Time Management Tuesday: Reading "Boundless Creativity" Part 2

Last week I began writing about my read of  Boundless Creativity: A Spiritual Workbook for Overcoming Self-doubt, Emotional Traps, and Other Creative Blocks by Martha Alderson. I explained about how her workbook encouraged me to create an inner, spiritual goal--"finish something"-- that I have found helpful the past couple of weeks.

Early on, the workbook asks readers to create an outer creativity goal in addition to the inner spiritual goal. Alderson describes creativity goals as "desires with a plan of action." The one I finally settled on was "Completing a book blueprint for 143 Canterbury Road by mid-June." (A blueprint is sort of an alternative outline for those of us who struggle with outlines.)

What To Do With Your Outer Creativity Goal

Alderson suggests breaking down your outer creativity goal into what we'd call here objectives. (She writes about long-term and short-term goals rather than goals and objectives.) So that's pretty standard. What is different, I think, is that she gives readers a way to assign those objectives/short-term goals a time frame. And there's also something objective-related that is tangible--as in something you can hold in your hand--and manipulate as you work or complete your tasks.

While using this system, I am making progress on what had been a very stalled blueprint/outline.

I will have more on Boundless Creativity in future weeks.

FTC Disclosure:  I received my copy of Boundless Creativity from a publicist marketing it.

Time Management Tuesday: Reading "Boundless Creativity"

You will be delighted, I'm sure, to hear that I am reading a book for us. I’m halfway through Boundless Creativity: A Spiritual Workbook for Overcoming Self-doubt, Emotional Traps, and Other Creative Blocks by Martha Alderson. I was interested in the book because Alderson wrote The Plot Whisperer, which has the best explanation of organic writing I’ve ever seen.


I think Boundless Creativity will be particularly helpful for new writers (or creatives of any type) trying to get started with their work. As in people who are struggling to find time to do personal creative work versus the day job or family work. For instance, so far Alderson is talking a lot about using goal setting to work out a plan for what you're going to do over a specific period of time. You all know how I love goals.

The book has, though, given this more established writer a little jump start for her spring work.

An Inner Spiritual Goal--Finish Something

I have to say that I’m struggling with the spiritual aspects of this book. I sometimes find them distracting. However, there is a section early on about inner spiritual goals that I jumped on.

Alderson describes spiritual goals as "inner goals you decide to address to live your best creative life." Over the course of doing the workbook sections, it came out that spiritually I feel overwhelmed with tasks and that it has a negative impact on my ability to stay focused on any one particular task. I give in to the overwhelm. Yes, that's something I've been talking about here for...ah...probably years.

I was instructed to combine a flaw I'd written about along with a personal strength to create a mantra. Mantras are a spiritual thing that I actually kind of understand. It's a word or saying that's supposed to aid meditation or maybe just in life. The mantra I came up with was "When I am exhausted and overwhelmed from too many tasks, I choose one to complete. One that can be completed."

[EDIT NOTE Dec. 29, 2024: I was wrong in the above paragraph. Mantras involve sound, not meaning. What I actually did was create an affirmation. Which I use to this day. Just used it yesterday, in fact.] 

Or, to put it in a less unwieldy manner, "Finish something."

I tried to deal with the finishing issue a couple of years ago, but, quite honestly, I'm overwhelmed with the amount of time management and productivity material I've picked up since I started this time management feature here at the blog. But now I have this mantra, "Finish something," and that seems to be helping. For the last few days, anyway.

Now by "finish something," I don't necessarily mean writing the next book. Finishing cleaning a counter, the next entry in a trail album, taking care of the clothes piled on a chair, or cooking the eggplant before it goes bad works just fine. Because what I want this mantra to do for me is make me feel less overwhelmed by the multitude of things that go on in life. When I'm not feeling overwhelmed, I can concentrate on work a whole lot better.

Oh, one of the things I finished last week was setting up a private workstation for myself on the main floor of the house. I won't go into the long story of why I needed to do that, but it had been at the back of my mind for a few weeks, if not longer.

Finished.

So for someone who doesn't totally get the spiritual aspects of this book, the spiritual aspects of this book have helped my creativity this past week.

I will have more on Boundless Creativity in future weeks.

FTC Disclosure:  I received my copy of Boundless Creativity from a publicist marketing it.

Time Management Tuesday: Blogging The Overwhelm, Conclusion

I am beginning this blog post in the solarium of a lovely lodge that would make a great place for a writers' retreat. Unfortunately, last night I was so into this place and its wonderful writer retreat possibilities,  that I totally forgot about writing this Time Management Tuesday post. And, thus, I am a day late.

Okay, reading Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has The Time by Brigid Schulte was a fascinating experience because of the very different ways she and I look at the time issue. She is interested in support. I am interested in skills. At the end of her book, Schulte briefly covers some of the things she's doing differently now to help her manage time. She talks about "pulses," for instance, which are similar to the units that many time management people recommend. She describes the Pomodoro Technique in a footnote.

What About John Robinson And Leisure Time?

Another fascinating part of reading this book is that it didn't cover what I was looking for. What grabbed my interest in the articles I read about this book was Schulte's coverage of John Robinson's contention that we have far more leisure time than we think we do. Schulte's response to that was that the time he claimed was her leisure time didn't feel like leisure time. 

Here is a Gail life experience that I think illustrates her point:

When my children were young, I, like so many other mothers in my town, took them to the local beach in the summer for a couple of weeks of swimming lessons. For at least one year when they were in grade school, we'd hang out at the beach for hours, eating lunch, reading magazines (in my case), catching minnows with nets, digging in the sand, and planting all kinds of plastic tubing brought from home.

