Ideas come in floods or not at all. Right now the floodwaters are roiling across the surface of my serenity, lapping against the crumbling sand of my island of sanity. Every so often I’m seized by this frenzy of creativity. I want to learn everything, now. I want to do everything, now.
I read a little about blog design this weekend and all the old half-buried interests rose like zombies from their shallow graves. I want to learn to code the blog myself. I want to design the whole thing myself. I want to learn Inkscape, GIMP, take brilliant photos, and write sublime copy. Now.
Such a surge of creative frenzy is exhilarating, but I’ve learned before that I quickly drown if I don’t grab hold of one sturdy idea. One thing at a time, I scold the wild-eyed child inside me. Now, what do you want to do first? That’s the hardest thing. What to choose? I have reasons for all these desires. They’re all marketable skills if I develop them enough. Some of these things come easier than others. And other skills I’ve wanted to learn for a long time. How to choose?
I pretend I am a Zen master. I try to center, calm the demons that gnaw on me. One thing at a time. I decide I will still just write, take photos, and maybe do a little tinkering with a new blog template. I will not let myself check out a book on PHP from the library. I will not spend the whole day working through GIMP tutorials when I should be doing homework. I will breathe in, then out. I will keep my hand moving. I will write.
Think about your creative passions. What moves you so forcefully you can’t focus on anything else? Is it writing, is it starting a new business, is it design? How do you balance your life between love and duty? I have learned, with long experience, that I can’t do everything I want all at once. I need a balance.
When I wrestle with a surge of creative longing, I force myself to think in terms of time constraints. How much time do I really have to spend learning a new skill? Do I want to drop another interest to make time for the new one? I know that if I try to do everything at once, I’ll neglect the things I have to do, burn out, and end up quitting everything just to have a break. It’s a long, slow climb back up the creative mountain after that. I have, in the past, come to resent writing and other things I love because I let them take over my life. I hate how long it takes me to recover my confidence, my skill, and my voice after such a drought.
Now I realize that before leaping into anything new, I need to take the time to step back, examine my life, and choose when and where my new interest fits. Perhaps it doesn’t fit anywhere right now. So I make a note of a book to read on this topic someday. I record my thoughts in my journal. Then I let the idea go. I focus on what I choose, having faith that I’ll come back and renew my interest when the time is right.
Great post! I completely resonate with this situation… Curiously enough, it exactly when those bursts of creativity come that I tend to get the least amount of work done. :)
Thanks, Luciano. That’s exactly how I feel: I don’t get anything done when my attention is split in a million directions.