THE WHEEL OF CREATIVITY®

The squeeze of the hourglass

We all feel it these days, the squeeze of life’s expansiveness into hours and minutes. Technology has made us more productive, and it has given us more to do. Because we can have more, we want more. We want more living, but we must cram this living into the same number of hours in every day. This means we have to make choices… often between one wonderful thing and another. And what you want today may not be the same things you wanted last year.

Thus, in part four of this series on productivity, I propose:

Step 4:  Act with awareness.

This weekend I had coffee with a lovely woman, an extremely talented artist. She has a big body of work, but no buyers. As she is now in her 60s, she said to me, “I don’t have enough motivation to get out there and sell it.” So, she contemplates giving up painting, destroying the canvases, or giving them away. I hear this all the time, as people all around me try to find the way through the process to close the circle of creativity when their work takes its place in the world.

In the meantime, she works in her garden, cooks and sews. And she enjoys it. But she questions the validity of her lifestyle. She is, I assure you, not alone. Perhaps her priorities have changed; perhaps the outcome she longs for is achievable with a little creative tweaking. But the lack of clarity – which emerges from the chrysalis as new vision – can disempower anyone.

What does your heart tell you?

In order to know how to act so that you are fulfilled at the end of the day – and year – you have to know what you want now. You have to know it the way…

• A seagull knows it wants to fly
• A sunflower knows it wants to see the sun
• A bee knows it needs to pollinate its garden

Once you allow yourself to feel your true longing today, in your heart as well as your mind, the distractions we discussed last week lose their power. Whether your vision now is to sell your work, or to give it away and work in the garden, aligning your actions with it changes your experience of your life.

Minutes and hours… use them or lose them.

And then you have to choose consciously, deliberately many times a day. Today, give yourself the gift of action informed by awareness. Take a moment, close your eyes, breathe deeply, and think about what’s most important to you. What will you regret not doing when you die? Do you want to build a successful business? Nurture your children? Learn to dance? Support a charity?

What are your top five priorities for your life?

• Make a list of the five area of your life you are most passionate about.
• Choose the first item on your list.
• Write one paragraph about what you are committed to in this area.
• Commit to one thing today that you will achieve there, no matter what.
• Do this each day for 21 days, and you will make it a habit.
• At the end of each day, state what you have done, how it felt, and what changed as a result.

See what a difference you can create in 21 days. And share your happy results!

If you need a little encouragement, or you have any other questions you’d like me to answer… please post them here or on the Wheel of Creativity Facebook page.

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In the last 24 hours, I have listened to otherwise successful people talk about:

• Being so busy that they can’t meet a friend for lunch… all month
• Being so stressed out that they are feeling dizzy on their feet
• Developing sciatica because they are sitting at the computer too much
• Setting timers to remember to breathe or move their bodies

When I hear stories like this, which I hear a lot now, I have to ask, “Is this really how we want to live?”

Is this what it takes to be productive?

Today’s post is the third in a four-step series on enjoying productivity. Step 1 was to take time out, stepping back from the urgent to make space for the important. Step 2 was to reconnect with your vision, while leaving space for things to work out differently. Today’s post is:

Step 3. Accept the distractions, and learn to set boundaries.

Life is distracting, today more than ever. Never have there been more means to your ideal end, more possibilities for solutions, more opportunities to seize. But one person’s opportunity is another person’s distraction. And if you try to do everything, you will soon succeed at nothing.

As Stephen Covey so wisely advised, “Before you climb the ladder of success, make sure it’s leaning against the right wall.” So, that begs the question…

What is a distraction?

Macmillan Dictionary defines a distraction as:

1. something that gets your attention and prevents you from concentrating on something else
2. an activity that you can do for fun or entertainment.

A highly efficient society assumes that every distraction deserves to have the word evil before it. I love this definition, because it doesn’t demonize the thing; it even accentuates its positive, fun and entertaining side. Distractions are neutral. It’s your responses that give them their positive or negative charge.

Structure your pleasure!

Limits give you freedom to enjoy life’s pleasures without fearing they will overrun you. Structuring distractions allows what you love to inspire your work. So, just for today…

• Name your biggest distraction.
• Determine how much time you need to give it for balance in your life.
• Commit to someone that you will do it.
• Do it.
• When you go back to work, observe how the quality of your work has changed.

I invite you to share your observations here or on the Wheel of Creativity Facebook page.

And join me here next Monday for the final step, and insights and actions you can take to put the pleasure back in productivity.

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What kinds of thoughts are occupying your mind today? If you were to take 30 seconds now, could you retrace your mental navigation over the past five minutes? Are your thoughts worth the space they’re using in your mind? Are they paying the rent? Or are they costing you your full sense of aliveness?

