Creative Reboot
It's January, and it's the time to set new goals and make new resolutions. By now, most people are neck deep in trying to accomplish those goals, and many of us have already set them aside. This year, I didn't make any New Year's resolutions per se. But, I am doing is what I'm calling a "Creative Reboot."
While talking about it is coinciding with the new year, I actually started this back in early November. I was finally starting to settle into my new job a little and turned back to my reading list for artists and creatives. The next book on my proverbial stack was, Creative Calling: Establish a Daily Practice, Infuse Your World with Meaning, and Succeed in Work & Life, by Chase Jarvis. I'll give a more thorough review of the book later, but the core of Jarvis's message really spoke to me in that moment. There are some acronyms and steps and a few other things that are outlined in his process of establishing your creative process, but the fundamental idea was this:
Start doing your creative activity on a regular schedule.
Pick a creative project and see it through.
Share it.
Repeat, and also incorporate learning/improvement in your practice.
My job is literally titled "Creative Manager," so I do a fair amount of creative work during the week. However, even there it is easy to get bogged down in administrative tasks and I often find that I don't do any design for days at a stretch. Plus, I have a lot of personal creative ideas and goals that I want to accomplish, but always find reasons to put on the back burner.
The book was the shot in the arm that I needed, so I started scheduling time to do creative activity. I began with my job where I blocked out times during the week to focus specifically on creative/design-related tasks. I have projects and deadlines in this area, and I have to share them as part of the approval process, so steps 2 and 3 are easy in this context. The repeat part of step 4 is also easy (someone always has a new project), and for the learning piece, I added 2 hours of training time to my weekly calendar to integrate the "learning" portion. This whole cycle has already been helpful, and in fact, I've been more productive overall.
From there, I turned to personal work. For Step 1, I kept this as barebones as possible so I would be able to stick to it. Just 15-30 minutes at lunch, three to five times a week. Along with those small scheduled blocks, I added a commitment that if I have dead time I would use it to either draw or write.
For Step 2, I knew I already had a project. The Naturalist's Journal would give me a chance to work both my art and creative writing muscles. I also have a framework already in place for Step 3 (this blog and my Instagram account), so I wouldn't have to invent something new. For step 4 I have a list of resources that I am using to do some self-educating (more on that topic in another post).
So far, the plan is working. I've been able to produce multiple pieces of content, which I'm starting to post here. I'll try to keep them coming on a semi-regular schedule, but I'm going to focus more on the doing for the moment than trying to adhere to a completely strict posting schedule.
That's all for now, but look for the next installment of the Naturalist's Journal coming soon.
