The Creative Myth
The Creative Myth
Organising your flow for maximum creative output
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In this episode of the Creative Myth, we look at how our creative lifestyles seem to clash with basic organisation and discuss three big things you can do as a creative person to help maximise your creative output. But don't fret all you self-styled "non-creatives", there's plenty of useful info in here for you too!
Justin Keighley coined the term productive shame. The Productivity stories that we typically hear are as unrealistic as any Disney movie she said, instead of motivating us to improve shame sets us on a downward spiral and can even lead to negative health outcomes, such as depression and anxiety disorders. This episode is not here to induce any of that. This episode is an insight into our creative lives, our different approaches towards being organised, what works and what clearly does not.
Ben Lane:Hello, beautiful people and welcome to the creative myth, the podcast that attempts to inspire the uninspired by unfolding breaking down and distilling that wonderful force of nature and or nurture known as creativity. Our goal to bust the myth that creativity is the birthright of the few. In each bi weekly episode, we find a new and engaging self confessed creative and strike up a dialogue. Otherwise surgenor And I sit down and discuss a topic that has something to do with creativity, and how it relates to our roles as artists, nomads and parents. We track down some of the most amazing creatives out there and find out just what creativity means to them what they do to encourage it in their lives, and how you might channel it into your passions. But who is we we are searching to sing and Benjamin Lane wife and husband, Indian Kiwi adventure photographers, international travellers and curious minds you might know us as nomadic lovers of adventure tented photography and if not, you can follow our adventures on Instagram at 10 photography and on a web page turner photography.com Of course don't forget to check out the creative myth on Instagram as well. So let's get started.
Sirjana Singh:Hello creative folks.
Unknown:Hey there beautiful people I record and we are sitting here in an Airbnb this time. Yeah. Official studio
Sirjana Singh:and welcoming you to Season Two first episode.
Unknown:Wow, it is right. We had that special episode going on. Yep, summer in the middle there.
Sirjana Singh:Backing and craziness and chaos. And now we are back.
Unknown:We're back. And today we're doing organising your flow for maximum creative output.
Sirjana Singh:When we are of two minds about a topic, we go straight to research to see the holes in our understanding. So both Ben and I aspire to be super organised. But the truth is that we are not.
Unknown:Yeah, do you just kind of want to get that out there first?
Sirjana Singh:Yeah. With moving this month and having a very active eight month old life has been mega unorganised. This has not affected my creativity, but it has definitely affected my ability to create. Yeah, because yeah, I have so many ideas. And you know, I have been eating your head. And actually the amount of ideas in my head is giving me anxiety. Yeah.
Unknown:But where do we find the time?
Sirjana Singh:Yeah, I don't have time is my main complaint. Most nights I'll try to play Tetris with my time slots and affirm the thorn in my heel. Once again, I don't have time for all the things I need to do, much less ones that I would like to do. So this episode comes straight from our anxiety to you, from our hearts to your creative hopes and from our dreams to your ability to realise your dreams. We are deeply invested in this one
Unknown:we really are guys, we we want to be who we're about to describe.
Sirjana Singh:I don't know. If you have stumbled upon this first episode of the second season and don't know much about us. We are surgeon Ben and we are two creatives who live hectic, creative lives as adventure photographers. We do indeed as mentors for creative entrepreneurs. We even double up our busyness as a painter and a woodwork di wire. We passionately believe that creativity is not a birthright of the few. We are all creatives some of us some of us have not realised our creative potential. And some of us have been fed this wrong narrative that they are not creative, just because they don't engage in stereotypical creative pursuits. Hence, this podcast damn right. And in this episode, we are not going to chase any mythical organised unicorns. We are here to connect some stories of creative geniuses of the past to our own lives, and lessons that we take from them and what works for us. Yeah, thanks, sir. So what we're going to do is I have decided that my role in this podcast is going to be for the lack of better word, an easy one.
Unknown:I would say, adjudicator I've been there's not at all correct. You could not do this. Not do that.
