Transcripts
1. Introduction: I'm back. Hello Skillshare, I've missed you. I'm so excited. I had been working towards
this day for five months. Welcome to the class that puts an investment into the
thing that matters most. You. You are the change-maker,
visionary creator, designer of your
life, and therefore, you are your creativity's
most valuable asset. If you've been hitting some
creative roadblocks lately, trust me, you're not alone and this class is
definitely for you. Let's be honest as creatives. The first thing we throw out when we're stressed is ideas. I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know how to
work through doubt. I didn't know how to plan
out all the detailed steps. I didn't know how to separate my mental health from
my creative health and how to make sure I was assisting myself all the
way to the finish line, not just certain parts
of the finish line. As a neuro divergence, I discovered really quickly in childhood that I didn't
process information, ideas, or even how to
complete a thought in the same way as other children
and still other adults. I grew up with severe
generalized anxiety disorder, harm obsessive
compulsive disorder. I now, I'm in recovery for complex post-traumatic
stress disorder and I'm suicide survivor. From childhood to adulthood, I can confidently say
that every one of us needs their own way of
processing information. There's definitely
universal truths out there, but when it comes to creativity, it's not a one-size
fits all solution, and regardless of
your background, your age, your makeup, the way you process, your diagnosis sees or not, we all need to find our
own personalized workflow. If you're finding
that you're hitting a pattern or
continual roadblocks, you really want to cut out
that investment for yourself, and we're going to do
that in this class. What I discovered is that we are put in educational systems, in career and workplace systems, and we are tasked to try
to change ourselves, change our ways of thinking
to meet a universal standard. I wasn't actually
seeing the core root of maybe why my
creativity was suffering, why I was hitting burnout, why I was having anxiety when I came to the point of creating, why I procrastinated
when creating a project. Once I realized that the education system,
my career system, designed by other people, designed for other intentions, might be a foundational root
as to why I was struggling. I decided to dedicate
six months of my life to research,
sorting it out, doing trial and error, and I found that
process to alleviate most of my mental stress
when it comes to creation. It's something I use
today for every project, and I want to share
that with you and I put it
together so that you can build your own process
that's just for you. I promise you that this
is a one-stop shop. It's all that you need
and I really hope you learn something from this
process building today.
2. The Power of Process: When I was young, my parents were advised to keep their expectations
low about my future. I was testing well below average in reading
and comprehension. I had other disabilities, so I'm partially paralyzed
on my left side. I have minor cerebral palsy and that also impacted
my intellectual side. I didn't process things as
quickly as other students. I needed extra help
and then of course, I also had the mental
side with my emotions, with anxiety and panic attacks and needing extra aid
than the average student. My parents, myself are continually told that
we just need to accept the standard that I'm
at and not really reach for anything above the set
bar that was placed for me. There was a really
powerful moment that I got to witness with my parents sitting in front of these professionals who
honestly had good intentions. But my parents had a really simplistic response and it stuck with
me to this day, and that answer was no. Oftentimes, we hear the word no and we're a little
bit jarred by but it's something that
we see as a negative. But I think no can be
a really good word. When they said no, it wasn't with the intention of adding pressure to me saying no, she's going to be at
that above average bar. The no was that the process that was being set before me and the way I was going about being tested or learning or
in that environment, just didn't work for me. They were saying no to the
ecosystem I was put in. When we reshifted
our mindset from no, we're going to be explorers
instead of acceptors, that changed me as a student. It changed me as a young child and it's
changed me as an adult. If you're in an ecosystem, whether that's your workplace, whether it's your home with
your family or your school, or anything
professionally for you, know that you can
use the word no. You do not have to accept the way that you're
doing things now, it might feel like it's
out of your hands. But I promise you
that if you put on your explorer cap and you
promise yourself that you're going to find ways that work for you
individually and not just accept the standard that's placed for
you and the path, you're going to discover amazing and awesome
things about yourself. The exercises we're doing in this class are going
to do just that. When we have to change our
mindset to exploration, it's going to require us to have new conversations with
ourselves, with others. A lot of trial and error. These exercises are
going to help you begin that process and start exploring your mind
and creativity, as well as really jarring
words like failure and rejection and success in
a completely new way. Look, if you've had setbacks, if you'd had
struggles or doubts, you're right there
with the rest of us, congratulations. You are human. Suffering and
struggle and failure is a part of our build
and nature and design. Why not build a process that contributes to healing and
getting over those hurdles? Why not create a
process that helps really budget time for
failure and setbacks? I think today we have
such a go mentality, which is awesome in some ways, but it doesn't let us really
be mindful of burnout, of these rejections or setbacks. I wanted to redefine the process workflow
scenario and how I built it. In this class, we're going
to be making sure that we're attributing and accounting for suffering and things like that. When I did that
for me personally, it really changed not
just my short-term goals, but it really impacted the long-term goals and
all the hits I was taking, I just kept getting up and getting up because
I can lean back on my process as rest and know that I was still making
really good progress.
3. The Secret Sauce: Now I'm going to introduce
you to what I like to call my personal jar
of secret sauce. This is three things, three mantras that
I have personally developed over the
last couple of years. That I lean back into and remind myself of
when things get tough, when I start something new, like building a whole process
or undertaking a project. Having little
mantras seem small, but I want to share these things with you
and encourage you to steal them or make your
own secret sauce mantras. We're getting into this before the exercises
because I really want to lay the groundwork as to how we're thinking
about ourselves, our creative process,
and our goals. Jumping right in, the first
one that I love to lean into and remind myself of
is doing, is succeeding. What that does is when
we have to explore and create our realities through
choices and goal-setting. That is the pivotal first step from taking something
as a thought, as an imaginative idea, and moving that into
reality so that we feel empowered to create and
layout actionable steps. Take it from an idea to
a completed project. The problem is as
creative is we're really good at doubting ourselves
as human beings even. We'd like to use
statements like, I think I might, or I'm going to become, or I hope to be. I love to erase all of
those things and just say, I am a writer, I am a content maker, I am a chef. What that does is that it reminds you that you
have all the tools you need at whatever season or stage of your
life you are at. Of course, you're
going to get better. Of course you're going to hit new milestones and
you're going to evolve and create more
and that's awesome. But we want to make sure that we are actually
constantly reminding ourselves that we have
the power to take those ideas and make
them a reality and know that we have everything
it takes inside of us and with a good process
to make it happen. My second secret
sauce definition is when I fail or get a no, it just means not yet. This might again seem like a
super small mindset to have, but I used to take
rejection really poorly. I used to take the nose
or the pause points in my projects and just
take it as a sign from the universe that I
was not meant to be insert, title, or project person. It's really helped me again rely and lean
into the foundation, the hard work I put
into my process. Just go back to that
every day and chisel away at the marble
until the statue is revealed and not think about
all the emotional ties of a hiccup or a no or an
opinion from someone else. You have to remind yourself, that when you pursue something
if you put energy into it, you will get an outcome. It just might not be the
outcome you expect or want immediately or maybe it doesn't line up with
your expectations, but it's still an outcome. Friends, if you
are chiseling away every day or every
week at your dreams, your goals, your projects, your creativity, you
will get somewhere. My last mantra is probably
the most important, and it also is the most basic. Isn't that true that
the trickiest things are the smallest little
pieces in the puzzle? That is, I define success. The reason that that
statement is so impactful, especially today because
as creatives were very exposed to the world
through technology, through social media,
we have a lot of access to inspiration,
which is awesome. I love Pinterest. I love Instagram. But it also creates a space in our minds
and mindset that we need to shift and evolve and reform our definition
of success constantly. We're moving that bar around. We're shifting our expectations. I need to have this
done by this age. It needs to look like this. It needs to have this award. It needs to have this
type of reaction. Otherwise, it's not successful. When we make that shift
around constantly, we start to lose what our original intentions
are behind the project. Most likely you're pursuing a project because it
has meaning to you. It means something to you. Later in this course, we're going to teach you about
how to do that and how to brainstorm well so that it's
very tailored to your heart. But the problem when we have different
definitions of successes, we don't really
know to feel with our processes of working with
our success and ourselves. Defining success for
you allows you to level set reasonable expectations in the season of life
that you're in. Really feel proud
of who you are as a creative individual
and not with the bar and expectation of
the world's because guys, that's so much pressure. The path to success
can be your own, not the most traveled. Which is why I like to view myself and you
guys as explorers. You are constantly going down this winding road and I want to show you how we can
do that together. Again, you can create
your own process for any project of any size for
your life specifically. With that being said, let's jump into the next
section so we can get started.
