Author: Christine

Christine http://www.mombie.com I'm a writer/storyteller/director/creativity & lifestory coach with a black belt in ITF Taekwon-do. I read voraciously and I write like my fingers are on fire. I'm the founder and Co-Chair of the Association for the Arts in Mount Pearl and I'm the current president of the St. John's Storytelling Festival. I bake a mean chocolate chip cookie.

So far, Sunday is going very well

My brain is off-leash today so I have been wandering gently from task to task.

And I’m using the word task pretty loosely since ‘read in hammock’ appears twice on today’s list.

A photo of my legs and feet in my hammock in my yard.
A photo of my view from my hammock – my crossed legs in light green capri pants with my ereader resting on them and my feet in sandals are hanging a little off the edge of the tan and orange hammock. Just beyond my feet, green circular swing is hanging from a branch and my yard and patio are in the background of the photo.

Logistics, I guess?

As part of my ‘Creativity First’ plan, I am putting some of my art supplies right on my desk for easy access.

Making sure that supplies are available where and when they are needed is logistical, right?

A photo of art supplies on the corner of a desk
A photo of the corner of my desk where I have a business card holder full of stencils, a wooden box with four sections that I have filled with tools (scissors, washi tape, paper cutters etc), markers, and pens, and a square gold-coloured pencil holder that has various pens, rulers, and supplies in it.

Scheduling Creativity First: An Experiment

In theory, I am always putting creativity first.

It is the most important thing in my work, it is the thing I want to spend the most time on, it is a key element in my life, and in my satisfaction with my life…

BUT

Things get in the way.

Creativity is the through-line in everything I do but it is also not a defined task.

Maybe if I only had one creative path it would be easier – if writing or drawing or storytelling or making bits and pieces, if only one of them loomed large in my plans.

Or maybe if my hobbies and my volunteer work were not so closely linked to my creativity, it would make the lines between my personal creative work and my other work clearer.

Or maybe if I didn’t have ADHD, it would be easier for me to organize my time and my priorities.

BUT

I have ADHD, I have creative hobbies and creative-adjacent volunteer work, and I have personal creative work and freelance creative work.

So everything gets jumbled.

And then I fall into one of two traps:

TRAP #1

I prioritize a lot of freelance creative work and creative-adjacent volunteer work and don’t immediately realize that those things aren’t my personal creative expression until I have run out of time.

TRAP #2

I try to get all my other work ‘out of the way’ by doing my volunteer work and freelance work first so I can free up lots of time for my personal creative work. And then I run out of time or energy for my less-defined creative tasks – after all, those I have to think up, figure out, AND do instead of just looking at a list and doing the things on there.*

*****

ANYWAY, I’m quite tired of being too tired to bring my own ideas to life so I am putting my personal creative time first whenever I can for the next few weeks so I can see if it makes a difference.

It’s quite possible there are other obstacles between me and the concrete forms of my ideas but until I move the big boulder of ‘putting everything else first’, I’m not going to be able to see them.

Let the experiment begin.

*Yes, my brain struggles with those things, too, but in a different way.