Sirjana Singh:No, I think you can be better judge of that. But I think I'm just going to talk about what works for me personally. Because I think by telling Stories, we give more power to those who have not had the time to narrate their own story. So if you're hearing this and you've been busy, or you have mess around you, maybe you'll hear my side of how my brain works and find some solace in that. And then Ben has research some ideas that
Unknown:I'm coming at you with a whole plethora of ADHD time saving stuff, you know? Yeah.
Sirjana Singh:And I mean, I am hoping those steps were also worked for I say
Unknown:that because I have ADHD, and these, these are things that I really need to deal with. But they work excellently well, for anybody who has a typical, is that how you put it? Yeah, yeah.
Sirjana Singh:Okay, so I feel Ben, you are even with your ADHD more organised than I am?
Unknown:What gives me joy,
Ben Lane:though? Where do you get that from?
Sirjana Singh:So I am, I have over 56 tabs open. Right, right, in like one window. And then they're like seven other windows? Oh,
Unknown:so you mean Right, like basic? No.
Sirjana Singh:Oh, all basic level stuff. I mean, the physical world is more organised in your life, then in my life, and in my life? The? I don't know, the I was gonna say the metaphysical world. No, I mean, the ideas are more organised in my life. Like I have more organised way of how we're going to deal with certain things, how we're going to run a business, etc.
Unknown:You definitely have your finger on the bigger
Sirjana Singh:picture. Yeah. But you have really good grasp of making sure the physical world around us doesn't collapse. Yes, the smaller day to day stuff. Yeah, but that is like the biggest chunk of our day, like the kitchen is organised. So well, in even an Airbnb is that we go, you just find the best place to keep a thing. Your suitcase is always impeccable compared to mine, which like, even though I have set it up so nicely, there's a mini tornado going there,
Unknown:because you try and be in the rules of physics when you stick everything in.
Sirjana Singh:But yeah, so before I met Ben, my bed would be strong with papers and books and pens and pencils, all of the time. And I think the first
Unknown:one who used to sleep with
Sirjana Singh:so I think the first act of kindness and love you did for me was to tidy up my room for me. Yeah, that
Unknown:was an interesting, interesting day. It was like is how's she gonna take this? But I took it really? Well. He did. Thank you. Yeah.
Sirjana Singh:Let's put put a pin in that I really want to understand. How are you so good at finding home for things in our home?
Unknown:I think it just comes down to priorities. Okay, what I find important is that when I look around, I know where to find things, you know, whereas you're definitely floating above on another level. You know what I mean? It's a hard one to quantify. But it's the sort of thing that where you're constantly within yourself thinking about what's coming next. Yeah, but I'm much more external. So when I look about I'm like, okay, that can be fixed. Or I can change that or whatever. And that will mean that that things moving forward will be more streamlined.
Sirjana Singh:Okay, so you find that when you are creating something so when you're working on doing your videos or creating some double exposure magic on your laptop, you find that your surroundings effect
Unknown:moving off my desk and into my oh is definitely um, when for naming files and saving them in a place where I can find them later. Yeah, I have no such thing as one go work out of the downloads folder, right.
Sirjana Singh:So it does affect your work? Absolutely.
Unknown:I mean, it speeds me up if I know where things are to come come back to especially if I want a place to start. I don't have to start fresh when I can't find said file. Do you know what I mean?
Sirjana Singh:So what is your relationship with the word organised? What meaning does that have in your life?
Unknown:I guess it just means that I know where to find
Sirjana Singh:does it elicit any emotions?
Unknown:Relaxation, is that an emotion really because you feel calm when I think oh man, this is gonna be organised. The problem is I don't know if I feel that feeling strong enough to make sure that I do it all the time. They I ignore it. But I know when I when you say it just now and I think about it. I'm like, wow, that would be so nice. If everything was just organised. This is
Sirjana Singh:quite interesting because it is one of the things you do really well. I mean, it's one thing guys to clean your home but it's another thing to have Ben clean your home because my gosh, it will not only just look clean, things will now have better homes and they're hanging in your house in a better place which is aesthetically pleasing
Unknown:as well and liable to get out the hammer and the screws and figure out how to make those two work together to make a shelf.