4. Debunking 3 Common Productivity Myths: [MUSIC] Before we dive
into the class project, we got to get something
out of the way. I mean, I hear this all the time and it is myths
about productivity. I'm going to take you through my top three myths
about productivity and I hope it lays the
groundwork before we dive into our class
project. Number 1. In order to get a project finished or to be
successful as a person, you need to maximize
every second of your day. There's a huge
difference between being efficient and productive than having to buy into hustle
culture and thinking that you need to work around the clock in order to define
yourself as successful. One, this goes back to that. You define success and what that looks like to your
families needs to yours, personal needs to
your joyful needs and understand that if you have an effective and
efficient workflow which we're going
to build today, then you don't need to
work around the clock. You need rest. You need to turn
off your computer, turn off your phone. You need to go and explore
other parts of life and that is where
you're going to get a lot of your creativity from. The roll-out, the
hustle culture mindset. Yes, it's important
to work hard. I worked really hard. I work many hours of the day, but they're impactful
hours and that's what allows me to rest
the rest of the day, not to be redundant [LAUGHTER]. Myth number 2, you need to set big goals
to achieve big things. Look, setting huge
mountainous goals is awesome. Everest, the moon,
whatever you want, I do it, you should do it. Dream big, think why the
world is your oyster. Awesome. However, what happens to some creatives
if they set those big, huge goals, but they don't take the time to break
that mountain down, crumble it from giant
forms of rock to boulders to smaller
rocks, to pebbles, to sand and when we
set these big goals, we cannot think that success
only lies at the peak. It lies at all the
trails and pivots and turns and plateaus
in the process as we hit smaller milestones. We break it down into bite-size
pieces, set big goals. But achieving a goal and
success is at many stages of the process and that big goal is more
of a guiding point. It also shouldn't
be your only point. It's important to have moral
goals and emotional goals as well that may be fit into that big project driven
goal or experience. But that could change and life changes us and the creative
process changes us. Be flexible with
that mountain goal and look at other mountains. This is my favorite
one because I hear it all the time every
day [LAUGHTER]. I myself use to say it
quite often and that is procrastination
means that I'm lazy. Too often we hear the words procrastination and
lazy used interchangeably. They are not the same thing. A lot of people I know,
including myself, used to peg laziness as a personality trait and
that I'm a lazy person. I don't have a lot of
energy and so therefore my procrastination is
normal acceptable, it's part of my identity
and it's unchangeable. Now, I'm not trying to debunk potential
mental conditions. I have many, as I said, that could get in the way of being productive or maybe yes, having fatigue, needing rests. Those are all really
important things. Procrastination is a
form of avoidance. I do it with lots of
things like taxes and money and all the unfun things
and hard conversations. If you procrastinate, if you use the blanket
statement of laziness, you are not alone. All of us have done it, but just identify when
that happens that you're avoiding and last I checked, if you want to
achieve something, you can avoid it. We're going to give you
a process that makes you feel excited to get up every day and chisel away at that giant big mountain
rock thing [LAUGHTER].
5. Our Class Project: Guys, we are at the best part of why we're all here today and
that is the class project. We are actually going
to have you build your own template that you can use on big projects,
small projects. Guys, I really mean that. I mean from planning
a dinner party with your in-laws to
literally undertaking the biggest project
of your life like a giant speech or a mural painting or
whatever big is to you. What we're going to be
using today at least for demonstrations is a
platform called Milanote. I use it for everything. It's super easy, but you don't have to use it to participate in this class. You can use a blank
piece of paper, a Word doc, a Google doc, whatever your preference is. I have friends that have
trial runs of this project with me and use bullet
journals and sticky notes. You do you, but I'm going to
be showing you on a software on my computer
called Milanote, and I'd encourage
you to check it out. Milanote just for those
that are interested is a professional workspace tool that is designed for creatives. It has a bullet
journal feel to it. It has all those sidebar
tools that your heart desires from to-do list to setting deadlines to creating
different mood-boards, sections for brainstorming,
for getting inspiration. It can be on your
phone, your iPad, your laptop, your computer,
whatever you want. It's personally the
tool that I use as a professional art
director in the industry. It's also something
I'm using again to plan my wedding and all the life details even
the grocery list and I send it right
over to the fiance. Please know that building
a structure around your life is the best
investment you can take, and you deserve it. You deserve to cut
out that time to really explore who
you are creatively, what you identify as
in the creative realm, and really undoing
anything we've learned in the past that might be
harming our productive process. Do what sections you feel
comfortable doing now, take this at your own pace. To help achieve that, I've even created a
giant workbook for you. If you're familiar with my other class and
classes to come, you know that I love to tag in a workbook specifically for the class for you guys to use. This workbook has a lot of the digested bits
of this course. It has all of the graphics
laid out for you. You can pull it up on your
iPad, on your computer, on your phone, and it's available to you to work
through at your own pace. You can even get it
printed if you want. I find that it really helps
make this process smoother. Please check that out
in the class resources. I will be referencing it
throughout the class.
6. Part 1: The Importance of Workflow: Obviously, we need to cover the importance of
having workflow. I can pretty much summarize
it in one statement. We abandon our work when we don't know what we're
trying to achieve or how. Sounds really simple but it's the thing that gets in my way, in a lot of people's way through this crazy
thing called life. We want to make
sure we're creating a simplistic
ideation process for you and to really understand what you're
trying to achieve. We can do that through
brainstorming, which we're going to cover
in the next segment. We can do that through
really knowing ourselves. A lot of creatives fail or quit because they're not in their
cultivated environment. Today, I want to
change that for us. The textbook definition of
workflow is the sequence of industrial administrative or other processes through which a piece of work passes from
initiation to completion. I know that sounds
like a mouthful and super intimidating, but essentially it is the
process to get you from A to B. But here's the tricky part. Creativity is not
just one project. Creativity is the thing that reinvents our reality
on a daily basis. Wow, that's huge. You might not agree
with me at first, but let me frame it this way. Creativity is a living
and breathing organism. It requires fuel, it
requires conversation, and it's going to
constantly evolve. It's going to require lots
of different projects. I don't just mean the
projects on paper in your painting or with whatever
your creative endeavor is. I mean your life projects. Trust me, we're going to
unpack all that later. It's super important to really understand
what a project is. But for now, we need to best understand that creativity
is an evolution, it is a process. We want to make sure
that our process that we've built
accommodates that. Here's something really
cool I've recently learned and I'm so excited to share it with
you and it's this. If you have a solid process, you are not going to
care about rejection, about doubt from yourself,
from other people. I face a lot of doubt. I have obsessive-compulsive
disorder. It is the doubting condition that is the nature of
how my mind works. But when I have a
rock solid process and I'm chipping away at something every
day the to do list getting those moments
of gratification, well, I don't care what
other people think. I don't care what
my worries are. I know I'm still
making progress and I want to show you
how to do that today.
