!!!!
Hi Christine,
I sympathise with you, feeling overwhelmed is not nice.
It sounds to me like what you need is structure. Any professional works within a structured environment that enables them to get their work done. You are an artist who works mainly from home, that requires self discipline and probably a bit more planning than for someone who goes to an office every day.
As Noelle suggests try and plan your daily creative hours, put them into your diary, make them your “office hours”. Rather than trying to commit a whole month to your projects think in smaller time chunks, like days or weeks at the most.
Take small steps whilst you are still feeling overwhelmed. Get up early for a few days, enjoy your favourite breakfast (cafe au lait and croissant if I remember correctly?) and plan your day ahead. Write it out. Do you have a certain time of day when you feel most creative and energetic? Make those your “office hours” and plan everything else around those. Just sticking to a kind of schedule for a few days can help you feel better and more in control.
I don’t know if any of this helps. I am quite a well organised person but I don’t like planning much and as a result I, too, feel overwhelmed from time to time. Structure helps me in those situations and in the longterm it can help achieve balance, too. (I hope so anyway, I am still working on this one!)
Take care, Kerstin
I’m facing the exact same challenge. Its just so easy to let the invasion of everyday details work their way into every last minute of the day. Something that I am trying out may seem corny but its seeming to provide me with the structure I need at the moment. In the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People book, there is a weekly schedule on pages 180-181 that may be xeroxed and filled in yourself. What I like about it is it breaks things down into daily and weekly priorities, goals for each of the roles in your life – fiancee, artist, writer, sister, etc, whatever yours are… the chapter that this schedule is in, Chapter 3: Put First Things First, you might particularly like and it will lay out how and why this schedule is designed this way. Hope its helpful to you too!
I hate planning and using calendars, because it often makes me feel even more caged in. But whenever planning my days or weeks is inevitable, I like putting down my to-do-list (or want-to-do-list) as a mind map. This way appeals to me a lot more, as I can doodle away and I need to put only those things in my calendar, that I have to do at a certain time. Another advantage is, that when I make mind maps, I get a better feeling for how much I have to do. So I can find out quite early, if my planning is realistic or not. I put down everything anyway, but highlight the really important things. I don´t know why this works better for me, but it´s probably because I can visualize better this way, and because this kind of planning follows my own unique way of thinking. And probably, because it´s more playful.