Sirjana Singh:True that as well but not even smaller things like you know, just putting a nail in the wall and hanging something which we can't find a home for. But it is interesting that your, your emotion when that that comes out when I talk about the word being organised is that of peace and calmness. Yeah. Because my relationship with that is that of shame. And I think it has something to do with it that I am really bad at it. It's it's my relationship with the whole idea of being organised. Because I've been told all my life that I'm very disorganised, and it's become like a thorn in my heel. And honestly, so whenever even I think about it, I become defensive. Yes, defensive. Like, I can't do it already with negative emotions. So off going off this topic a little bit, but we've been discussing the wall of awful when it comes to ADHD, and how things that are seemingly easy become really hard for you to
Unknown:each little hiccup you have or problem you come across becomes a brick in the wall of awful Yeah. Which makes a large wall that's almost impossible to get over. Metaphorically.
Sirjana Singh:Yes, we get we got this idea from the YouTube channel.
Unknown:I'll do ADHD. Yes.
Sirjana Singh:So we've been discussing that. I think, as I was writing and reading and thinking about this topic, that the whole organising myself is, is my entire wall of awful. It just I think that has so it was really interesting when you said that the emotion it elicits in you is one of calm and peace. And which is why probably you just do it effortlessly, whereas I feel so much pressure doing it.
Unknown:Yeah. I don't really feel that pressure. But I'm sure plenty of other people do. It must be a tonne of people in your camp.
Sirjana Singh:Are you You're in my camp, please DM us and let me know because I feel very lonely out here. There is a tonne of research on how to be organised. But before I let Ben give you concrete steps towards creative yet organised life. I'll give you my real life to sense an organised environment doesn't use calm in my head. Like it really does. There are days when or weeks actually where we are very fastidious in how our office is going to look. And we're very good at making sure everything is clean. And, you know, it allows me to breathe and think. But a day in and day out of having it the same. Almost sterile, in a way environment does not induce any feelings in me. And it doesn't stir me up. It just, it just is you know, it. I feel like when we discussed what creativity is in in, I was gonna say in chapter one. In episode one of this podcast of season one, we are creatives when seemingly unconnected ideas connect, right? And so what I'm trying to say it, it doesn't, you know all that cleanliness does not stir cleanliness. Organising does not stir me up to think, or does not spark ideas out of the left field. Yeah. So
Unknown:you think that say leaving your colour pencils out on disk is going to mean that you might stumble across something that you wouldn't otherwise?
Sirjana Singh:Yeah, but I don't think that leaving those pencils would the act of donor what I'm going to find word, right. So in short, I think we need environments that induce feelings that stir us to feel our subconscious and then a space to create what has been stirred. So I feel like I almost need two spaces one in which ideas come and another space where I do them, which is the clean organised. Well, there you go. I miss freezone.
Unknown:You guys have a spear closet out there go. Do a weekend garden.
Sirjana Singh:Yeah, well, gardens are good for that. Right? It good for painting and writing. And all of that is less distracting. I don't know about everybody, but it is for me. But these days with the advent of everything being done on laptop and tap tablets, it's hard to sit outside and work tablets, tablets, tablets, you go. Okay. Let's people. But because there is no single answer to how much organisation we need, whoever tries to give you a solution has to be reminded around the clock that we are all different.
Unknown:That's very true. So keep that in mind, guys as we move forward from here on. So first up, it's very good idea. A very good idea to have a plan. Yes. How you have that plan. That's up to you. There are multiple ways to do these plans. Like personally, I like to have something visual. I think both of us do. Right? So if you have a ideally, we're moving around a lot when we get into our new office or I'm going to have a calendar on the wall. It's going to have like a square for each day that is large enough for me to write in. And it's gonna be epic. I'll be able to stand back look at it and be like, Oh my gosh, the plan has it's coming to fruition.
Sirjana Singh:I pay you $200 If you do it
Unknown:yeah. That I would love to have
Sirjana Singh:Yes, but a year right the with the physical manifestation of the big picture is like this step numero uno exact having an organised life exactly.
Unknown:So find which way works for you. There's lots of apps for this sort of stuff. Once it remind you, that's cool, too. But I've learned that I am highly adept at ignoring reminders that my phone gives me. I don't put a lot of stock in what Siri has to say.
