Staying Focused

Creative people collect projects the way that lonely old ladies collect cats. There are always projects laying around and begging for attention. Then we feel guilty because we have all these projects languishing and none of them are getting the attention they need.

I’ve known many creative people. I am one. I know that creative people get seized by an idea and bend everything else around the idea or project. Then they grow weary and are seized by a new idea. To succeed creatively you have to find ways to break the cycle of seizure and abandonment. The following are some of the ways that I’ve figured out how to stay focused and bring a project to completion.

Define goals: Pick a time when you are not enthralled by a project. Create a quiet space where you can look at your life and what you want to do with it. If you are happy with your day job, then your creative endeavors will just be a hobby for you. Hobby projects get different treatment than hope-for-the-future projects. It is perfectly acceptable to abandon a hobby if it gets difficult or boring. But if you are one of the many who want to make a living on creative endeavors, then you have to find a way not to abandon projects when they inevitably become boring or difficult. By defining your long term goals you provide a measuring stick for all your projects. I would love my house to be beautifully decorated, but for me that is a hobby project. It has to give way before book production projects which pay our bills. I know this because I know that I hope to be an author not an interior decorator. Knowing this helps me to rein myself in when I really want to tear down walls and repaint everything.

Define goals by asking yourself where you want to be in 5, 10, 20 years. Then each time you are seized by a fantastic idea, ask yourself if the idea is contributing to your goals or detracting from them. Periodically re-evaluate your long term goals. As your life changes, they may change too.

Make a project out of finishing projects: When the project is new, it grabs me and runs. That phase of the project is thrilling. Then my enthusiasm wanes and I decide whether the project is worth the time necessary to bring it to completion. If it is not, I abandon it completely without guilt. If I do want to have it done, then I dare myself to complete it. I start feeling compelled to finish just to show that I could get it all done.

Schedule time: Pick a time of the day that is devoted to your creative project. The positioning and length of this time will be dependent on other factors in your life. Some people may only have 30 minutes per week for creative endeavors. Others may have two hours per day. The point is that during that scheduled time you are only allowed to work on your project. Plan ahead for the scheduled time and put yourself in a place where you can get it done. This may mean getting a babysitter and going to a library. It may mean getting up at 5 am. It may mean cleaning the house so that you don’t feel cluttered and guilty. But create that sacrosanct project space in your life.

Make a chart: Track the progress of your project. If you’re quilting, count completed squares. If you’re writing a novel cross off chapters as you finish them. Having a visual representation of how much work you’ve done and how much is left to do can be extremely motivating.

Know there will be hard bits: At the beginning of your project take a few minutes to map out the steps needed to complete it. Look closely at these steps to identify which ones will be quagmires or roadblocks to the project. Spend some time thinking about how to overcome these challenges. Do all of this before you hit the difficult spots so that you are mentally prepared for things to be difficult. Writing my children’s book was fun. Getting the pictures from the artist was enthralling. Laying everything out was something that I wasn’t sure how to do and was daunting. So I lined up help for that piece long before I needed it.

Collaborate: Working with someone else provides an additional impetus for completing a project. Sometimes you’re both excited together and that is wonderful. Other times one partner is excited and the other is not. Then the excited partner can rekindle the excitement of the other partner. Alternately, a sense of responsibility can keep the unexcited partner working anyway in an effort not to let the other down. Collaboration is not all roses. There is the possibility that your partner will abandon or change the project. However collaboration has the potential to be very rewarding.

Enlist a cheering squad: Howard would not be doing Schlock Mercenary today if there had not been fans emailing to tell him how much they loved it. I know several people who finished their first novel simply because someone else bugged them for the next chapter. Find friends, neighbors, family who will cheer for you and encourage you to finish what you have begun. Then be brave enough to share your endeavors with these people.

I’m sure that there are other ways to stay focused. If you think of one, please post it in the comments so that others can benefit from the idea. As for me, I need to go work on a project now.