7. Exercise 1: Identifying Your Superpowers: I know in the past
when you've probably tried to create a process
or workflow for yourself, like me, you started
with the details. You started with the big pieces, the things you got to buy, the things you need to learn. Trust me, we're going
to get to that. But I actually don't want
to start there at all. I want to start with
a little thing. I like to call superpowers
and Kryptonites. These are your strengths
and weaknesses, and first, we're going to
start with superpowers. This is really crucial because
knowing our strengths, knowing what gets us going, what inspires us, what heals us, is something that we want
to be proactive when building the
foundational structure of our workflow and our process. This first exercise is going to be exploring what
that is for you. One of the things I think is really important
is that utilizing your superpowers when we are pursuing any
type of project, we want to try to be pursuing
something that is new, a little bit new, a lot of new, but it keeps us engaged, it keeps us interested, and it keeps us wanting to
dig deeper and dive more into the process and that includes in our strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, by identifying
our superpowers and our kryptonites, we are allowing ourselves to set reasonable deadlines
and expectations within our process that accommodates us and accommodates our
strengths and weaknesses. It is not a failure or a bad thing to look at
the weaker parts of our creative selves and acknowledge and understand
and accommodate those needs. The awesome thing about
superpowers is that this is like the secret
element, okay guys? Your superpower does that have to be one
technique or skill. You can have a bunch
of superpowers. It can be, you have this cool ability of laying a
backsplash in your kitchen. I cannot do that by the way, I'm hopeless with most
things home improvement. Or it can be how you talk to your kids at
night before bed. Your superpowers are endless, they're amazing and they're plenty for whether you're just starting this "creative journey"
where you thinking were. Note that your whole life has been building you up full of different superpowers
and strengths that you have and we want to
uncover that today. You can go into your workbook. There is the prompt
there about identifying your superpowers as well as a little bit of a breakdown
about what that is, so definitely go and
reference your workbook. When you're ready,
you can join me. It's as simple as
writing it down. Our first step is just
going to be making a list. I recommend a bulleted
list, something simple, but if you want to take it
further and write pages, if you want to
write a few words, it's up to you. You get out of this process
what you put into it. Superpower, knowing
when to pause. Together, we can write
down our processes and I actually have mine here
in my little notebook. I'm actually going
to share a couple with you when you're ready. Feel free to pause this
part of the segment and come back or get a
lot inspiration from me. It's okay to brag guys, you are awesome. Let it out. Read all your things down. Here just a few that
came up for me. Anything to do with writing, it feels like a calming
and natural skill. I enjoy checking off
daily to-do list items and to-do lists tend
to make me feel a little less stressed. I focus best when listening to instrumental score
or nonlyrical music. I've discovered
that I work best in the early morning before
my day job begins. I enjoy speaking and presenting. You guys have seen that. I love being empathetic and focusing on storytelling
and everything that I do. Mental health-related
projects really drive me and make me feel
connected to community. I learned best about my craft when teaching it.
Hello Skillshare. I'm great at
Photoshop and I love making little doodles to
illustrate my posts or stories. I think this is great for adding my personal touch to
all types of projects. As you write these down,
I just wanted to give you a few more reminders. When we hide or sabotage
our superpowers, it probably means we're
comparing, and guys, comparison does not just rob
joy, it kills creativity. When we compare
ourselves to others, when we doubt our
superpowers that deep down we know
we really have, all we're doing is getting in our own way and this is
totally okay normal. I'm the queen of
getting in my own way. I constantly need reassurance. But honestly, the
reassurance starts with me. By acknowledging
our superpowers, we're going to really
be able to hone in on not just a process, but really great kick-butt
ideas that are going to really aid you in ideating in the future and knowing what
drives you and remember, knowing what drives us is the
thing that keeps us going. Take the time you need
to do this exercise. Do not lean into comparison. Comparison will rob
you of your progress and get to it and then meet
me in the next segment, which I think you can
probably guess what's next.
8. Exercise 2: Identifying Your Kyptonites: You heard me mention
it a few times, but now we want to identify and write
down our kryptonites. This is super important
because this is going to help us build a more
structured process, one that accommodates
deadlines differently, expectations differently, and even will help us to
find success differently. Writing down weaknesses is
not in of itself a weakness. You are not defining
yourself by these points, you are acknowledging
them and acknowledging them is the first step
towards progress and change. If that's the case,
why would we build a process without
acknowledging these truths? It's going to be hard, it's going to be uncomfortable, but you have what it
takes within you to do this and know
that it's temporary. Most things in life
are temporary, including personality
needs or physical needs, or emotional needs
or technical needs. Please know that this is not defining truths
about who you are. Same could be said
for your superpowers. Your superpowers
are going to evolve and change and
strengthen and weaken, it's part of the
human experience. We're going to take some
time and write that down. Guys, I just want to remind you, this also includes
any mental health, emotional, or triggers
that you might have. I have a lot of
triggers as someone with multiple mental
health conditions. The faster I came to terms with defining what those needs are, the stronger I
became in my health, which is going to propel what
I am in my creative self. Don't be ashamed of writing down some things
that you might need, that someone else
might not need. This is for you, it's for your eyes only and it's only going to benefit
you in the process. Who knows, it might
spark new ideas for projects or conversations
to help someone else. Here we are again,
with the book. I'm going to read a
few of my kryptonites. You can do this with me, you can pause, you
can come back, you can get inspired by this whenever you're
ready, but here I go. Number 1 is, I can easily get overstimulated in
environments that are too loud, distracting,
and sensory-driven. Number 2, my anxiety
often increases at night, so working in the mornings
or daytime is best. Sometimes my intrusive thoughts about my appearance
prevent me from doing certain types of things like
social media and yes guys, even recording this
class for me is hard. Here I am using a weakness and making it a
strength. Number 4. I really struggle with
understanding topography and that impacts a lot of
my graphic design layouts. Guys, I literally added like
four new Skillshare classes all about typography the second I wrote this
down a few days ago, so just know we're in progress. [LAUGHTER] I noticed I need
extra time to organize and process when handling
multiple projects. I have a tendency to
overbook myself during the day and don't meet
some of my milestones. If I don't write it down
on my to-do list or schedule a time to do
part of a project, I might get overwhelmed
or not do it at all. I constantly need to silence
my perfectionist voices, and I tend to overwork
myself and not invest enough time into my
physical health habits. As you can see from this list, writing down kryptonites
is not just these compromising of
facts that we might think about ourselves and
our creative techniques, but also includes
our emotional needs, how we process information, our technical skill sets, even our circumstances
and resources. Also, guys, it's really
important to note, just like I did a
little bit before, is that these strengths
and weaknesses can really change and vary
depending on our environment. It's kind of like when you
watch the superhero cartoons. I am a big fan of
nerd over here. That the superhero or
villain performs differently depending if they're
in an environment that has more of their
strengths and abilities, or an environment that
goes against them. Also plotting these things
out might help you figure out what environment do
I need to be working in. What boundaries do I need to set to be more
creatively successful, and how can I crush procrastination now that I know the strengths
and weaknesses? With that, let's move on to our next segment and exercise, and I will see you there.
9. Part 2: The Start of Our Workflow Journey: Now we are at the start
of our workflow journey. Something I just
want to remind us one more time today is that remember that
workflows just like creativity is living
and breathing, and it will change and
evolve through time. So be gracious with yourself. Don't set hard parameters and know that building
a new process is huge and there's going to
be a lot of trial and error and things you're
going to want to adjust. But it's okay because the work we get done in
this class is going to set an awesome foundation so you can do all of
those things with ease. Now it's time to get started. I want you to pick your area of where this process
is going to live. A little thing I
want to add that I'll touch on again
at the end of this course is try to keep
everything in the same space. If you choose to use
a bullet journal, keep it in the same journal, a blank piece of paper, have some filing system, a Google Doc, same thing. There also can be said for
our Milanote situation. I'm going to give a little bit of an introduction on Milanote. If you are not using Milanote, feel free to skip right by. But if you are curious, stick around because
this could be a new creative resource for you, for really any stage
of your process or just something you want
to check out later on. I want you guys who are using
Milanote to open up ideally a computer or an iPad and
head over to milanote.com. First. Now that we're at Milanote, we want to create an account. As I said, this account is free. There is a Pro plan that you can sign up for if you want
more space eventually. But for the sake of this course, go ahead and do
that free account. There is a link in the
class resources for you to navigate to Milanote if you want to
save it for later. You'll notice when signing up that you're thrown
right into the program and that your screen
is probably blank after setting up your account because you don't have
anything there yet and we're going to change that. It even has this bullet
journal like texture, which is super exciting. I personally love
that little detail. Let's drag and drop in
our first page together, Milanote calls this a board. It's a great way
to have a new page or space that's entirely
for your process, like a blank canvas. It separates it from the rest. Now, you can click on this
to enter, double-click, or you can name the
board anything you want. Great. Now that we have
our blank space, our canvas, we can begin
working throughout this class. But you'll see on the left side there you have
note, link, to-do. These are all great
things to use, but the main ones we're
going to be focusing on is column and to-do. You can click on "Column" and it's a drag-and-drop
situation. You drag and you drop. This gives you the
opportunity to stack other things
within this column, whether it's links or images
or notes or to-do lists. I like using columns because I think that's a core part of what we're going to do today. But don't panic if you are
working from some journal or a piece of paper
outside of Milanote, your workbook is actually going to have
everything you need to have resources for graphical examples
and things like that. Just use my example
demonstration as just a starting point, but know you have everything
you need to get started.