I saw the swimming lesson hangout as being the closest I'd ever come to owning a lake house. It was like going away. After reading Schulte's book, I realize that many woman would have perceived those days as childcare, since, technically, I was supposed to be taking care of my kids. For those women, it would have just been more work.

Why does how that time was perceived matter? Because the parent who sees hauling two boys, lunch, towels, sunscreen, magazines, shovels, buckets, and leftover construction pipes to the lake as a glorious summer getaway is going to go home feeling as if she's been on vacation for the afternoon. That will have an impact on how she's able to use the rest of her day. The parent who sees hauling two boys, lunch, towels, sunscreen, magazines, shovels, buckets, and leftover construction pipes to the lake as childcare/work is going to go home feeling overwhelmed. And that will have an impact on how she's able to use the rest of her day.

And The Writing Connection, Gail?

I'm not sure. But if I've got 30+ hours of leisure time that I don't realize is leisure time, I'd sure like to be able to repurpose some of it for work. I suspect many other writers would, too.

I'm thinking that I want to try to find more on John Robinson, who has been taking a bashing over his spin on women and time. And when I get back from vacation, I may try to keep a time journal. If I have the time.

Speaking of vacation, I am finishing this blog post while looking out at the mighty Monongahela River outside of Pittsburgh. Yes. That's leisure time. I own it.

Time Management Tuesday: Blogging The Overwhelm, Part Three

What's With The Danes And Time?

I think Brigid Schulte's big interest in Overwhelmed: Work, Love, And Play When No One Has The Time is seeking support for her struggles with time, which means support for others like her. She contacts a number of groups of women who are doing things like trying to simplify their lives or managing to function comfortably as high achievers.

I'm more interested in going right for the skills. When Schulte wrote about Denmark, seeking out a culture where time studies show that women workers have more leisure time than in other countries, I wanted to hear more about how they did it.

The Minimalist Thing

Schulte says, "I am struck for the first but certainly not the last time as I began to visit more Danes' homes that there is no junk...I was assured again and again that Danes simply do not buy, produce, or save as much stuff." She only gave one paragraph to the issue of material possessions' impact on our use of time, which just happens to be one that I'm interested in. Does lack of stuff really have an impact on the Danes' overall use of time? If they really aren't into acquiring and keeping, why not?

How Do They Stay On Task At Work?

Schulte is assured by the couple that is the main focus of her Denmark chapter that Danes "work in a very focused way. Lunch is usually no more than half an hour...In Denmark, there isn't a whole lot of joking around the watercooler or Facebook checking in the office, they explain. You do your work and you go home." That's how Danes are able to stick to a 9 to 4:24 schedule and get home without bringing work with them.

How, how, how? How are they able to deal with interruptions from clients and supervisors with surprise assignments? What about chatty co-workers? Do Danes not get chatty at the office?

Gail's Needs

I'm not questioning whether or not these people are doing these things. I just want to know how so I can do it, too.

Time Management Tuesday: Blogging The Overwhelm, Part Two

I've been reading Overwhelmed: Work, Love, And Play When No One Has The Time by Brigid Schulte and began blogging about it last week. This week I bring you up to speed with my reading.

What is Overwhelmed Actually About?

Overwhelmed is not a time management book. The "overwhelm" is Schulte's term for that feeling of being buried with things to do. Her book, so far at least, is not about how to deal with the overwhelm but how it comes about, particularly for women. How does the workplace contribute to this? How do perceptions of what mothers should be contribute to it? Are there workplaces/countries where things are different?

Writers Have Some Experience With Working At Home

Schulte writes of companies that put performance and production before "face time," having to be in the office where managers and co-workers can see you. These particular employers allow their employees to work from home, where parents can

Many writers work in that way. What many of them find, though, is that without the external structure of an office and "traditional" hierarchy, "the boundary between professional and personal time is very thin and very wobbly. It is all too easy for personal time to bleed into work time." What I'm talking about ends up being a lot like the overwhelm, it's just that now you're working at home.

That's not to say there isn't a way of dealing with this situation--bringing some kind of childcare into the home where parents are working might be a huge help, for instance. But if writers' experience is any indicator, just shifting work from an office building to a home isn't necessarily going to solve the overwhelm problem.

Time Management Tuesday: Blogging The Overwhelm

Several months ago, I stumbled upon an article about Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has The Time by Brigid Schulte. Then I stumbled upon another. Of course, I was attracted by those words "No One Has The Time." But I also was interested because both the articles included information about John Robinson, a sociologist who has studied how people use time through "time diaries." Robinson told Schulte that people have an average of 30 hours a week of leisure time, far more than most of us believe we do. This made me wonder if how we perceive what we're doing comes into play here, and, if so, can we writers use that somehow.

So I'm reading Overwhelmed.

So far, the book reminds me of Welcome to the Lizard Motel and Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. All three books take a memoirish angle to nonfiction. And all three authors have a personal issue that they're trying to support with their books. (I am not the only reader to get the introverts/good, extroverts/not so good feeling from Quiet.) In my early reading of Overwhelmed, for instance, Schulte really isn't having any of Robinson's contention that she has so much leisure time. She seems determined to prove him wrong.

The portion of the book I've completed has a lot of information about the traditional work world. A lot of it will sound familiar to anyone who has been reading about women and work for the last few decades in terms of women's treatment in the workplace. The new information is that this is still going on and that men, too, are now negatively impacted by what Schulte calls our culture's commitment to a retro "Ideal Worker," one who can live at the office.

Her point is that work life has an impact on how we spend our personal time, which I certainly agree with. I still have to see if Schulte will give some advice on what to do about it.

Check out blogger Becky Levine's response to Overwhelmed.

Yes, I'm a day late with Time Management Tuesday. I was having problems last night.