the lifecycle of a creative seed
on trusting in creative lifecycles; and letting your creative seeds be born on their own time.
recently, in wading through my long list of a gazillion project ideas, I discovered an organizational structure that helps me think about my creative projects, and decide where and how to spend my creative energy.
a creative person’s dilemma: too many things
the superpower of your creativity is having so many ideas. thus, the dilemma is this: you have limited amount of energy and time, but 3,403,404 projects you want to do. how do you decide which project to work on first? how do you allocate time for those projects — in a way that doesn’t overwhelm and stress you out, and make you feel stuck in a cycle of overwhelm and avoidance?
the ripeness of a creative seed
I always return to thinking of my creative projects as a garden. I usually have an intuitive sense of the relative “ripeness” of my seeds (even if I’m not always patient with them). some are already fruit — and feel like they’ll get moldly (with guilt) if I don’t pick and eat them immediately. others are still green, and best left on the tree for a few more weeks. others are just saplings, and haven’t yet produced fruit. the seeds grow at different rates, and need different amounts of watering, different temperatures, sun, fertilizer. it’s a complex, magical thing — but such is our mind.
finding energy flow & alignment
I’m the kind of artist (a classic Projector) who needs to find alignment between my energy + the project before I begin working on something; otherwise, a thing that could take me 2 hours might take me 6. a one day project could drag out to a week. if I force myself to work on something that’s not ready, I can be very inefficient with my energy and get extremely frustrated / burnt out. if I try to start a gazillion new projects before I’ve finished/brought projects to completion, I’ll feel super clogged.
so, the insight I had today is that you can divide your projects into 3 buckets, depending on where they are on the seed to fruit cycle.
RIPE | projects with a deadline
GROWING | projects with energy
SEEDS | projects with inner spark
this is a further development / finer articulation of an earlier post I wrote about creative birth-death cycles, declogging your creative workflow.
let’s explore these phases.
RIPE/HARVESTING:
projects with a deadline
a project with a deadline has an external commitment. there is accountability in the external world. it is not something you create for yourself — there is a specific person or people waiting on you. this could be a service-based deliverable to a client, a course that you already students signed up for, anything you promised to someone by a certain date.
it can also be a commitment to an audience: a weekly newsletter, a video, an offer with a launch date, or even just a commitment to post (daily, weekly) on your website.
a project with a deadline has a clear structure, and measurable output.
this commitment/deadline is something YOU choose, and can often be as simple as:
"share [creation] in my next
[newsletter/podcast/post/website/email]
by [xxx] date”
in garden terms, this project is the fruit that will spoil if you don’t pick it and eat it right away. you must show up and deliver, or suffer the consequences of guilt, cloggedness, and pressure.
RIPE PROJECTS =
projects with a deadline
an external commitment
to share something with
an audience, a client, a customer.
the biggest mistake I’ve made (and see others make) is that they force projects into this category before they’re ready.
here’s the thing: a commitment / deadline cannot feel like an obligation of suffocating pressure — it has to feel supportive, and completely aligned with your creative impulse. therefore, it’s crucial that you don’t make commitments that don’t excite you. a little stressed is okay, as long as this stress comes from the excitement and adrenaline of creative momentum.
sometimes you don’t need a deadline
sometimes you might work on a project for a long time without having made a “commitment” to share it, and simply let it unfold and be ripened on its own time. sometimes you don’t need deadlines to push things out into the external world. for me, this tends to be the exception rather than the norm — deadlines help me structure and focus my energy — but in order for it to support you, you have choose deadlines with care and intention.
GROWING:
projects with momentum & energy
the growing phase is a creative seed with momentum and energy, before I’ve made a commitment to push it out into the world.
sometimes, they’re in this phase because they’re related to ripe projects that I’m already working on (or have shared) — or an idea that I sense reverbations from the environment and people around me. if someone says to me, “I’m interested in learning about XYZ, can you help me?” — and I get inspired and start brainstorming around it, than I’ve started tending to a creative seed and watering it with momentum/energy. this seed is starting to sprout, and is in its growing season.
I don’t have a deadline yet — there is no concrete commitment to bring it out into the external world — and this takes the pressure off of it.
a note of caution: I often feel the urge to force projects from my “growing” phase into my “ripe/harvesting phase” phase. for me, the pressure for them to manifest in the material world — before they’ve fully matured or simmered in my psychic stove — this is the easiest way to kill inspiration and joy.
how do I know when a project is ready to be ripened?
to be honest, it’s mostly an intuitive feeling. a tugging in my mind. I look at my collection of growing projects, tune into myself, and ask: which of these has the most momentum / creative energy for me to use? — such that working on it can feel like “going with the flow?” which do I have an irresistable pull to tend to, today? listen to your inspired urges. I let my intuitive compass lead me.
SEEDS:
projects with an inner spark
a seed is any project that has an inner spark — like a firefly dancing inside your soul, blinking every now and then.
it’s not necessarily a project that has anything to do with whatever you’re working on, or feel momentum around. it’s most likely not the right time to birth this project into the world. but it’s blinking, every now and then, reminding you that it’s there.
what do you do? how do you care for the seed?
personally, I have a daily practice of listening to my inspired urges — I call it “deposition” or “inspired urges” — by journaling down thoughts and ideas around anything on my mind. I spend 10-20 minutes writing notes and ideas, without any pressure to do anything about it. often times, I find myself returning to the same project ideas again and again — and I make sure that I jot down little inklings that I have around them. I use Notion to log them. (then I promptly forget about them, and wait until they reappear again.)
creative seeds that repeatedly rise
to the surface are the projects with growing energy & momentum
the way to kill seeds is to force them to grow — or worse, be ripe enough for harvest — before they’re ready.
let me repeat. do not force your idea babies to be full fledged adults who have to show up to work in the morning — that pressure and expectation will stunt their growth. give creative seeds the time and spaciousness to evolve, ferment, grow — in their own time. sometimes they might lay dormant for years. other times, an interaction will ignite / awaken / light up a seed and push it into the GROWING phase — and you’ll find that it’s sprawling at a rate unlike what you could’ve expected. that’s when you choose what to do with it; decide if you have the space and energy to bring it to ripeness.
the growth process
is non-linear
and mysterious.
trust in its rhythm.
practical suggestions for you
reflection questions
GARDEN - sense into all the projects on your mind, and categorize them to RIPE / GROWING / SEED phases. then, do a review of each category.
RIPE — do these projects have deadlines that feel exciting and purposeful, rather than suffocating, heavy, and obligatory? are the deadlines spacious enough — to allow spontaneity and play? how can you make sure to allocate (sprints) to meet your deadlines?
GROWING — how can you water these saplings by gently gathering energy / momentum / inspiration around them — as you go about your day to day? which of these projects feel ready to become ripe? how do you know when a project is ready to be ripe?
SEEDS — what are your current seeds? can you create a daily ritual/process to allow your psyche to plant and collect more creative seeds? how can the care of seeds feel light, playful, and well cared for — while you still make sure to tend to your growing and ripe projects?
personally, this way of thinking about my creative projects has radically shifted my relationship to time — allowing me to prioritize and direct my “push out” energy (like literally push from the birth canal :D) to ONLY the ripe/harvesting projects, while letting my projects in growth or seed phase — rest and ferment in their own time, without the inspiration-killer effect of unhealthy pressure. that is, I’m learning how to make distinctions between healthy + unhealthy pressure. but, that’s a topic for another day.
related guides:
declogging your creative workflow
time management for creatives
a moody creative’s guide to work overwhelm
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