10. Exercise 3: Brainstorming with a Chance of Lightning: [MUSIC] Now that we
have our blank canvas, we have our superpowers
and our kryptonites, so we know what a workflow
is and why it matters. We're now going to dive
into brainstorming, which is my favorite part. You might have heard
me mention that I like to reference ideas, and thoughts, and creativity, like lightning in a jar. We want to be super
impactful and intentional. To do that we want
to make sure we're brainstorming the
best way possible, and as best as we can. A lot of us have
learned brainstorming through different means, and that could be with friends, in conversation with family. That can be in school
or in higher education, it can be in the workplace but regardless, you've
probably brainstormed, even if you don't
consider yourself the most creative
person in the room. We brainstorm when we're
thinking of grocery lists, even how we want to
organize our chores, as unfun as that sounds. I really like to pose
the question to people, how do we brainstorm better? Brainstorming is not just
the act of ideating, but it allows us
an opportunity to brainstorm and think of
ideas with intention. That word is so
important for me. Intention is going to be something that ties
to me personally, my heart, my personality, what drives me, and that's most likely
going to increase the opportunity
and the likelihood that I'm going to
reach the finish line. When we are ideating
we want to make sure we're bringing
that intention in. I'm going to show you in this exercise how
to do that best, so that you can be
guaranteed that any project you try to
undertake, even yes, if it's planning a dinner
with your friends, or something smaller,
you're going to get that project done. A few tips. Take a moment to remove the critic from the room. This is a judgment-free
zone, guys. Brainstorming requires
the whole spectrum of good and bad
thoughts and ideas. Avoid thinking overlap. Wherever you use the
upcoming template, your process, make
sure it lives in a separate place from the
rest of your process. You want your brainstorming to be a separate part
of your journal, a separate part of the Milano. It just keeps that
uncontained energy and creativity contained
in its own spot, and it doesn't impact any
in-progress projects, which I think is
really important, because that can create
decision fatigue and all those things. Actually moving into decision
fatigue, to avoid this, as you ideate you
can loosely begin to mentally mark which ideas
you are liking the most, but don't pressure
yourself to make an immediate or
continual decision. Get it all out first, but if you start making those small notes as to what
feels stronger for you, it's going to help you
avoid decision fatigue. Lastly, feel free to change physical spaces
as you brainstorm, we can find new ideas that way. Now we're moving
into the next part where I'm actually
going to give you my personal brainstorm
process and template. Think of this as the prequel to your building your workflow and your process. We've identified
some key knowledge, now we're going to move
into how to brainstorm better and spark really
impactful ideas. That's going to empower us to then move forward with picking our process and defining those structural
pieces of our process. I want you to head
over to Milano, or whatever section you've dedicated to be your
brainstorming zone. You also have some graphical
examples in your workbooks. Don't forget that
that's there to guide you through
this process as well. Over here in Milano, you might notice when
you create a new board, which I'm going to
do, because again, I want to separate that
brainstorming element away from my process board, that it pops up with
template opportunities. Feel free to check
these out if you want. Now that you have your
blank canvas ready, I'm going to have
four categories for you here today that
I'm going to show you. Category 1 is going
to be skills I know and are
proficient or do well. Category 2 is skills I
want to improve or learn. Category 3 is visuals or images, and words that inspire me
or make me feel stimulated, inspired, wanting to
learn and dig more. Category 4 is big ideas
and things I wonder about. This will all draw and mix together in different
piecemeal ways, and these will create my
course sparks or thoughts, which I like to call sparks or lightening, because
it's more fun. I'm actually working
outward, inward. I'm assessing myself first, I'm assessing what values
I have as a person, as well as what
visually inspires me, my strengths and weaknesses, which kind of mirrors
a little bit of that superhero kryptonite
talk that we had. This might seem a little
bit intense at first, feel free to take the time
you need to do this process. You can also skip the brainstorming part of
this segment if you want, but I think this is a
really new and impactful, and can be fun way of
coming up with new ideas. So enjoy this part. This is a piece of the process, even though it feels
like we haven't totally jumped in yet, I promise it's important. So head over to
that coffee shop, sit in a museum, walk through your garden or sit outside, or just stay at your desk and give yourself
whatever time you need to start coming up with
filling in these categories. [MUSIC] For example, skills I know are proficient in is listening and teaching. I'm really good at the
Adobe Creative Cloud thing, digital drawings
and illustrations. Again, this takes some legacy from our superhero
kryptonite exercise. So feel free to reference
that if you're stumped. Visuals and words
that inspire me. I really am loving
embroidered stuff right now. I have no idea how
to do embroidery, I have some of it behind me, but I'm totally useless [LAUGHTER] in
embroidery right now. But I love looking at it. I love the Renaissance
color palette, or the springy color palette. I think that those are
beautiful coming from nature. I love a freshly set
table in whatever season, it just brings me so much joy. Jumping over to skills I
want to learn or improve, I am a novice with anything that does
not have a digital medium. So oil paintings,
watercolor paintings. I am not the best at
grammatically checking things. I do have a lot of
work-based anxiety. Then jumping down to
the big questions, the things I wonder about, I really want to know, how do we visually show burnout? I think it's a huge
conversation point in culture right now. I wonder are panic attacks understandable to others who
maybe don't experience them. I wonder where can we bring creativity in the world
to inspire our healing. These are just a few examples. When I first set out
to make this list, it was extremely long, and that's awesome,
that's totally cool. You can have one thing
in each category, you can have pages. Take whatever time,
add to this later. Once you're done with this
course, go back to it. This is here for you as a tool. Now we're going to get into the important meat part of this, which is how am I
combining some of these thoughts into what I like to consider my core sparks, my big ideas, the things that I could see as a potential project that's unique to me and
what I care about. I want to take you
through some of my examples today about
what I was sparked with. Some of these are in
your workbook as well, and then I want you to try
to mimic and practice this. I'm going to talk
you through how I came up with these things. This is really crucial
guys, so stick with me. One of the sparks
I came up with was a watercolor depicting what a panic attack looks
and feels like, maybe in some sort of historical color
palette or setting. There's a lot of
different ways in here, maybe the historical
nature of it is to really promote that this type of
struggle with panic attacks, with high anxiety,
is an ongoing thing, maybe we have an archaic
conversation shaped around it but also, it's a new way
that ties to me from a visual perspective that I think could be
really interesting. I pulled this from
a few categories. This is in your
workbook too, guys. So feel free to look at this but I obviously
mentioned that I'm not so great with the
non-digital mediums, which is something
I want to improve. Doing this in watercolor would inspire and
challenge that. I do really enjoy mental
health conversations. It's something I
feel I'm proficient in and incredible to talk about. I did mention that I want to do a renaissance color
palette style that makes me feel
visually inspired. I did wonder, are panic attacks
understandable to others? So this creates the motivation
to go ahead and do that. That's just one example
of how I combined all four categories and made one really unique thing
that's just for me. I'm actually going
to use this spark. I have a second example in the workbook, if you
want to check it out, but I'm going to use this
particular watercolor concept to build my process and show you how that's
going to work today. For me, it's hypothetical;
maybe I'll do it. I got lots of projects
in the back burner. I want you to take some time,
combine your categories, work through this exercise, share it with some
of your classmates. Feel free to pop it
in that discussion as you go or invite a friend
to do this with you. It's super fun. I
did it over wine, I've also done it over coffee. Highly recommend that you invite some conversation points in here with your
friends and family. When you're ready, come back, and we're going to begin
that structural part, the framework of our process.
