epiphinar

that's what you get if you mash the words epiphany and webinar together

I wrote this yesterday (Friday) but am just sending it out today (Saturday). Mostly because I typed it on my phone last night at 9:30pm, which I am actually really proud of! I Made A Thing instead of consuming social medial. However, today I am too lazy to change all the “todays” to “yesterdays”. Don’t judge me.

I had an epiphany today. I was watching a webinar (it wasn’t actually called a webinar, they used a much more trendy term to describe it, but it’s late and I forget what it was... webinar is the worst word and it deserves to be thoroughly used before flaming out in the annals of internet pop culture)... (bear with me, I’m going somewhere with this...). The presenter, Jessica Abel, is someone who’s work I’ve recently stumbled upon and I really like her stuff. She was talking about the four main steps in the creative cycle, which she calls the Creative Engine — collecting (materials, inspiration, etc.), deciding (on a strategic course), acting (make the thing), and reflecting (how did it go, considerations for the future, etc.). She is quite insistent that focusing on ONE project at a time is the key to success. I’m yeah, yeah, yeahing along in my head — like, sure, lady, you have a point, but also I have too many ideas to let them all sit and the only way I keep making things is by jumping to something new (or circling back to something old) when I’m feeling the 10-ton weight of imposter syndrome SHAME because I’ve just made a thing and it’s not good enough.

I figured the shame cycle would eventually bring me around to each project enough times that I’d eventually finish, like, all of them. At once. You see why I want to write fantasy. 

Today’s mundanities are a perfect example of how overlapping projects gets me in trouble. I’m not beating myself up over this — but I am grabbing the facts by the collar and bringing them riiiight down on eye level and giving them a good hard Philip J. Fry stare. 

Monday this week was a holiday here in Canada. Actually the whole week is February break, so the kids were home Tuesday as well. On Wednesday I did two interviews for an article (plus some other stuff). On Thursday I wrote the 1600 word article. Today, Friday, I drove the kids into the city (one of them had day camp; the other got handed off to grandparents), drove to coworking, watched a webinar while simultaneously finishing edits on and uploading 300 photos, edited the 1600 word article, submitted the article to my editor, ran across the city to check out a hall for an event I’m co-hosting this summer, ran back across the city to pick up the kid and groceries, picked up take-out, and drove home. 

A. That’s a lot of driving. Driving is a time-suck and I do not account as much time for it as it actually takes. (I try to counterbalance the driving by mostly working from home and living in a very small town where the school, post office, and grocery store are all within walking distance. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it’s 40 below and you get lazy.)

B. More to the point — I ended up at coworking between 10:30am and 2:30pm, about four hours. The other two things on my to-do list this week were to finish a draft on another 1000 word article, this newsletter, and a half dozen other small floaty things. Wheeeennnn was I going to do that?? Like, when, exactly? I maybe could have got my newsletter done if I hadn’t forgotten about the webinar until I sat down. I could also have easily skipped the webinar, but I’m glad I didn’t. 

So. The ephiphany. Abel says the reason doing all the things at once doesn’t work (besides the fact that it splits your time and momentum) is because you end up running multiple phases of the creative cycle at the same time. And each phase has its own specific snags that will hold you back. So not only am I going against the current, so to speak, I’m wading with each foot in about four different rivers at the same time and trying to manage them all. No wonder I get stuck. 

Anyway, I signed up for the class. I want to Make Things, dammit. And I like the fact that she’s an actual professor and has vetted this process on hundreds of real life g̶u̶i̶n̶e̶a̶ ̶p̶i̶g̶s̶ students before bringing it online. If there are results, you’ll be the first to see them. 

Here’s my list of things from this week that you should check out. 

• On Instagram I mused a bit about dramatic, easily identifiable anxiety vs baseline, every day, stuff-it-and-forget-it anxiety. 

• Jessica Abel’s entire Creative Focus workshop is online and free to watch.

• The Profitable Designer Show podcast by Patrick O’Connell (search it on iTunes or whatever) - I put this up because it’s interesting the number of times this past month I’ve come across folks pushing personal sales calls (not cold calls, but booking sales calls through your website) as the way to dramatically increase revenue for service-based businesses. And a website with *gasp* no portfolio. He has some points in there that I’ve noticed and agree with.

• Hannah Quinn - LOOK!! at these amazing handmade brooms!! The black ones are just sleek and beautiful. I cannot tell you how much I love seeing handmade things like this.

*an epiphany a day keeps the gremlins away