Creative Zen Transitions

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This week we're going to talk about that dedicated time we must set
aside for our creative projects.

Ultimately, time is a vessel which holds all our life activities.
Our goal is to choose wisely, in order to fit in the things we
value most.

Finding time for your creative work starts off as a time management
question (am I managing my time wisely?), and ends up as a values
question (which of two activities do I value more?).

Ideally, you will find an activity that you don't really enjoy
anyway, eliminate it from your life, and use the time for something
you do enjoy, like creating. But it is more likely that at some
point, you may have to make some hard choices. 

Only you know your life and its demands. Some of these suggestions
aren't going to work for you, simply because they're not
appropriate, or you've already worked through them. They may work
for someone else, which is why they're here. Or they may work for
you at a different time in your life. 

Here are four situations regarding time:

A. Scheduling, the "easy" fix:

Do you get to the end of your day thinking, oh, I really meant to
spend time creating today ... I wonder why I didn't? You may have
the time to create, you simply don't have a routine set up so that
it takes place. 

If this is the case, try putting it on your calendar.

If you have challenges scheduling on a calendar, try scheduling by
activity links. An example is to exercise right before you shower.
For me, creative time is after dinner and before my favorite
nighttime show. Maybe not ideal for early-risers, but that's the
point: do what works for you! This may involve experimenting and
finding 100 ways that don't work. Enjoy it. 

B. Getting rid of time wasters:

Do you find yourself doing something that you "know" is a total
waste of time?  You may not have any "spare" time, but you may have
habits that waste time, which could be pruned back with some
awareness. 

Good news -- you'll probably improve the quality of your life doing
something you actually enjoy. Things that fall into this category
are activities that are unnecessary, and you're not crazy about.
Identify them, then ruthlessly eliminate them. You'll generate
energy in your life doing something you love, instead of feeling
guilty and lethargic and helplessly wasting time.

C. Prioritizing -- knowing your values:

If your schedule is efficient, you may still have some fairly
straightforward prioritizations to make.

One way of finding time for our creative garden is looking at what
is taking up time in our lives now, getting rid of lower priority
activities, and keeping that time open by saying no to things in
the future. This is about prioritizing our creativity within our
lives. 

Are lower priority activities present in your life? If so, weed
them out. Before you commit to new activities, make sure you know
what their priority is relative to your creativity. If they are
higher, realize that taking them on is taking time away from your
creative projects. If they are lower, saying no should be easier
knowing that your creativity is your priority.

D. Choices, the hard truth:

You've gone through the previous three categories, and everything
in your life is important -- you are living your values. This is
where the hard choices get made. 

The question here is how much value you place on your creative
time. Not how much you should place, or how much your friends or
family place, it's how much your heart wants to place on it.
Because you may have to choose between creating and other things
that are dear to your heart. This is a values question. 

The good news is that you may discover that some of these
activities are not as important to you as you believed, and
eliminating them actually frees up a lot of energy. The point is to
find the things that you are committed to, that energize you, and
that you must spend time on, and weed out the things that don't
fulfill these requirements anymore.

You may experiment and find that everything in your life is
necessary, and there is not a moment to spare. What then? Maybe
this is the time when you have to choose between two things that
you really enjoy. Creating may not be as important to you as
everything else in your life, and that's okay too. You may create
less in order to include something else that is vital to you. You
may work on a creative project for six months, then switch to
volunteer work that is equally meaningful.

You may get by with less sleep, though most people already aren't
sleeping enough; you may find you are so energized by creating that
you have a little boost of energy even though you are sleeping less
-- give it a try. There is the ever popular and often impractical
suggestion: delegate! 

Finally, remember that you get to choose what priority things get
in your life. If your creativity is more important than something
currently higher up, don't feel guilty about making a change, or
asking others to help out. Sometimes they'll surprise you,
especially when they understand that creating is a priority of
yours.


So begin with the easy fixes and work your way up. Keep changing
things in your schedule until something works. It may take awhile
to figure it out, but if you're serious about creating, it is worth
it. If you are continually telling yourself that there isn't time
in your life to create, you run the risk that you will never have
creating as part of your daily life. 

Time is a vessel, and activities fill it whether we choose them or
not. By prioritizing, we can consciously choose to include creative
time with the other priorities in our lives. 

~~~~~~~~~

Creativity Spark

Try scheduling or including creative time each day, and evaluate if
that helps you to create regularly.

Identify time wasters in your life -- excessive TV or web surfing,
worrying, etc. -- and make an effort to stop doing them and turn
that into creative time instead. Does the quality of your life
improve?

Make a list of activities in your life. Which of these are of lower
priority than your creativity? Try to find ways to cancel the
activity or delegate it and claim the time for creating. If there
are no items of lower priority on your list, see if there is
something of equal priority you could give up or reduce on a trial
basis, to see if your creativity brings you more joy, making it
worth a permanent switch. Look closely at things you feel you
"should" be doing that are actually someone else's priority. Are
there standards that could be lowered to "good enough" without
serious impact? 

If you are absolutely positive that you've gotten your life down to
the basics and there is no time for creating, consider whether you
can trade time with someone else -- watching kids, running errands,
etc. Look for new areas of responsibility to delegate to your kids
-- teaching them how to do laundry or prepare a meal. Look for
creative ways to solve the problem, for example dictating a novel
while on the exercise bike, or setting your kids up to paint at a
canvas while you paint at yours. Choose to change your priorities
for 6 months of creating, then change them back. Instead of
volunteering your time, donate a piece of your art. 

~~~~~~~~~

About Caroline ...
Caroline coaches people who want to incorporate creativity into
their daily lives. By working on our creative projects, we are able
to transform our lives, and bring about a sense of peace and joy.
Creativity is also a wonderful way to navigate life's transitions.
For more information on individual and group coaching programs,
live and virtual retreats, and more resources to help you get going
on your creative projects with comfort and sustainability, please
visit our website at www.creativezentransitions.com

For insights on creativity and life in general, please visit the
blog at http://www.creativezentransitions.typepad.com/

Zenspiration!
Caroline's podcast of creativity meditations will get you in the
right frame of mind to begin creating. They change every week, and
provide focused inspiration related to the current newsletter topic
... usually! Click on the link to listen ...
http://www.audioacrobat.com/play/WfKWXmFs