11. Exercise 4: The Brain Dump: [MUSIC] I know I'm like
the hype cheerleader right now when it
comes to each segment, but seriously, this is my favorite exercise
in the whole class, so I hope you enjoy it. It's super simple, but for me, it totally helps me
alleviate my stress, my anxiety, anxious thoughts, and my doubts and
just gets it all out. I hope you feel encouraged to use this in
other parts of your life, I definitely do, and I'm calling this
the brain dump. By now, you're probably
wondering, Sarah, besides some of the lessons
we've learned so far, truly, what is the method? What is the way of this
process you're talking about? Guys, it starts with
the brain dump. It is my favorite part, I'm literally so excited.
I love doing this. I do it for all different
types of projects, personal ones,
professional ones, and I really, really recommend
that you use this and put it in your tool belt
because here's the thing. As human beings, the
first thing we have to surrender to with any
endeavor is time. Time will be our
greatest strength or our greatest weakness. The brain dump, as
simple as it is, really helps us save time, be more effective,
be more intentional, and honestly alleviate stress. This exercise we're
going to do together for me has totally
helped me with my anxiety and my intrusive
thoughts and my stressors, because, guys, the
first thing we throw out when we're
stressed is ideas. I mentioned that in the
beginning and I'm going to say it again because I want you to stop self-sabotaging yourself because
you're not giving yourself proper time
and proper alleviation in the brain to get
through your process. What is the brain dump?
The brain dump is literally the
emptying of the mind, just laying all the gritty
messiness out on paper. It's fun, it's terrifying, but it gets all the noise out
of your head and on here. It's like if you imagine a house that's
completely structured beautiful, we're talking polished
countertops and painted walls, and if someone was to peel
all those layers away, all those interior pieces and just throw them in
a pile in front of you, and you're like I know
there's a house in here, but I have to find it. That's what we're
doing. We're taking our perceptions,
our assumptions, our knowledge, and
our to-be knowledge, and we're laying all the
materials in one big pile. We build that framework. We're taking pieces
of it and we're putting it together
ourselves, which is awesome. This allows you to have some starting point because
I know as a creative, we've been there together. When you get to a project
and you're staring at a blank piece of paper and
you're like, oh my gosh, I have no idea what to do, I don't know where to start, am I capable of doing this? I want you to know
you are capable, you just need to take the
right tools and get there. Here we go, the brain dump. I'm going to give you a visual
example here in Milanote. Again, you can do this anywhere. In terms of where it should
sit in your journal, your Milanote, I really recommend that you head
into that process section. I'm going to leave
my brainstorming section and I'm going to dive into the process board that we created a few segments ago, that empty, blank,
beautiful canvas, and I'm actually going to
make sure that my brain dump, this master crazy
throw-up of a list is at the leftmost side of my process section board page canvas,
wherever that is for you. The reason I have it a part
of my process is again, it's going to be the tools
and the materials that I put in piece
together throughout. Please create that
yourselves wherever you are. For me in Milanote here, I'm just going to drag and
drop one of the columns over. I'm going to title
it brain dump. You can title it
anything you want, but I just love thinking
about the name. Here's an example of what
that looks like when we get into the finished product. For me again, I have my
example project idea. It's a watercolor depicting
what a panic attack looks and feels like maybe in
some historical setting. Taking that title of
project type in mind, I just started
dumping out things. For example, researching
watercolor paper in my budget. What do I paint? What does that look like? Do I need inspiration from Pinterest? Where do I buy
practice paper and larger format paper if I
want to do some final piece? The main reason for this
is that mental fatigue can happen if we're constantly having to reassess and
think of next steps, goals, and milestones
or constantly try to deviate our minds to think of the smaller details and concern. They can keep us from reaching
a state of deep focus. So what we want to do is throw all the stuff down that you
have a higher probability of reaching deep focus so
you can really lean into your process when we set deadlines and the
main structures, and the brain dump just serves as a way to de-noise
and reference, and that's the goal here today.
12. Exercise 5: Building The Framework: [MUSIC] The framework. We think of framework, we tend to think of some
outer or inner structure that is sturdy. It's the main components
of how something is built. I have to say, this is the most crucial
part of this class. We want to make sure
that our framework is solid, it is intentional. I want you to take some time
on this, and don't worry, we have the exercises for you to make sure you're
getting it all done. Here are the main
components of a framework. I want to remind you
that regardless of that strong structure
that we hope to build, that it can still evolve
and change in time. Know that this isn't
a one-time thing. You can adjust this, you can make new frameworks
for different projects, but I want you to go back
to these main pieces as often as you can. Number 1 is your big pieces, also known as the categories
and stages of your process. These are the goals
and milestones and will each have its
own set of goals and deadlines within
them so that we can really start breaking
down how to get from A to B for each milestone. Then underneath, you
have the detailed steps. Basically, the detailed steps for your stages towards success. These are going to
include due dates for each of these
details for each of these steps and it
will guide you to each milestone,
to each deadline. References and visuals are
available in your workbook. Don't freak out,
I'm also going to show you some stuff
here on [inaudible]. Here's a high-level overview of what your process will
look like when it's done. This is the template, but it's going to be a
template built from you. I'm pretty excited
for us to dive in. But going back to
the big pieces, the key to a successful
framework is successfully identifying
the main and big structure. You're like, I have no idea
how to do that. Don't worry. We're going to use our
brain dump to do just that. I want you to give a glance
at your brain dump and see if any elements
speak to you. The big pieces are things
that will almost always have a lot of mini detailed
steps beneath them. Let's go through my
example together. Then I want you to spend
some time taking a stab at the big pieces
in your framework. For me, glancing
at my brain dump, I think something that really
jumps out overall is that I definitely need some
education on watercolor. I ask a lot of questions
about how to use tools and materials and
paper and how it functions. I definitely think
watercolor and sketching, some education category are big pieces definitely
needed for me. I'm definitely seeing a
lot of questions about who am I drawing and the
visual approach her, so I think another category
for me is going to be maybe some character story
and image structure. I'm also noticing that
there is a lot of emphasis on tools and maybe where
I'm going to paint. I definitely think that
purchasing tools and researching the
type of materials to buy is its own big thing. I can imagine a good handful
of steps under that. Then lastly, I think a
major category for me, and probably for a lot
of you guys out there, is some execution stage. Painting execution. When am I finishing
these things? How am I blocking out time to actually go ahead and
work in that medium? I find that some
execution element is probably going to be found in
a lot of people's projects. Definitely recommend
having that there. Take the time you need, be intentional with
picking your big pieces, and then we're going to
get into the meat of it.
