Creative Time instead of ToDo lists

Even though I’ve managed to ship quite a few things in recent years I struggle to find the time for my personal projects. It’s not that I’m unorganised, I have an ordered list of things to do next. It’s not that there’s no time, I’ve been a minimalist for many years and I’ve cut our most time thieves from my life. But I still struggle.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while and Charbel, a designer I admire and was fortunate enough to have as a mentor through 500 startups, shared this insight with me:

Key distinction. I've been trying to track my energy vs stress. Easy to think I'm just stressed. Different when I realize my energy is low, and there are activities I can do to rev energy up. e.g. Send sales/bizdev messages, engage in conversations, ship something useful, etc.

— Charbel (@charbeliam) August 14, 2019

I spent a day or so thinking about this before I realised that I might not be able to do my creative work when I’m blasting through todos while low on energy.

That’s why I’m testing out a new thing. Starting this week I’m no longer planning out my personal projects too much. Instead I’m planning Creative Time, and picking any project that excites me, and I’m working on that. The focus is going to be on always shipping something, but since excitement often wanes, the things I ship will probably be small.

I’ll try this strategy for a month and let you know.

• Next: The How