Posts in tips
Finding Time to Finish Projects

When it comes to creative projects I’ve been able to spend blissful hours (or chunks of an hour) working away on one thing, whether it is putting words on pages, making pottery, cutting and prepping fabric for a quilt, or crocheting something. That deep focused time, where I’m working on just one thing at a time has been a sweet refuge for my spirit. But how do I find time to finish my project(s)?

I’m really glad you asked.

One of the things I did take from both working on my degree and my office job, where I had to balance so many projects at once, was to work backwards from a deadline. There are many different project management theories and steps on how to do things, but this is what works for me

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Embarrassed to Admit: I Still Hesitate to Ask Questions

Everyone has questions. Sometimes we don’t know which questions to ask, because we don’t know what we don’t know yet. Or how to phrase the question to get the answer we’re actually looking for.  Have you experienced that, too? We just don’t know what to ask because we’re so new, we’re drinking in all the instructions and trying to see how everything fits together. Learning is an amazing thing, but it can be difficult and frustrating.

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Creativity is Passion in Action

You may want a piece of art for your wall, a nice abstract swooshy thing, but can’t quite find the one that matches your decor. Pick up a canvas and some paint, and see what happens. It probably won’t look the way you want it to at first, but that’s okay — the beauty of canvas and paint is that you can paint over what you don’t like and start again. (Just wait for the paint to dry first.)

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What I Learned from "The Gap and The Gain"

The “Gap” represents the space between our current reality where we are today, and where we aspire to be. If you’re always looking at where you want to be and think that you’re not there yet, you’ll always feel a sense of desperation, of lack, of not being good enough.

The “Gain”, however, is the space between where you are today and where you’ve started. That is always the most positive space to be.

From that brief description it might sound like you should never have lofty aspirational goals and should always be reminiscing about the past, but that’s not the truth of the message. Yes, look back to appreciate what you’ve accomplished as you are working towards those lofty goals, because where you are today was once a lofty unreachable goal itself.

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How to Change Your Life in 15 Minutes A Day

I became more intentional about my time. That coincided with when I heard about the 15 minutes a day writing habit through the Christian Book Academy that mentioned above. My writing productivity increased dramatically, so I decided to apply it to other things in my life. I carved out little 15 minute sessions in my day where I had extra time I could go longer if I wanted to, and got to work.

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Reaping the Joys (and Tears) of Quilting

This verse is a reference to sowing seeds for farming; the hardship of whether the seeds will sprout, what the weather will do, whether insects or disease will blight the crop. There is much to stress and worry about and only so much you can do, so you need to have a lot of faith. But come harvest time, there is joy. Few of us farm these days so we may have lost touch with this Psalm, but it still has relevance.

Like I mentioned above, you could apply the same to quilting or other types of creative activity. When you’re quilting there’s all kinds of areas that things can go wrong:

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I Have to Admit - I'm Not Good at Housework

I’m terrible at keeping up with it. I like to think it’s because I’m a creative and so easily distracted (anyone else with me?) Don’t get me wrong, I love to have a clean house, I’m just really bad at making a good habit of it. I’ve always loved a cleanly swept floor. Dusting I’ve always hated; what’s the point? You dust and then the next moment you turn around, and it’s back! It feels like such a waste of time, and I’m passionate about time management. Then the light hits it a certain way, and out comes the duster; I fall for it again.

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Goal Setting

One of the things I love doing when we drive up north is taking pictures of the Canadian Shield rocks pushing out of the ground. They are SOLID! Seeing something so sturdy reminds me of setting goals. 

I never used to set goals, I'd have random wishes like "maybe one day I'll do this..." Then a few years ago I decided to be firm with setting my goals. Three books and a lot of minor goals later, I'd say goal setting works. 

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