Sirjana Singh:I read somewhere I can't remember. So I can't code. But science is proven that reminders really don't work. What works,
Unknown:I forgot. And I can see why if you said the same, or Monday, every day, at the same time, it becomes very easy to just swipe and ignore it. Even if you know you really badly have to do that.
Sirjana Singh:So yeah, you're right, putting stuff on the wall where we can see what needs to be done. And it has the sweet feeling of, you know, crossing off things.
Unknown:Yeah, it's actually a cool little hack, I suppose. It means that you're if you go up there and you have a cool coloured pen and you'd like strike off whatever you have achieved. It's a neat little thing that you get a little endorphin hit. Yeah, yeah, it's great for the brain, guys.
Sirjana Singh:So what we are doing these days, while we can't have that master plan is on our notes tab in our phones, we make a numbered list. And you can actually, yeah, you can not only distract you can you can hit that the circle in front of what you've done, and it just becomes orange. And it's like,
Unknown:Oh, I haven't even figured that out yet. Oh, I'm doing that. I'll show you later. Awesome. Okay, cool. All right. So we want to have a project land, guys, whatever you're trying to do. If it means using a project management tool, that's cool. If it means using a calendar on the wall. That's cool. I'm not here to plug anything today. But there's so many amazing things out there just Google project management tool. There's no I'm not gonna plug stuff. Yeah, not a bunch of them. But now's not the time.
Sirjana Singh:Yeah, it's not the time we need to review them really well, to make sure that we suggest something that definitely 100% works for us.
Unknown:Exactly. So the next thing you want is some sort of organisational system, especially if you are working in a creative industry or something like that. Any industry, but being creative, you're prone, right? Yep. Right. And losing that system pretty quick. Because I don't know about you, but I will be working on something. And I'll be like, I can't be bothered getting the hard drive. I'm supposed to save this to I'm going to just put it over here.
Sirjana Singh:But that's me, not you. Yeah.
Unknown:So the way I tend to deal with files is I keep it old school. I know a lot of people do cloud based systems, they have systems, which will like automatically backup for them. That sort of stuff. Personally, I'm not a fan of that. There's multiple reasons why. I mean, if you're, if it's a subscription system, and you're essentially stuck in there forever. If you decide that, you know, if the company does something you don't like you're stuck working with them until you can get all your files out, which is a massive task. So I tend to just use whatever's native in the Finder. So I'll create a structure based out of your and find a Mac iOS, or Windows Explorer. And just, you know, name your files, start with a year, start with the name of the project you're on, break that file system down into say, like marketing tools, your Instagram stuff like social media or whatever, your documents, invoices, that sort of stuff. You want a main folder for each of those under each year. And then whenever you need to move systems, you can take those with you, I can go between Mac and Windows, no problem at all, everything's there, I don't have to worry about a subscription fee. And I don't have to worry about some company tanking and going under and taking all my files with them.
Sirjana Singh:Yeah, and this is for an entrepreneurial life. If you are not an entrepreneur right now, and you're listening to this podcast, there are ways to organise your day as well. And essentially, what I find has worked best is having a big master list in which whatever idea comes in your head from a recipe to your place you want to visit with your kids or dress that you want to buy. Once that goes on sale goes on the big master list. And then each month or each week, things from that master list are put in your day to day list.
Unknown:Yeah, it's greater than that the muscles guys like one great big list, you can grab those things out of if you do like a daily brain dump, like you've got this massive list you want to stick things into, it's a great idea to draw four quadrants on a page and then make one called must, should could and want to put them in like that. For me having something at the top of the list that says to do is terrifying. You know, whereas if I have something that's like, Oh yeah, you must do these, then at least if I've done just that single quadrant, then everything else is great. You know, I don't have to feel threatened and I can threaten, I'd have to feel scared by the next day's jobs. I can then just move what was in the should do or could do, and do the must do column and the next day and work on that
Sirjana Singh:I hear would suggest that there are only three top urgent things. Nothing more than three in the short column. Yeah, yeah. Nothing over three is pushing. Yes. Yeah. Gently it is one. Yeah, but three is the kind of lives we love.