13. Exercise 6: The Little Details, To Do List, and Schedules, Oh My!: The little details to-do
lists and schedules, oh my. This is the muddiest
part of your process, but when you have this done, whether it takes weeks, minutes, or days, I know I jumped around there that
was not chronological. You are going to
be so empowered, so grateful because
when you see all of these little pieces laid
out under your big pieces, you're going to be like,
"Yeah, I can do this." Maybe it will take five years, maybe it will take five days, but you can do this, you plotted it out, you know it's going to change, you know it's going
to move around. You're going to build in
pieces for your mental health, for anticipating
burnout for your life, and you're going to see that project start to
come to life on paper. Guys, that's the most exciting
and just emotional part. I know that some of us
are either like me, super excited about
the little details, and some of us are
like, oh my gosh, do not torture me for
a long time on this. I get it. It's not for everyone. Thinking through
ways and things in a detailed manner is not
always natural to all, but it is achievable to all. I'm going to walk you
through that now. I want you to take a look at the big pieces you've laid out. I'm going to do the same thing. We have our big pieces or you
can call them categories, and for some of you,
this may be one, for others, it might be many. Therefore, this really should take the most time for you in this processes us constructing how those big pieces are made, reference door brains up. This is a way to glance and start pinpointing and
sorting things out. The great thing
about Milano is I can actually just
drag and drop here, but you can rewrite, you can move around, whatever you need
to do in wherever medium you're creating
your process. Creating the small steps, I recommend that you
try to stay focused on one category at a time and you don't let your mind wander. These are all the
steps you'll need to take in order to
complete that category. You need to think through
the start to finish point. Remember, the more
detailed you get, the more research or thought you invest into the small steps, the greater your daily
success will be, so definitely, don't
rush through this part. Small steps can be a
variety of things. From buying a new set
of plates to fixing the over-scheduled character on your third page of
your graphic novel. Whatever it is, write it down. It's okay if you don't nail the chronological
feeling just yet, but I do recommend you try
thinking in the ADB format. As human beings, it's most organic for us to
think literally, and going from A to
B, start to finish. Thinking in that way is
going to help you organize that section as best
you can for the future. If I actually jump into my
completed section here, you can see how I've really filled out all
these categories. I referenced my brain dump, I pulled things over and duplicated things
just so I could see where each category would lie and where that
evolved from the brain dump. I have my watercolor
education over here, I have my character story, I have my painting tools, I have my execution,
things like that. I've listed out as much as I can think of as much as I've
researched, but again, you're going to be adding and
changing to this over time, which is totally fine. I hope you're getting
the hang of this part, there is a secondary
parts of this exercise, so do not run away
from me just yet, and that's actually
setting deadlines. I know in the creative world, that's the unfun word. Look, I don't like putting
a time constraint if I'm in the zone or if I have
something else coming up, I don't want to rush through it, but deadlines are super, super important to at least motivate us and have a clear set of understanding of
when we're going to get somewhere start to finish. The first place I recommend
doing this is starting to set deadlines on
your big categories. You can do this first, you can also do
this after we set the deadlines for the
small categories. I give you this option because some people
like to estimate and that makes them feel good to set deadlines for
the small things, and some people
are like, no way. Let me plan out all
the small things and then I'll tell you when I'm
finishing that milestone. Each of your big
pieces is really like its own milestone and each step underneath are these
mini milestones. That's really cool
because it gives us this daily, weekly, more frequent gratification that a long-term project
wouldn't be able to, so it is really important. Remember what we talked
about in Myth 1, in order to be a
successful person, you have to do all these
things in a day, no. By having all these
small steps plotted out, it's going to allow
you to achieve maybe one thing in a day or
20 things in a day, and it will fluctuate
depending on your schedule. These small steps is going
to give you a bite by bite pieces that you can pick
and choose when to do when. I think that's so exciting because when I
have a crammed day and a family member needs help
or I'm serving someone else in my community
or friend group, at least I can still
choose a way at one part, and that's the beautiful part of having this detailed process. It's defined and
breathed in by you. Something that creative
people tend to skip over is we only set deadlines
for the big things, but I want to
encourage you to set deadlines for the
small stuff too. Milano actually
has this great way of setting these deadlines. Again, if you're using it in a different environment or tool, you can just write a
deadline next to it, add it to your planner,
whatever you wanna do. But in Milano, you can actually
just click on an item, whether it's a
to-do item or not, and you can hit Due Date
here on the left side. You click Due Date, and then you can
select the time if you want and the day about
when that is due. I love to do this with my bigger projects and
I shift things around, and it really makes
me feel like I'm achieving stuff every single
week, which is awesome. Did you guys know you literally just did the
hardest part of this class? You crushed it, or
you're planning on crushing it, but regardless,
congratulations. Setting those big pieces, those small steps, and those deadlines is
a beast to get through. If you're still not
through it, don't worry, you now have the tools and you know what
it takes to do it. If you think we're
done, we're not done. We're going to be refining, adding in those
personalized details like your mental and
emotional needs soon, but first, I want
to introduce you to one last part of these sections and that
is your to-do list. You've heard me mention this
a few times and you're like, Sarah, why does a
to-do list matter? This is ridiculous.
I have a brain dump, I have all these small steps, who needs a to-do list? You do need a to-do list
because here's the thing, guys. Life gets messy. You have a random thing break or something you need to rebuy or conversations you
suddenly need to have and it's not in your small
steps, so you panic. You go okay, and you write it down and you forget about
it or you put it off, and procrastination
starts to happen. I have a to-do list column, I actually like to add this to my most right side
of my process. You can see here in
my Milano that I have a to-do list if
you scroll over here. I like to do this because it forces me to glance
from left to right, like how we process information, and I go through my
steps and I'm like, I'm going to add this
to my to-do list because it's a sudden
and urgent thing. Life is messy. You have your master steps, these small pieces and
you really don't want to interact and change
that too much. In order to not change my
little process Bible here, my to-do list helps me throw down the quick, furious, sudden, or nerve-wracking
things that might occur in a day or in
a week and really things that add to our
mind clutter and cause our brains to wander instead of focusing on the
creative process. This smaller last piece really helped me reduce my anxiety. I actually didn't add this
into my process until very recently and it's
helped and done wonders. I'm really glad I get to
show you this today guys and introduce this as
part of your tool belt. I am done with this section. We're going to move on
to the next segment and really refine the process and make it even
more personalized to you.
14. Bonus Details: To make this more personalized
each project and you, I really think the small
bonus details matter and I'm going to tell you why. You know that I'm a big fan of not adding in that
mental mind clutter and really making a clear path as possible towards your goals, deadlines, finish lines, whatever you want to call it. Here are a few things I
really like to add to my process depending
on the project. This might not be applicable
to you right now, it could be in the future. I'm just going to read
these off for you. They are going to be
in your workbook so if you need the second
reference, awesome. You guys know I said
in Myth number 2, you need to set big goals
to achieve big things. But real big things happen
with the small steps and when we're making
progress not perfection. Here are some of those bonus
details to really make sure we're continuing our
progress in an efficient way. We all know even though
we're creative people, sometimes we got to
crunch the numbers. Here in Milano, sometimes
I drag a new board over and add a
different space but still within my process board to list out any
potential expenses. You can also drag in
a spreadsheet here, which is really awesome. I love that I'm able to
easily link Google Sheets or anything files that I might
need to continually update. The other thing I
like to add in that might be necessary for
you is anything that requires continual
maintenance so if it's not a one-and-done
step or projects. For example, something like
social media or something that needs to be checked
off every few weeks, I like to call this
the CPR approach. Things that constantly
need to be checked in on and air breathed
into to keep it alive. You can have a separate
board here just for that keeping it separate from your biggest pieces and small steps, but you still know it's there. You still know it's important
to check in on, and hey, in Milano, you can actually set deadlines on
those things too. What I like to do is set a
reoccurring deadline for things like expenses on my
big long-term projects. I'm constantly checking
in and keeping those small details updated and it just makes
me feel even more buttoned up in the
creative approach.
