The Syncreate Podcast: Empowering Creativity
Welcome to Syncreate, where we explore the intersections between creativity, psychology, and spirituality. Our goal is to demystify the creative process and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative.
Creativity. It’s a word we throw around all the time, but what does it really mean? On the Syncreate Podcast, we share stories of the creative journey. We talk to changemakers, visionaries and everyday creatives working in a wide array of fields and disciplines. Our goal is to explore creativity in all its facets, and to gain a better understanding of the creative process – from imagination to innovation and everything in between.
The Syncreate Podcast is hosted by Melinda Rothouse, PhD. She helps individuals and organizations bring their creative dreams and visions to life through coaching, consulting, workshops, retreats, and now, this podcast. She's written two books on creativity, including Syncreate: A Guide to Navigating the Creative Process for Individuals, Teams, and Communities (winner of a Silver Nautilus Award for Creativity and Innovation), with Charlotte Gullick. She's also a musician (singer-songwriter and bass player) and photographer based in Austin, Texas.
The Syncreate Podcast: Empowering Creativity
Episode 43: Creative Spark Series - Time Management & Prioritizing Your Work with Melinda Rothouse & Charlotte Gullick
In this installment of our Creative Spark mini-episodes, we emphasize the importance of time management and prioritizing our creative work. Though we have a vision for a project, we may struggle with how to begin, or it may feel overwhelming. But if we break the process down into manageable goals, milestones, and tasks, we can move from start to finish with more ease. We may also have trouble prioritizing our work, but this is so important for completion and our sense of creative efficacy. This episode, like the mini-episodes that preceded it, includes insights and prompts from our book, Syncreate: A Guide to Navigating the Creative Process for Individuals, Teams, and Communities.
For our Creativity Pro-Tip, we encourage you to put your creative work at the top of your to-do list, and block off time in your calendar, just like you would for any other meeting or appointment, to work on your projects. This is how we create lasting habits and commit fully to our creativity.
Credits: The Syncreate podcast is created and hosted by Melinda Rothouse, and produced at Record ATX studios with in collaboration Michael Osborne and 14th Street Studios in Austin, Texas. Syncreate logo design by Dreux Carpenter.
If you enjoy this episode and want to learn more about the creative process, you might also like our conversations in Episode 20: The Syncreate Model of Play, Plan & Produce, Episode 24: Creative Planning, and Episode 41: Creative Practice, Process, and Product.
At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea for a project or a new venture, and you’re not sure how to get it off the ground, find us at syncreate.org. Our book walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your creative goals. We also offer resources, creative process tools, and coaching to help you bring your work to the world. You can find more information on our website, where you can also find all of our podcast episodes. Find and connect with us on social media and YouTube under Syncreate. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review!
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Melinda: Welcome to Syncreate, a show where we explore the intersections between creativity, psychology and spirituality. We believe everyone has the capacity to create. Our goal is to demystify the process and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative. I'm Melinda Rothouse and I help individuals and organizations bring their dreams and visions to life.
Charlotte: And I'm Charlotte Gulick. I'm a writer, educator, and writing coach. We're the coauthors of a book on the creative process, also called, Syncreate.
Melinda: At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. So if you have an idea for a project or new venture, please reach out to us for 1x1 coaching.
Charlotte: Hey, everyone, we're back with a podcast quickie on creativity and some quick bits for you to think about. And today we're talking about time management and prioritizing your work.
Melinda: Yes. So why is this important? So sometimes the larger goal can feel very overwhelming. You know, we may have a vision for a project and we know where we want to get to, but all the steps that it's going to take to get there feels like, how am I ever going to do this, right?
So it can be helpful to figure out, you know, where do we need to start? Like, what's the first thing that needs to happen? And breaking things down into, you know, certain goals, milestones, and tasks along the way so that we can make incremental progress toward our goals.
And we even have, like, a Syncreate, you know, creative project timeline template (that, if you want to email us, we can send it to you) that just helps kind of, you know, helps you visually break down the process, because, you know, we're, we're big believers in, you know, baby steps, small steps, consistently get us to where we need to go. And we can't do it all at once.
Charlotte: I think, so for a lot of, my belief is that, through experience and through working with others, is that when we are trying to find our way in the creative process, we might be a little bit tentative. And we're not sure if we should actually give our time to this thing, because who are we to write that novel, or compose that song, or paint that painting?
And so it's, to have faith in ourselves is very difficult to do. And so time management and prioritizing your work really go hand in hand, to build the confidence that we need in order to get where we want to go. I also think that a lot of folks in the creative arts can be people pleasers.
