Learning to Work in Shorter Intervals

I have been extremely busy and it’s exciting (exciting has been my favorite word of late). My other projects are keeping me away from more free-style writing which is why I haven’t been blogging. It’s all good.

What turned out to be important for this month is the fine-tuning of work schedules; becoming aware of how I need to work. More and more I am learning that it helps to work in shorter time frames. This prevents me from getting frustrated with the project or getting to a point where I want to destroy it and start over. Yes, this means it takes longer to get the project finished, but it allows me to be kinder to myself about the processes, and I find I am happier with what I am doing. Plus, as I often work on multiple projects at time, this allows me to do something on many of them.

Here are some examples of how I work:

When The Muse comes, it isn’t for very long. If I try to force any more, I get frustrated and upset with myself. However, if I walk away for a bit, do something else, then come back, I am more inspired and feel new energy.

The writing muse usually strikes (yes, often it is like a strike) first thing in the morning. She doesn’t stay long and this writing is very inspirational (not so much in a spiritual way, but a life/emotions/lessons way). Words and feeling gush through me and out of me, then suddenly stop. I might get fifteen minutes to an hour.

I get out of the chair to do some physical movement and chores around the house before sitting back down to respond to emails and Facebook messages. Again, no more than an hour and I’m up again moving. This time might find me on the air walker and as I’m doing a workout, I’m studying the drawings on the easels.

Fifteen minutes to half an hour is next spent handling charcoal and pastel. I can’t work very long at one time on a drawing. I have to stand back and walk away – sometimes until my next break from the computer and sometimes a day or a couple days will go by before I feel the urge again.

And so my day goes, in short intervals. I keep a log of what I do so at the end of the day, I can look at my list and see how much I got done. And I feel good about it!

It was hard getting used to this. I wanted to jump into a project and get it done. I’d get frustrated and beat myself up when things didn’t go as planned. I’d get depressed that I wasn’t good enough to call myself a writer, photographer, artist because I’d get angry when the work wasn’t going the way I wanted.

This new attitude has brought renewed energy and joy into all that I’m doing. No, it’s not always perfect, but when I run into a stumbling block, instead of letting the frustration pile up, I just walk away and work on something else. I have been so happy and thankful!

The other day, when I was talking about my new work ethic, someone told me studies have been done where they’ve found people do get more work done and are happier when working in shorter intervals. 

I’m onto something, for sure. Of course it isn’t always possible depending on types of jobs. For instance, when I’m working on weekly deadlines for the newspaper, I can’t be so free with my time.