15. Part 3: Discipline, Grace & Redefining Failure: Now that we've laid out
all of those pieces which you are a
rockstar for doing, that is not easy. But we're going to talk about
a little thing called Grace and a big thing called failure. Even though we're incorporating a lot of intentional
thoughts behind our brainstorming
in our process, it's still important
to check in with ourselves and figure
out what's working behind our minds and our thought processes when it comes to
big things like failing, rejection, not having a to-do list item work out
the way we want. I want to spend s one time
to talk about that today. Time is our biggest
strength and weakness. We give up often or we think we're
failing because we're not meeting
someone else's timeline or maybe we're setting
an expectation that mimics someone else's life. We work in a world
where we often need to bend to others timelines
and ways of working. I say that because
even though you're building an awesome process
here with me today, know that you still
need to have Grace because you're still
going to be put in environments and
situations where, you do have to work under
someone else's conditions. Sometimes I get really
frustrated at my job because I have to work the way that other people think
and that's okay. But it's important to have
Grace in those situations because it might not be
the way we need to work, but there's ways to use our process building
tool belt things today to work around
that as best we can. Just because you don't learn
a skill or a lesson at the same pace as maybe the "average person"
or another person, does not mean you don't
have the skill at all. In the theme of
explorers, again, it's like you have to unearth the gems within yourself
and your creativity. Someone else might find
something before you. That doesn't mean you
shouldn't quit and stop exploring all
your potential. I guess time is limited, but there's plenty to
explore and there is plenty of success for everyone. I've been saying that
this process is for you. Something I'd like to
do with us now is, I want you to pull that list back out of your superpowers
and kryptonite's. We're going to revisit some
of those things right now. We're going to make sure
that our process is mirroring and understanding those strengths and weaknesses. That's going to help us put
us in better situation, so that when we hit a
rejection or failure or misunderstanding
or we feel stuck, that we've a process that
we know we can depend on. I'm going to give
you an example of how I'm going to assess my strengths and weaknesses and I'm going to
reassess my process. But this part, I
can only give you an example the
rest is up to you. Definitely recheck your list, look at your process and see some areas that you
maybe can tweak or bend. For example, one
of my kryptonite's is I have a tendency to overwork or overbook myself
during the day, which means I might not
meet some of my milestones. Naturally I'm going
to head back over to my steps schedule here and maybe add some
breathing room, like doing one thing a day instead of three things a day especially if I know it's
going to be a week or a month that has a lot of
personal things involved, or for superpowers for example, I know that anything
to do with writing feels like a calming
and unnatural skill. Perhaps I should try to incorporate this into
every project I have even if it's not quite matching
the medium I'm working on. For example, we know that my hypothetical project is
my watercolor paintings, so maybe something I added is writing about my
painting subjects, anxious emotions or
who he or she is and really get into the
headspace before painting. This might sent me
up more for success. In the view of time, I would encourage you
also to take inventory of what your best
working time is. I know this might have
landed in your superpower, kryptonite around here, but I want you to think
about this regardless because you're working time
in those spaces in your day to efficiently get
work done is going to be huge tool in your tool belt. Make sure you're checking
in with yourself. Again, you don't have to work the same time someone else does, if you read an article
that said 4:00 AM multimillionaire success and you tried it and it doesn't
work for you, don't do it. If your job crams you
in these working hours and you can't cram
creativity in that time, then great, schedule
it afterward. I also want to remind
you guys that in the nature of Grace
and being Graceful, it also can mean putting ourselves in front
of other projects, in front of other
needs and activities. To be honest, and I
swear I'm not bragging, I'm a big service person. I love serving others. I love doing things for others. I tend to feel a
lot of guilt and anxiety when I put myself first, when I ask for things, when I don't prioritize
someone else. This is not a natural
thing I do well, but I've really been working on using time as reward
in the sense of rewarding myself
that I matter and cutting out these times to
achieve the goals I have, even if it's a goal
that other people don't understand or totally
support, matters. That can be writing
in the morning, before your kid has to
get ready for school. That can be asking your boss to shift
your hours around so it can accommodate you
better see you have time to paint or cook or
whatever your goal is. Don't be afraid to leverage and re-evaluate
the asset of time. It's super crucial. It's how we can
stay efficient so that we aren't
working all the time. We don't want to be creating constantly throughout the day, and we don't also want
to be allocating too much time to other things and not allocating things
to our creativity, because that's such a
huge part of who you are. If you're watching this, if you're on Skillshare, it means that matters to you. Let's make sure it matters and let's make sure that's
built into your process. Go ahead and tweak
your small steps, add a big category
if you have to, and really go through
your kryptonite's and your superpowers
and be like, I need more room here. I need more breathing room here, this deadline is unreasonable. I promise you, you're
going to have more success if you take the step.
16. Exercise 7: Exhaustion, Burnout & Mental Health: [MUSIC] Take notes,
pay attention. This section will
change your life. It changed mine. It's actually quite a
recent discovery for me. The past couple of
years have been hitting just major seasons of burnout. That's when I restructured my process into what
you're seeing today, but I still wanted
to do a deeper dive. I still like what's going
on and why [LAUGHTER] am I always tired and it actually came down to a really simple
discovery that I'm so pumped to share
with you and I do have an exercise for you
so that you can weed it out yourself and that is asking
myself the question, what is a project? Guys, I can assure
you a lot of us are underestimating what a project actually is and maybe
how many we have. By definition, a project is an individual or collaborative
enterprise that is carefully planned to
achieve a particular aim, but many of us have gotten
into the head-space that for some reason a project happens
in some sort of ecosystem. On a blank piece of paper, on a watercolor work pad, in your art class, in your school with a paper
due or a group project, hence the word project. However, projects are happening all around
us in our life, and in our many buckets and
categories in our life. If you're experiencing anxiety, stress, burnout, feeling tired and
exhausted all the time, it could be that you're
juggling a lot of balls and you're actually
overworking yourself. I wanted to take
time today to help you reidentify
what a project is. Understand why that matters, and of course, build that into your process in
a better and new way. We are constantly
working through macro and microprojects. You helping your kid through an emotional episode,
paying the bills, making the grocery list, restaining your floor in your house, or
helping your spouse or community member are all
considered microprojects. You have your main
project or projects, stuff that we're
laying out today, like that big goal
that you have, but the little projects are also being processed
by your mind and they also matter and the time for that needs to
be budgeted for. I actually designed a graphic of some thought starters for what I consider projects and sometimes I do this little
exercise with myself. Sometimes I actually
put it in Milanote, but you can do this on
a blank piece of paper. You can tack this
up on [LAUGHTER] your wall, put it
on your mirror, whatever you have to do and you have suffering
and weaknesses, and you can't do it all and you need to be
graceful with yourself. Grace is not just thrown
upon us in abundance. It's something we
have to work for and acknowledge and be mindful of. I want you to use
this graphic and start identifying projects that might be happening
in your life that are adding to time or stress. These are not bad things. These are not things
you [LAUGHTER] need to cut out of your life. Please pay your bills and do all the unfun or fun things that you have in
your personal space, but know that with
all of this going on, it might attribute to burnout, you might need more rest. You might need to put a goal off longer or change the milestone, the deadline and the only
way we're going to do that effectively is, of course, we are planning for it and
we're acknowledging it. Take some time, it's in
your workbook as well, write [LAUGHTER] out
what a project is. I was shocked when I did this. I am juggling a bunch of regular creative
[LAUGHTER] projects and a million life things. I want to encourage
you that part of mental health is fortifying your mental health
in your process. So identifying
these projects also includes identifying
triggers and things that might stress you out that are health-related projects or mental projects that you need to pursue to have longevity, to be efficient, to be healthy, and guys that
matters the most. Building fortification
around your mental health is not something
to be shameful of. I oftentimes move deadlines. I say no to things. I shift things around, I get rid of a section of my projects so that I'm
being mindful of my anxiety. If I have a trigger and a random thing that
pops up, guess what? Everything shifts
around. That's okay. Take some time to
do that and when you're ready to
feed me back here, we're going to be diving into
our last section together. Isn't that crazy?
Time has flown by. I am super excited and I hope you are learning
things along the way.