Today’s post is the second in my June series on making productivity fun again.

Last week we talked about taking time out for yourself in order to reconnect with what’s really important to you. I asked you to choose one thing you long to do when you’re caught up in urgency, schedule it and do it. How did that go? Did you manage it? If not, take five minutes now to go back to the June 4 post and do that before you move on to this week’s post.

From taking time out, now we move on to…

Step 2:  Reconnect with your vision, and hold it lightly.

What is this thing we call a ‘vision’? Every explorer – whether geographical, scientific or entrepreneurial – starts with a theory, an expectation or an idea. But the way you envision an outcome is not always the way things turn out in the end. Columbus did not find land where he expected it. Edison’s first thousand light bulbs were failures.

Disappointments come in all shapes and sizes:

• Maybe you’ve lost or are threatened with losing your job.
• Maybe the love of your life has suddenly become a stranger.
• Maybe your once-loving teenager now wants nothing to do with you.

But the emptiness you feel when your dream does not come true is the container into which life’s creative energy can flow, if you stay open to other possibilities.

Take a moment, close your eyes, breathe deeply, and think about one breakdown in your life – one situation in your life where things aren’t working out the way you want them to.

• Describe the issue in one sentence.
• Then write a sentence or two about how you thought it would be.
• Remember the feeling you had before the breakdown occurred, when your vision was still pure possibility.
• Reconnect with what you saw then, and write your thoughts and feelings.
• Now name three other possible ways this vision might have unfolded, other than the way it did.

How you respond when things don’t turn out they way you think ‘they’re supposed to’ not only determines your level of productivity, but your enjoyment of the ride.

I can’t tell you how many times in my life I have started out at Point A, clearly on my way to Point B, when halfway there Point C appeared on the horizon. The moment when I have realized it was to Point C where I was headed all the time, I am suddenly at home in my life. When I’ve been willing to hold my original vision lightly, the detour was in fact better than the plan.

Stay tuned in June.

Throughout the month of June, I will cover one of these four steps every Monday in The Wheel of Creativity blog. Join me for the rest of the month for actions designed to give you insights into the issues you face in your life today.

If there are specific issues you’d like me to address… please post them here or on the Wheel of Creativity Facebook page.

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For many of us in the Western world, productivity is the number one priority of the day.  But the attempt to stay ahead of every curve comes with costs:  tension, anxiety, stress, and ineffectiveness, to name a few.

What if you could reframe productivity to accomplish more and feel better each day?

“Are we having fun yet?”

I’d like to offer another perspective on productivity.

Productivity is the natural state of all living things. As long as your heart is beating, you are flowing life force energy. It is creative, and it is productive. And you are always producing.

• Your mind is producing thoughts.
• Your body is producing sensations.
• Your heart is producing emotions.
• Your spirit is producing intuition.

Just like a flowering plant or fruit-bearing tree, you are growing, leafing, blossoming and bearing fruit every minute of every day. These four aspects of your human nature add up to produce what you call “results.” With them, you create your life.

• Are you nourished by your produce?
• Are you happy with your yield?

Yes? Congratulations! Share with us how you did it!

No? Let’s take a closer look at your life. What do happy, productive people do to keep the fun in productivity?

Four simple steps to be happy and productive:

1. Take time out.
2. Reconnect with your vision, and hold it lightly.
3. Accept the distractions, and learn to set boundaries.
4. Act with awareness.

Step 1:  Take time out.

The process of life itself always serves to realign you – mind, body, spirit and heart – when you respond to it well. But the tyranny of the urgent hunts us all. It’s crucial to step back from the urgent to make space for the important.

So, for this week, just one simple task. List three or more of your favorite things, things you long to do when you’re revving. Here are a few ideas to get you going…

1. Crank up the music and dance.
2. Get into the serious dirt at the back of the oven and get it out of there.
3. Get your hiking boots on and go for a 10-mile mountain trek.
4. Spend all day Sunday with the newspaper and an endless cup of coffee.
5. Step away from the computer for five minutes and sweep the floor.
6. Make a lovely meal, with 5-star presentation.

Don’t censor anything! This is about what pleases you, what springs spontaneously from your core. These are things you can count on to reconnect you with yourself, when you need it.

Now, choose one, put the time in your calendar this week and do it.

By learning to develop all four aspects of your humanity together, you will not only manifest your vision, you will also enjoy the process, because the process itself will gather up the scattered parts of you and put you back together.

Stay tuned in June.

Each Monday in June, I will cover one of these four steps here in The Wheel of Creativity blog. Join me throughout the month for insights and actions you can use and apply to the real issues you face each day.

I’d like to know your biggest challenges, so that I can address them in these posts. Please post them here or on the Wheel of Creativity Facebook page. I assure you, you’re not the only one facing them.

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