Unknown:Okay, so we've talked about putting stuff down on a list making it physical, or if you prefer having it in the cloud. We've also talked about using those quadrants because awesome little hack there. Next thing up. What do you deal with mostly? All day? Emails? Yes, that's right. Emails. I'm so happy. You got that? Yeah, of course, you got that. That's all we ever do it. Right. But okay, so one thing, that little, little touch of advice, we have something that surgeon is very good at doing is blocking out time for your emails.
Sirjana Singh:Yes, time blocking is magic. Yeah. Okay. So
Unknown:tell us how you do it.
Sirjana Singh:So what I do, especially with emails, because they're they, they're the biggest time suck, is to only denote 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes, late afternoon, to reply to emails. And if it is possible, then you have there are days when it's only 30 minutes required in the morning. But otherwise, I don't have to constantly be checking my phone every time my phone dings, I don't have to have that urgency of need to reply to this right now. But that afternoon time and morning time is there so that if there has been an inquiry, they don't have to wait for the next day to hear back from us.
Unknown:That's fair. Yeah. So how do you work it when say Ma, He doesn't sleep? A little guy
Sirjana Singh:that might give them to you.
Unknown:That's true. So that's, I was hoping you would say that, because that brings me around to the next thing. So in your entrepreneurial life, if you're working with somebody else, you need to keep good tabs on what they're up to. Yeah. And you can only do that by having regular meetups. Yes, yeah. So ideally, you're gonna be working with somebody that fills the gaps that you you do miss actually, that's the goal here, guys, you want to be complementing each other. But you also want to be able to do pretty competent job of you know, if somebody out Yeah, somebody's sick, whatever, you can actually fill in the gaps.
Sirjana Singh:And if you don't have time for regular meetups, the thing, the hack that works for us on those busy, busy months, is sticky notes. So Ben has blue sticky notes, and I have green sticky notes. That
Unknown:means that surgeon I can wander past my desk, and Oh, Ben is out doing X, Y, and Z.
Sirjana Singh:And I can put my green sticky note in his blue sticky note pile if my he needs me or I need to be out and take a break. Yeah, so this is not just about work, right? Um, time blocking is good for day to day life. So another big time suck when outside of emails is social media. Oh, yes, it is. And one of the way we detox detox ourselves. That's right, detox ourselves, was taking like that three day break that we took from all screens. And then when we came back, it was okay, we can only check social media at such and such time. Yeah. And that's a really good system to have. Because my gosh, it is full of beautiful people, wonderful things, amazing ideas, but at the same time, it is like a gateway to overwhelm and not having time. Yeah,
Unknown:it's a Pavlovian response machine.
Sirjana Singh:Yeah, yeah. thing.
Unknown:Oh, yeah. Oh, endorphins. Oh, yeah. Oh, somebody noticed me. Oh, yes. Yeah. So okay, so the thing is that certain I just sort of nonchalantly passed over one of the biggest things just there. And that was that we did that three days with no screens and 2020 during the lockdown. Mm hmm. We haven't done it again. But my God, do we learn a lot from it. Like, it just, I still think back to it and think Ah, that was nice.
Sirjana Singh:Absolutely. Yeah.
Unknown:I think it's something everybody should do even just once.
Sirjana Singh:Basically what we're trying to get around with this point number two is time blocking is magic. You guys.
Unknown:Exactly. Okay, so let's move on. Point number three is that you should set realistic deadlines. Something that I for the longest time have been horrific at and I think that's got a little something to do with being ADHD. Yeah, my perception of time is definitely atypical.
Sirjana Singh:Yes. It's beautiful to watch. Because things just feel doable all of the time in your universe till they can't be done.