17. The Finale: Workspace & Distractions: The workspace, you guys, we either love it or we
hate talking about it. But regardless, it is a
part of your process. You've done the meatiest
parts of the course. We've gone over weaknesses, and strengths, and lessons,
and brainstorming. We've really gotten your
whole structure down on paper from setting deadlines
to the small details, to the to-do list, to the extra bonus details. But if you guys know me by now, you know I love the small
stuff and the workspace, it's a big small thing. Essentially, your workspace is going to be the
environment you physically sit in to achieve the project or the process
we just built together. Assessing where
your workspace is at and where you physically are, and what distracts you
or what inspires you is really, really important to
take inventory of and analyze. Essentially, a
workspace should be your path of least resistance. It should be big or small. A room or a four square
foot space in your home or public space that allows you to work without having to jump
through a million hurdles, without having too many
things that get in your path. Really take note if you have
that type of space today. If you don't, no worries, you can always make one. You can go on Pinterest and
Instagram and be inspired, or you can be held back by that. I know a lot of friends and
creatives who look at videos and photos of beautiful
studios and apartments, and they think, "Wow, my painting room or my craft room does
not look like that. Therefore, I must not be
that good of a creative." But the things do
not correlate, guys. They're not even related. You can have a little
desk under the staircase like Harry Potter and do
amazing things obviously. I want you to get
inspired a little bit. As you go into this zone, this mindset of new process
after what we learned today, don't be afraid to
use this as an excuse to come up with a new
workspace if you need one. Repainting the walls, fixing the desk leg that keeps
wobbling and distracting you, setting boundaries in
your family that you need a certain time of day that's considered your workspace
in your bedroom, going and exploring new
museums and coffee shops, whatever it is, make sure that you feel invigorated by that. Then ultimately, a workspace
should inspire new ways of thinking and feeling and be
refreshing, but also reliable. Life is super
uncertain, as we know. Our stress and
doubts can make us really lean into
that uncertainty. Having a space that we
can almost always depend on can be really crucial to
checking off those bigger, small deadlines and small
steps in our process. In our last lesson, I
do want to touch on eliminating distractions
because as a fellow creative, I am like a squirrel sometimes and I get super distracted. My phone buzzes, I get an email, I smell coffee in the kitchen, and suddenly I am breaking
my chain of thought and rushing in to things without finishing
something I'm working on. Spontinuity is awesome. I'm super, super, super
fan of spontinuity, of doing things that are not in your schedule and
in your plan that can be a source of inspiration. But ultimately, in
the day-to-day grind, we really want to
eliminate distractions. So I've composed a few
tips for you today just to consider as you work through your new super awesome process, new super awesome structure, new super awesome ideas
that you don't have new super awesome distractions to take you away from that. Of course, we talked
about workspace. So we want to make sure
that our workspace can be a repetitive trigger
in the mind. Basically, what that
means is you sit down in a similar spot or in a
similar way or stand, if you're one of those people, and your mind is
triggered to go, "Oh, I'm in a place of work." Whatever that means to you, make sure you have some space that's dependable and reliable. That's a really big first step. Speaking of reliability,
I'm sure you haven't heard this word too
much in creative chats, but finding an accountability
group or partner. If you're dealing with maybe a bigger project
that has more of a continuity to it, so something that needs to be checked in on, schedule is very weekly heavy, having an
accountability group or partner will allow you
to share your goals, share your steps,
you can even share your Milanote board
if you're brave. I've done that for at least
wedding planning, which helps, and have someone that
checks in on you. Hey, how are you doing? Hey, did you
complete that thing? Did you buy that thing? Do you need help talking
through that thing? Is going to make
you feel ownable, you're taking steps, and it
will help deter the idea of procrastinating because now you have multiple eyes on you. This works in the workplace, it works in the school. So applying it in your own life, big or small, can
be super important. Another one, and I cannot
stress this enough. I was the worst, years ago, about having a
gazillion systems. Part of this course today is to empower you to have one place, one system that you can rely
on for any type of project, which is what makes
it super unique, but also keeping it
in one place, guys. As creatives we have a niche, a special skill for putting things in a lot of places
sometimes, at least I did. Jotting down onto my phone, scheduling things on
three different calendars like Google Calendar,
and Zoom, and Teams, and then writing it
down in my planner, but then telling someone and I'm putting sticky notes on the fridge, and then, wait, I'm going to put it in this
bucket, in this folder, and I'm going to put it in
this ZIP file on my computer. Let me tell you, I'm
going to keep it simple. Work in one space,
pick one system. Maybe it's Milanote, maybe it's a planner, maybe it is a journal that you keep all those
ideas and thoughts in. I know sometimes we need separate things for
separate reasons. Totally cool. Pick one system whether
it's how you're notified, how you're reminded where
you put your deadlines, trust me, you will
thank me later. It's helped me a bunch to not jump around
and waste time, and then have decision fatigue,
which we've talked about. We want to avoid
decision fatigue. We want to avoid
spending energy. If you only have an
hour a day to work on your passion outside of all the other responsibilities
that life throws at us, don't waste it on things like
tracking down your notes. Trust me. Guys, we have reached the end. I am so grateful for you. You're so rockstars. If you've stuck with me
all the way through, you should now have an
awesome super solid process that you can morph
and change and tweak. Please note, take
it and change it. If there's a part you
didn't like or love about what I've taught you
today, change it. I hope you did learn something
and you felt inspired, and excited, and enthusiastic. Ultimately, I really hope
that you can see clearly now that you are capable
of literally anything. If you have an idea, whether it's writing the next bestselling
novel or movie, or if you want to become the next big chef of New
York, you are capable. If you have the right
process and the right steps, I promise you, you
will get there. It might take some time. I'm still working on my
big dreams and goals. But one of my big dreams
and goals is I would love to become a more full-time
Skillshare teacher. I love teaching. I
love working with you guys and talking with you. So you can help me on my
little mission of becoming a Skillshare teacher by
following me on my profile, checking out my other
class or classes, and connecting with me through other means of social
media as well. But before you depart, this is not a goodbye just yet. I do want to go over with you
one thing about how you can share what you've
learned today with your peers and other students. On your screen, you
have some prompts. Please pick one or all three. I do know that a process can be super personal to
each individual. So I don't really want
people feeling pressured to share a screenshot or a picture of their
written-out steps. I know that can have some
personal details to it. For now, I'd really
love for you to share one or all three
of these prompts. Number 1 is what is one of your kryptonites
and/or superpowers? Sharing these can help normalize a lot of anxious thoughts
or doubts we may have surrounding ourselves
and empower your creative neighbor
here on Skillshare. Number 2, how do you
now define success? We've talked a lot about the
pros and cons of looking at success and what that
really means and expectations. I would really love to hear
how you now define success. Number 3, what creative
project are you excited to do next
with your new process? This is the one I'm
most excited about. I want to hear what you guys
are cracking open next. For you guys that don't know, my name is Sarah. I am so honored to have
you here with me today to help refine and define
creative success and process. You can find me
all over the web. I love giving content. I love educating. I love making stuff like this. Of course, I have a podcast, a YouTube channel,
a digital magazine, a clothing line, and a bunch of free resources and workbooks that are going up on my site. I run a company called
the Set Apart Company. You can find it, of course,
it's setapartcompany.com. All the links are in my bio. Please follow me on Instagram, not even for the
follower account. I just love saying hi. I've had a lot of you
guys in the past DM me and it makes me so happy. A little bit about me, just to snip in the credibility
before we sign off here. I am a professional art
director, a professional writer. I'm a mental health advocate. I work with different
NGOs around the country. I work in a professional
advertising agency outside of New York City. I am available for freelance. I am, of course, at my core,
a teacher and educator. Your creative friend, your
creative cheerleader. I'm just so honored that you
spent time with me today. Please leave a review, drop in the discussion post. Say hi, I'd love to
answer any questions. I'd love to become
your friend or just cheer you on on
your next endeavor. I will see you here next time because we all know this is not the last time you're going to spend time with
me on Skillshare. Thank you, Skillshare,
for the opportunity, and I will see you all soon.
Sarah Edwards, Art Director & Creative Success Coach