Melinda: Mmm.
Charlotte: And that's why we want to be in the, express ourselves, is ‘cause we want to be known, other than the ways that we make other people feel comfortable.
Melinda: Mmm Hmm.
Charlotte: So let's say it's a Saturday and you have a to do list. And, you know, for many years, I would put my writing at that bottom of the to do list, and now I put it at the top, because I don't want it to be the thing that slips away.
And when you, when you don't have a lot of concrete evidence that your work is meaningful and that you are really talented enough to do your creative thing, it's easy to be like, well, I'm going to not do that thing, and I'll go help somebody else move. And I think that putting our stuff at the top of the list, we send a message to ourselves. And then we also learn to trust ourselves around time management.
Melinda: Yeah, yeah. So just kind of picking up on that, right? So, you know, anybody who's working on any kind of creative work, it's important to carve out and protect that creative time. You know? And that's both, like, the imagining, thinking, dreaming up time and the actual time at the desk, or on the instrument, or in the studio, whatever that is.
You know, there's so many temptations, and so many demands on our time, like you were saying, you know. And, and that sort of urgent versus important kind of thing, like, well, you know, this person wants me to do this, and I've got to get this thing done. And, you know, all these things seem really urgent. So I've got to put them in front. And so we have to be almost like, vigilant or disciplined in really carving out that time for our creative work. So, yes.
Charlotte: I would add –
Melinda: Yeah.
Charlotte: I would add to that, that, you know, in that carving, and in that discipline, for me, I've had to learn that I can do that with a lot of love and compassion.
Melinda: Mmm.
Charlotte: But I actually can show up better for other people when I have connected to myself and my creativity. So, I mean, I, like, “I am going to be a ninja! And no one's gonna – And you're a jerk for even asking!” You know, like that kind of like, almost a violent approach to prioritizing my work. And then, you know, with the more I do it, the easier I can calm down and like, oh, I have to have discipline around this, because nobody else is going to value this or prioritize it unless I do.
Melinda: That's it. That's it. Right? I mean, we have to be the guardians and the gatekeepers of our own creative time because no one else is going to do it for us. Yeah.
Charlotte: And building on what you said about, like, the competition for our attention is extreme.
Melinda: Mmm Hmm.
Charlotte: So like, and not knowing, and we've talked about this before, but not knowing what we're doing is part of the creative process. And if we start to fill that in with other people's creative ideas, then we're actually interrupting our relationship with ourselves and our creativity.
Like for me, it's Instagram. Like scrolly, scrolly, scrolly.
Melinda: Yeah.
Charlotte: And I just learned that you can put it on grayscale. And it, It changes it. It's not interesting.
Melinda: That is interesting.
Charlotte: I was like, I'm only going to do, you know, this much time of, you know, Instagram a day. But, like, or maybe that's, or it becomes my reward for having prioritized my own work.
Melinda: Yeah.
Charlotte: But like you said, that, that guardian, and I think a compassionate guardian of our work allows us so that we can be a better citizen in the creative community.
Melinda: Yes. Yes, absolutely. And, you know, we've kind of touched on this before. You know, some of us work best in the morning, some in the evening. But, you know, it can be helpful to find that time, you know, especially if you've got kids or whatever, either first thing in the morning, or late at night or, you know, a time when there aren't a million other things going on.
So everyone's schedule and rhythm is a little bit different. But once you find that time, then you can start to build a routine around it.
So our Pro-Tip today is to prioritize your work and put it at the top of your to do list, not at the bottom, and actually block out time in your calendar. This can be so helpful.
Like, any other meeting that you have, any other appointment. Like, block out chunks of time for your creative work, and approach it just like you would any other meeting or any other commitment. And you know, see what happens.
Do this over the course of a week or two and notice what happens. Even if you maybe didn't quite hit the goal, you probably came further than you would have if you hadn't blocked that time off.
And over time, you know, after a month or so, then it starts to feel like a habit. You know, you've created a habit that you can really run with.
Charlotte: And I think the, the muscle memory of it is so important, because then it just makes entry into the creative process so much easier each time.
Melinda: Mmm. For sure.
Charlotte: Find and connect with us on YouTube and social media under Syncreate, and we're now on Patreon as well. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review.
Melinda: And we're recording today at Record ATX Studios in Austin, Texas, with Charlotte joining us from the Hudson Valley. And the podcast is produced in collaboration with Mike Osborne at 14th Street Studios. Thanks so much for being with us, and see you next time.
