Saturday, April 2, 2011

Organized or Why I Am Where I Am.

One of the many things that my wife has taught me is how important it is to make lists. Lists allow you to organize what you do and give you a sense of accomplishment once you have everything checked off. She's a huge proponent of organization (stackable plastic boxes with lids make her eyes glaze over). I, on the other hand, suck at organization. No, "suck" really isn't the right word. Maybe terrible at it, horrible at it, unteachable... yeah, those are probably a bit more accurate, but I guess "suck" kind of generally conveys what I mean.

Here's the kicker, though. If I were more organized, I could get more done, which would allow me to spend more time doing the things that I'm really good at. If I spend more time doing the things I'm really good at, I might actually be able to monetize those things. For instance, if I were to make a list of all of the things I need to finish up, I could spend more time writing and blogging. If I spent more time writing, I'd be finished with 13th Summer and Fool's Gold. I'd get those babies submitted to agents/publishers and be well on my way to being a poor writer with lots of pink rejection slips, or maybe I'd get published. If I could spend more time blogging, people might actually notice my blog and maybe it would become popular and I could sell lots of ad space on it and make some scratch.

I really do believe that organization could be the key to becoming immensely wealthy based on the talents you have. Unfortunately, in my experience, I see a lot of creatives who just lack the drive to be organized, myself included. Honestly, it's too much work and we don't really like work. We like playing and doing the things we want to do. For me, that's writing, painting, playing music, etc. But wait, didn't I just create a catch-22? Be more organized so that I can do more of the things I want. But I hate being organized because I want to do the things I want to do. But... I have to work to make a living and I just don't feel like being organized so I think I'll sit here on the couch and not do anything. Such a conundrum we creatives create.

Personally, I think that creatives have a hard time being organized because we just can't access the left side of our brain. There's just too damn much going on that we have to see, touch, feel, do. Besides, we can always do stuff like write, blog or paint tomorrow, right? Oh wait, that's procrastination and that's another post entirely. I mean seriously, I'll get to it later...

2 comments:

  1. Admit it....you LIKE to write a list. :)

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  2. I have to admit, it's kind of strange that my wife isn't following my blog except through facebook... :)

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