Plan-Xiety

I’ve been going to therapy for years.

One major reason? My to-do lists. Or more generally, my drive for productivity, my struggles with rest, and the problems this creates.

I spent a year and a half working with one therapist to come up with the perfect schedule. (Spoiler #1: There is no perfect schedule. Spoiler #2: If that’s what your therapist is focusing on—even if that’s what you bring them—it’s not going to work. Transformation lies a lot deeper.)

In recent years, I’ve shifted therapists and shifted my focus: to centering in my body, feeling my feelings, and making choices that are personal, in the present, and authentic.

In terms of writing, this looks like writing projects I’m excited about, in ways that feel right for my sense of reality and the kind of books I want to make. But primarily, this shift is relevant to how I write.
When and where.
How frequently.
With what emotions.
What I push through or deal with to get myself to sit down at the page.
How I relate to my writing when I have a life outside of it.

After pushing too hard for a couple of years and treating my writing as a job, I realized that that is not the way I want to approach it.
Of course, my writing is a job. I take it very seriously and I put in the time and effort to make it as good as I can. I sit down regularly, generally whether I’m in the mood or not, and keep working at projects even when it’s hard or I’m struggling.
On the other hand: creativity grows when it’s treated as bright and light. It thrives with pleasure, compassion, gentleness and encouragement. And ultimately, if I want to write for decades to come, I’d like those decades to add joy to my life, not be a series of dutiful hours at the keyboard.

I’ve been trying to learn the relationship between these two approaches for a while. My recent work with annual and quarterly goal setting have taught me a few things.

I appreciate the 12 Week Year for Writers for the way it supports me in focussing on a manageable number of projects and tracking the hours I write. I’ve started tracking time spent in writing (brainstorming, planning, drafting, revising, reading/studying mentor texts) and in writing-adjacent tasks (craft study, reading/making notes on kidlit, critiquing, classes) to have a clearer understanding of my writing process and so I can see and celebrate all the time I spend on this career.

But tactical planning, while essential, is where writing is treated as work—tasks, timelines, steps to complete. I need to also live at the level of inspirational goal-setting where I’m celebrating my creative life and dreaming big.

Another challenge lies in the frequent recommendation to plan an ideal writing schedule. Even if this advice includes the tip to adapt your schedule as necessary, focussing on an ”ideal” means that I can only fall short and then feel bad about it.

I’ve loved the expansive approach to creativity planning I learned in Christine Carron’s GoodJelly program. By looking at how creativity fits into the whole of my life, and considering the full spectrum of activities that support creative work, I felt fully integrated as a human instead of just a writing machine. My goals are now big-picture and as much about how I feel about my work as they are about getting it done. Better: none of them are about “pushing through” or “being disciplined”—instead, they’re about remembering why I create.

Further, I’ve loved reading “I Didn’t Do the Thing Today: Letting Go of Productivity Guilt” by Madeleine Dore. The author explores ways to get comfortable with the fullness of life and the ways in which our creativity sits within the rest of what we do. Instead of beating ourselves up for being human, we can honour our needs, take care of ourselves and our lives, and find ways for creativity to be incorporated joyfully. A section on “delightful discipline” in particular opened my heart to finding ways to approach my creative “work” with pleasure instead of steely resolve—a far more sustainable (and—yes—pleasurable) way to create.

Together, this has started to look like:
• Getting enough rest and exercise—not sacrificing them to write
• Taking care of myself as I sit down to write: making sure I’m clean and comfortable, have enough to eat and drink, that the lighting is good, and that I’m ready to work (unless the creative urge strikes—say, at 2:51 a.m.—and I head straight for the keyboard in my pyjamas. For example.)
• If a pressing life task comes up, taking time for that or for working through my emotions, instead of pushing forward with writing time, and knowing that this is a good—an indispensable—use of my time
• Setting regular but flexible writing times, in moderate amounts, that let me get deep into my amazing projects while also leaving time for the other things I want to do

And there are many things that I’m dreaming of learning:
• Adding ritual and celebration to my overall process on a session-by-session basis and every scale beyond that
• Approaching the act of writing with optimism, joy and pleasure
• Feeding myself in all the ways I need (rest, creative input, caring for myself, family and space, time with friends, other creative avenues)

I’m excited to deepen my creative process in the upcoming year and years, with an eye to building a long, rich, nourishing creative life.

How do you approach your creativity? What makes it work for you?