time flow for creatives
a different approach to time management for creatives -- on letting go of overplanning to live in the creative flow.
this post is not about managing time. when you try to manage time — you attempt to control time; bend it to your will. but time is a slippery thing, and if you’re anything like me, this doesn’t work. let me tell you why.
on being a compulsive planner
since I was a teenager, whenever I get overwhelmed by a gazillion to-dos, or stressed out by the uncertainty of life, my one irresistible, guilty pleasure was to open a notebook, and make diagrams, charts, lists — map things out, day by day, project by project. I pretended to be a traffic-controller / mastermind of my life, master of my time, and I’d plot out a grand schedule — to give me a sense of (illusion of) control. those were the days when my head felt like a great, oceanic traffic jam, and I was just trying to clear it.
sure, it felt satisfying at the time. however. usually… let’s say, 70% of the time, I ended up not following my plans. as I lived the days that I had alloted — I’d look at my to-do lists and feel… stressed. it’s like my plans sat on the counter of life and soured, like spoiled milk. I’d resist it, grow tired of it, and at the end, felt overcome by a general soup of guilt.
this is what I call overplanning.
if planning is the supposed “antidote to overwhelm” — overplanning creates more overwhelm.
here’s the thing.
overplanning is relative.
it isn’t an objective measurement. what degree of structure and plans feels supportive is different for everyone. but, when YOU overplan — it’s when the structure/schedule/goals you set for yourself — end up creating MORE stress and pressure — rather than inviting more ease, focus, and support. if your plans make you feel stuck, then you’ve overplanned.
on a wider notion, I propose that:
the right structure & planning
can feel deeply supportive
rather than suffocating
how overplanning feeds overwhelm
I’ve been living with this dilemma for a long time — moving through the cycle of overwhelm. here’s a long post about creative overwhelm and six proposed antidotes for it.
here’s how my overplanning/overhwhelm cycle goes:
I’m feeling overwhelmed
I make a gazillion plans & to-do lists
I do a few of them, urgently — before a deadline or against the weight of guilt.
I feel a momentary relief, and exhaustion.
I feel overwhelmed again looking at my list.
I abandon everything and disappear.
Back to step 1
if I planned too much, and couldn’t keep up — I felt pressure and overwhelm. then I’d swing to the opposite extreme, and abandon all my to-do lists.
if I didn’t plan at all, then I’d get lost in time, and the gazillion things would pile up, and I’d feel really overwhelmed, and try to alleviate it by planning (or overplanning), which goes back to feed my overwhelm.
so, the question is —
how DO you create a supportive structure?
how do you find the delicate balance between setting/fulfilling intentions — and overplanning/overwhelm?
examine your beliefs about time
when I go around in circles, planning and replanning — when I try to control time by playing schedule tetris with my to-do list — the message that I’m really sending to myself is:
“I have limited time, and lots of to-dos this week. I need to make it all fit, otherwise I’ll fall behind on my goals. if I don’t, I won’t have done enough…”
the underlying message here is scarcity. my overplanning is a direct result of my feelings of scarcity — an effort to manage my own scarcity — the fear that, maybe, I’m not doing enough. when I run my work life like this, time actually seems to contract. time is not my friend; time is my enemy. in this mindset, I don’t end up meeting my own goals, because I’m already feeling stressed before I begin.
in other words, I’ve set myself up for failure.
a mindset that stretches time
what if the message to ourselves was:
“I have a few essential projects I’m commited to this week, and I have plenty of time to do them — with spaciousness, ease, and pleasure. I deeply trust my instincts to flow my energy towards the work that will move my business forward.”
wow, even writing — off the top of my head — that feels completely different, like a rewiring of my subconscious programming. in this mindset, I’m approaching my relationship from a radically different perspective.
TIME — is my partner, rather than my enemy
WORK — is something I trust myself to do, rather than feel the need to control, out of fear
FLOW — I choose to sense and flow into the right projects — rather than forcing myself to do a gazillion things, just because I feel anxious that I’m falling behind, somehow.
the antidote to overplanning and stress
I propose that the antidote to overplanning and stress is to cultivate — a sense of spaciousness and enoughness: time abundance, and deep-self trust.
often times, we overplan because we don’t trust ourselves to do what needs to get done to move our business forwards. thus, overplanning is a form of over-compensation.
what if you deeply believed that:
you have enough time to do the projects you committed to. they will get done, with ease.
you don’t need to do a gazillion other things, all at once, out of underlying fear or scarcity or worry that you’ll “fall behind.”
you trust your energy to flow into the right places and projects
you trust your intuition & to guide you — rather than feel like a slave to your Dictator-Stressed-Boss mind.
how do you create a sense of spaciousness and enoughness, and trust in yourself?
here’s my very simple guiding principle / mantra / to-do:
nurture the space
what if, instead of trying to FILL the empty blocks of time in your schedule, what if you deliberately tried to nurture the space?
what if, instead of focusing on what to-dos will consume your time, you focused on the spaciousness, emptiness, abundance of time?
it’s like focusing on the silence, rather than the noise. whatever you focus your mind on — expands. if you focus on having space, that space will stretch, and expand.
nurture space in your life
then listen closely to
what inspiration wants
to flow into it.
practical suggestions:
don’t manage time, dance with time
Do the bare minimum scaffolding of external deadlines
instead of overplanning, scaffold your weeks/months with deadline goals — these are the external things that you must to deliver (to clients, customers, etc). this usually external things that you have concrete accountability for, where you can sit down and say, “this needs to happen today.” when you plan, only plan those things. ideally, this is no more than 1 thing a day.
Avoid overplanning your own projects, until it’s ripened & ready
for everything else — all your creative plans, dreams, projects, goals that don’t have a clear external deadline — don’t plan them to the tee, not until the project is ready to be externalized. (how do you know when the project is ready? you sense into it; its energy and momentum). post coming on this soon.
instead, focus on two things
(a) keeping a pulse on the creative energy and momentum of those seedling projects. think of this as checking in on the fermentation / growth process. water it everyday.
(b) nurture your space.
Nurture the space
after you’ve alloted time for your one externally-committed project of the day, allow yourself spaciousness the rest of the day, and just allow the creative energy to flow however it wants.
does this sound radical?!?
this is like saying, “instead of predetermining every hour of free time with to-dos, trust that your psyche will decide what to do — when the time comes.”
if you allow your creative energy to flow — you might be surprised at how “productive” you become.
why? because we are most “productive” (I don’t love that word) when we’re deep in the process. then creation feels effortless.
when you nurture the space, you create a container. then your creativity flows into that container.
when you’re sensing into the space, ask yourself:
what project am I excited to work on, right now?
Embrace your process - allow things to flow
what if I nurture the space — but I don’t know what to do in the space???
then, I’d say, start with a non-goal oriented process flow. start by building a creation habit. a journaling habit. a writing habit, drawing habit, audio recording habit.
your process and rituals are the containers that hold every output. whatever project you create is just the very end result of a process. process is everything.
when you focus on allowing process to unfold — with spaciousness and ease — you won’t need to overplan. creating will feel like breathing. working will feel as simple and easy as an exhale. 🌬️
thank you for reading! I send a weekly newsletter on Thursdays called guide.notes on nurturing the creative process. you can sign-up here.