The Awesome Power of Focus and Flow
It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you are pursuing your truth.
This article was originally published on LinkedIn in May of 2022. I’m reposting it here as part of moving my writing to my own platform…
I’m freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee... I quit my “amazing” job 2 weeks ago and it has been a rollercoaster of emotions that I wasn’t quite prepared for even though I’d been working towards that goal for weeks. All the feelings all the time… Exhilaration, joy, terror, twinges of regret, relief, guilt… you name it, I’ve felt it almost continuously for the last 2 weeks. But things are starting to calm down inside my overactive limbic system and the frontal cortex is starting to process the most important question…
OK, now what?
I had soooooo many amazing well wishes on all the platforms, and the common theme was “Can’t wait to see what’s next!” Careful readers might have noticed that I did NOT outline my plan for what I was going to do when I told the world that I was quitting my amazing job. That was on purpose. I definitely DO have a plan, but the emotion of that moment was too big to write about anything other than getting clear of my old self.
In my last article I said that I’m a calculated risk taker and that I don’t do much of anything without thinking it through first. You can’t have a plan unless you have a goal, and now with a bit of space from the emotion of jumping ship from an “amazing” job, I’m ready to say out loud in a sentence what my goal is…
I want to build a “creative life”.
Hmmm... I guess that's a nice goal, but what’s your plan??
I’m getting there Snarky!!! Phase one of the plan needs context to explain!
I used to be a guy who created things and taught people how to create things, but for the last 11 years I slowly put that version of myself aside because I thought I needed to grow into some “new person”. For years now, I’ve helped a lot of people create things and I’ve helped a lot of people teach people how to create, but I haven’t created much myself.
Those years were NOT wasted though. I planned and initiated the creation of nearly 1000 courses… strategy, educational need, schedule, table of contents, instructor recruitment, coordinating with production… each of those projects starts with a conversation. I learned a ton about building relationships, project management and strategy.
BUT helping people create is not the same as creating. It requires a completely different mindset. The job of “Content Manager” is all about planning and starting projects. To do that you have to have A LOT of meetings with A LOT of people. You have almost ZERO time for concentration. In all these years, I haven’t had any stretches of deep focus.
A “Content Manager” is kinda the exact opposite mindset of a “Content Creator” who dives into a single project and brings it to fruition. Content Manager is much more akin to shoveling coal into a locomotive. The fire can’t go out and you have to keep shoveling to keep the train moving forward.
Nice metaphor, but what the F is your plan!!??
(Deep calming breath)
My plan is to start making things as often as possible.
WTF?? All this buildup and THAT is your magic plan?
LOL the best plans are not usually complicated. But the devil is in the doing AND the details. In this case, the “devil” is that I need to “remember” how to create things. Content creation is a very different mindset from content management and to shift to this new mindset, the first thing I need to do is retrain my mind for creation.
Just like Stella, I need to get my groove back. And by “groove” I mean FOCUS. Content Managers don’t have the chance to focus on anything. It’s a constant barrage of stuff to do. Phase one of my plan is about retraining myself to concentrate on one task for long periods of time instead of the constant switch tasking I’ve been doing for more than a decade. And here’s where the plan details start…
Phase One, Step 1 - eliminate distractions.
Kill as many notifications as possible.
No meetings before lunch.
No email or texting before lunch.
No newsfeed before lunch.
Notifications: It’s impossible to focus if there are things chirping on your phone, bouncing in your dock and clambering for your attention. There really isn’t anything important happening on my phone except for when my family needs to contact me.
Meetings: It’s also impossible to focus on creation when you’re talking to someone. I still need to talk to people, and I enjoy it, but I need to create more than I need to talk.
Email and texting: It can wait!! It is a non-linear mode of communication. If it's actually urgent they would call!
Newsfeed: It is depressing AND distracting. I wish I could disable it completely on my devices but google has bills to pay. (Yes, I’m on Android, but Apple is just as guilty)
Phase One, Step 2 - Build a new daily routine
My old work life was centered around having as many meetings as possible, but with the remote nature of my work I could have meetings anywhere, so I built my routines around getting out of the house and into the world on a regular basis. Thank the Universe, I don’t need to have meetings anymore, so I need to restructure my day to be at home on my workstation for my most productive morning hours.
This itinerary is my “goal” for each day. It’s what I strive for but I’m not a robot and life happens, so I can’t beat myself up if I get off routine because of things I can’t control, and if I get myself off routine with one of the distractions above, then I take a page from the meditation playbook and GENTLY put myself back on task.
Wake-up
Stretching
Morning walk/meditation
Make coffee
CREATION TIME
Late Lunch
Catch up on email
Short creating session
Afternoon exercise OR guitar practice
Dinner and chilling for the evening
You might notice that I don’t have any times on this itinerary. That is because I’m trying to break myself of the rigid time based thinking I’ve been operating in where the day is broken up into available meeting slots that need to get filled. The goal is to spend “the morning” on creating.
“Creating” could mean sketching ideas or experimenting with a particle system or watching a tutorial about materials and lights in Redshift or recording the process of modeling a complex object for sharing on the socials or even writing an article. An important part of this is going to be deciding what to work on. I want to decide ahead of time what I’m going to do each day and stick to that thread otherwise I’ll be jumping from idea to idea and never going deep on anything.
Sooooooo how’s it going?
The past week has been all about figuring out these new habits and implementing them slowly. To do that, I set a short term goal…
Learning the Redshift workflow between Cinema 4D and Davinci Resolve by creating a short logo animation driven by music.
So much has changed in software and techniques since I was last really creating and starting on a small project like this is a good way to get my feet wet in technical process without getting bogged down. It’s nothing fancy, but there are a ton of new techniques in this short animation. It's also an illustration of what you can accomplish in a short time when you have huge blocks of time to focus...
That is the beginning of my plan to “build a creative life”. I’m knee deep in phase one right now, and I’ve had some small wins I’m very proud of. But, it has also been much harder than I thought it would be to break those old habits, and I’ve had to work every day to reach that ideal itinerary I listed above.
How are YOU working to make changes in your life? We’d love to hear about it in the comments!