Unknown:Okay. At some point we were moving out of our house right and I thought I had a whole day up my sleeve. It turns out 330 In the morning During the day, we were supposed to hand over the keys, I was still taking stuff to the storage location. So
Sirjana Singh:yeah, but when it comes to our business is businesses, you've mastered the time perception. And one of the things that Ben did as an exercise to learn how to understand time was to do a task and write down how much time you actually spent on it. Yes, very important. And doing that over months, for some cases, for weeks for some cases, or a couple of days with some case, hey can make heaps of difference in you understanding really how much time you need to allot to certain tasks in your day? And then once you have figured that out, time blocking? Yeah, point number two. So there you have it, we have given you three steps to organise life one is having a plan, a plan that is tangible. You can you can see, yeah, yeah. And it has everything that you want to achieve, then broken down into a day list, which is no longer than three urgent tasks, like three urgent tasks was pushing it, as Ben said, and then if you would like it, don't name it to do list.
Unknown:No, maybe I recommend highly recommend not going to a to do list that just put Yeah, just call a list. I just call it list. Yeah. Okay. It's just the tiniest little thing. But on that list, you want must do, can do want to do, yeah, at least
Sirjana Singh:the Hermione in me loves to do lists, because the joy you get from striking things that you have done is amazing. So anyways, if you are like me, then have a list in where in where you can actually, you know, really cross off things. So that is why we said something tangible something can hold something cross off.
Unknown:It definitely gives you a little a little high, every little dopamine hit.
Sirjana Singh:You got this little rock star. Okay, cool. So number two was time blocking. The example we gave was that of emails. And we also mentioned social media. And third was quickly
Unknown:want to go back to those emails saying and I want to just say, there's this idea of email zeroing. That means getting your emails down to zero every day. It really is great because it makes you get rid of subscriptions that you don't actually use. And it really gives you a thing to aim to. If you're like me, and you see any more than five emails in your inbox at any one time, I start to get a little bit of stress the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Yeah, when I look at surgeon his personal inbox 40,000.
Ben Lane:So is we got to go check. Remember
Sirjana Singh:your vows? You are divulging private information, sir. I thought you might I can trick you on that. But okay. All right.
Unknown:So yeah, I was just thinking about it. So zero in emails. Okay. Cool. Quick little aside there now.
Sirjana Singh:And third was setting realistic deadlines. So to set realistic deadlines, you need to know how much do you actually spend doing certain tasks? How much time yeah, how much time so that's where it is important to do this exercise over a couple of days, weeks or months to figure out how much time you actually spend doing tasks that you have to do daily. And then time blocking. That was Step number two is going to be a breeze. Sweet. Just know that I'm coming back to my two cents. Again, whatever your systems are, or your organisation structure is it can seem chaotic to others. I guess at the end, you seek answers when you feel that you're feeling overwhelmed, or not productive. And the trick is not to fall into doing everything that we suggested. Just because you feel like you cannot fit in or you feel guilty trapped by what the mainstream.
Unknown:Listen, I'm the first one to be all up on board with anyone out there who's a savant and who was just like, oh, my gosh, you guys, this is way too complicated. I have this thing going on in my head, which just
Sirjana Singh:Yeah, as long as it's working for you, and it's not giving you anxiety, that's great. And if that anxiety is a mild dose of medicine, that you need to stay creative or to keep your life afloat. I'm all for it as well. That's true. Pablo Neruda said all paths lead to the same goal to convey to others what we are. So if the end goal is making our creativity more easily accessible, the path that comes naturally to you is good. Don't that guilt come in the way. But if you feel that things need to be changed, don't be stubborn to remain the same. Because like he Cummings said, it takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. Cool. Awesome.
Ben Lane:Good. Yeah,
Unknown:I just made that second.
Ben Lane:Alrighty guys, that's it for today. Next time we are talking to Karen from sweet little treat cakes.
Sirjana Singh:Oh my Geez, you guys. Wow man. She is one delicious podcast episode coming up.
Unknown:Yes, it is. Cool. So stay tuned for that. Some guests yay.
Ben Lane:For Season Two.
Sirjana Singh:And if you have a topic in mind regarding creativity that has been stumping you or do you just want to know our take on that? Or just want to hear what we would research and bring to the table then just DM us on the creative myths at Instagram? No. ad creative myth on Instagram.
Unknown:Just DMS creative myth on Instagram. That's right.
Ben Lane:Awesome, guys. Bye