A couple of years ago, I was facing a brick wall. I was in the second year of a part-time Masters degree that was essential for my business. I was invited to edit an issue of Magma, one of the top poetry magazines in the UK – as a poet, this was a chance I couldn’t turn down. I was also getting married, which took a fair amount of preparation too – and that was one opportunity I was definitely not turning down! Meanwhile, I somehow had to keep my business going, keep my clients happy and fund all these extra-curricular activities.
As if that weren’t enough, I discovered this new phenomenon called blogging – or rather, discovered that people were using it to spread their ideas and promote their businesses, rather than just to write about their cat’s breakfast menu. It looked like a perfect medium for me – I loved writing, I had ideas I wanted to get into circulation, and I loved connecting with new people. But where was I going to find the time?
I’d already made a reluctant deal with myself to put my poetry-writing ‘on-hold’ until the end of the MA (on condition that I resumed afterwards, which I’m now doing with pleasure). But I was still faced with the seemingly impossible task of finding quality, focused time, away from interruptions, to write my essays, read poetry submissions with the care they deserved, and start a blog. After scanning my diary and surveying the tasks in hand, I was faced with a depressing conclusion.
I was going to have to get up early.
There was simply no other time in my schedule – or not the quiet, uninterrupted time I needed for my work, without the intrusion of phone calls, e-mails, meetings and classes. I had never considered myself one of nature’s early risers, and working from home much of the time had allowed me the luxury of avoiding early starts for commuting. On a good day I’d be up by 7.30, on a bad day it was closer to 8.30. Still time to get a reasonable amount of work done by starting at 9.00 – but I was faced with an unreasonable amount of work, so drastic action was called for.
My new start time became 6.30am. If you want to know how I managed this, read Steve Pavlina’s excellent post How to become an early riser. Here, I’m more concerned with the effect – since making the change, I’ve edited a postbag of 2,500 poems into a Magma issue 34, achieved a distinction in my Masters, and created the Wishful Thinking blog which has transformed my business and opened up many new creative avenues for me to explore. I’ve also written some poems I’m pleased with (at the moment, anyway) and which are gradually making it into publication. Most importantly of all, I made it to the wedding on time!
I’m not listing the above to blow my own trumpet, but to illustrate the value ofring-fencing time for your own creative work, in the midst of more urgent demands. It would have been easy for me to justify turning down the poetry magazine because I was too busy. It would have been even easier to put off starting the blog until I had more time. I could even have reasoned my way into stopping or deferring the Masters. But the thing is, there will always be something ‘urgent’ taking my attention away from my own creative initiatives. Yet when I look back over the last couple of years, the time when I’ve created most value, for myself and my clients, has been those first hours of the day I’ve spent writing blog posts, essays, seminars and poems. It’s the creative wellspring that feeds into all the coaching, training, presenting and consulting I do when I’m face-to-face with clients.
Enough about me. How can you find time to achieve your creative ambitions?
Prioritise ‘important but not urgent’ work
In his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey classifies work tasks according to whether they are important or urgent.
Covey points out that many of us spend too much time on tasks that are urgent and important (the red square in the diagram) – in other words, staving off emergencies by rushing around to solve problems or responding to others’ demands at short notice. Sometimes this is unavoidable – ‘deadline magic’ can spur us on to feats of creative production we wouldn’t otherwise attempt. This can be an exciting and productive experience – but it’s up to you whether you want to work like this most of the time. The example of the computer games industry – where extended ‘crunch’ times can mean endless overtime to meet a deadline – suggests that prolonged deadline magic can turn into deadline misery, with a significant impact on morale and efficiency.
Covey’s solution is to prioritise work that is important but not urgent (the blue square in the diagram). Though this is hard to do on any given day, it is the only way to ensure you are making progress towards your own goals and dreams, instead of merely reacting to what other people throw at you. And over time, the more you are dealing with important things before they become urgent, the fewer ‘urgent and important’ tasks you will have to deal with.
The most obvious way to do this is to work on your own projects first every day, even if it’s only for half an hour. Whatever interruptions come along later, you will at least have the satisfaction of having made some progress towards your own goals.
It’s obviously not just a question of time – you also need to ring-fence your attention so that you can devote your full attention to your creative work, without being knocked off course by distractions. The next post will look at how some highly creative people have achieved this, and what you can learn from them.
Questions
- Think of the achievements you are most proud of, and that have added most value to your life and work. When you were working on them, how many of them fell into the ‘important but not urgent’ category?
- How do you feel at the end of a day where you have made even a little progress towards a cherished goal?
- How do you feel at the end of a day that has been totally swamped by others’ demands and urgent tasks?
- What difference would it make to your life if you devoted more of your time to ‘important but not urgent’ work?
Mark McGuinness | Coaching Creative Professionals
Time Management for Creative People is one of the ways business coach Mark McGuinness helps creative professionals and creative agencies succeed.
For more practical tips and inspiration visit his Wishful Thinking blog. Subscribe to the feed to have the latest posts delivered to you via RSS or e-mail.
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