The And She Looked Up Podcast
Every other week The And She Looked Up Podcast sits down with inspiring Canadian women who create for a living. We talk about their creative journeys and their best business tips, as well as the creative and business mindset issues all creative entrepreneurs struggle with. This podcast is for Canadian artists, makers and creators who want to find a way to make a living doing what they love. Your host, Melissa Hartfiel, left a 20 year career in corporate retail and has been happily self-employed as a working creative since 2010. She's a graphic designer, illustrator, writer, community co-founder and has owned and operated a multi-six figure a year creative content business. She resides just outside of Vancouver, BC.
The And She Looked Up Podcast
EP169: Season 6 Opener: Creating and Recreating Our Own Creative Process
In the Season 6 opener of the podcast, Melissa and Heather jump into the deep end to talk about creating our creative process. When was the last time you questioned why you create the way you do? Have you mixed things up lately? Moved your desk? Painted outside? Tried to find a way to make a dreaded task more fun?
Sometimes, we get into a rut, or a comfortable groove that doesn't push us forward. Or we procrastinate over parts of bigger projects because the process is... well... gross. So here's your reminder that we, as creatives, get to CREATE - or RECREATE our own creative process!
This is a great episode for creatives who...
- are feeling stuck
- need a fresh start
- have trouble finishing projects
- procrastinate over certain tasks
- feel overwhelm when they walk past their creating space
This episode is brought to you by our Premium Subscriber Community on Patreon and Buzzsprout
For a summary of this episode and all the links mentioned please visit:
Episode169: Creating and Recreating Our Own Creative Process
You can find Melissa at finelimedesigns.com, finelimeillustrations.com or on Instagram @finelimedesigns.
You can find Heather at heatherlynnetravis.com or on Instagram @heathertravis.
You can connect with the podcast on:
- Instagram at @andshelookedup
- YouTube
- Tik Tok at @AndSheLookedUp
For a list of all available episodes, please visit:
And She Looked Up Creative Hour Podcast
Each week The And She Looked Up Podcast sits down with inspiring Canadian women who create for a living. We talk about their creative journeys and their best business tips, as well as the creative and business mindset issues all creative entrepreneurs struggle with. This podcast is for Canadian artists, makers and creators who want to find a way to make a living doing what they love.
Your host, Melissa Hartfiel (@finelimedesigns), left a 20 year career in corporate retail and has been happily self-employed as a working creative since 2010. She's a graphic designer, writer and illustrator as well as the co-founder of a multi-six figure a year business in the digital content space. She resides just outside of Vancouver, BC.
This week's episode of the and she Looked Up podcast is brought to you by our premium subscriber community on Patreon and Buzzsprout. Their ongoing financial support of the show ensures I can continue to bring the podcast to you. Want to help out? Head over to patreoncom. Forward slash, and she looked up. That's patreon p-a-t-r-e-o-n dot com. Forward slash, and she looked up. That's Patreon P-A-T-R-E-O-Ncom. Forward slash, and she looked up. There you can join the community for free or you can choose to be a premium supporter for $4.50 a month, and that's in Canadian dollars. Paid supporters get access to a monthly exclusive podcast episode only available to premium subscribers. You can also click the support the show link in the episode notes on your podcast player to support us via Buzzsprout, where you will also get access to each month's exclusive premium supporter episode. I can't tell you how much I appreciate all our monthly supporters. They are the engine that keeps the podcast running and they're a pretty cool bunch too. And now let's get on with the show.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the and she Looked Up podcast. Each week we sit down with inspiring Canadian women who create for a living. We talk about their creative journeys and their best business tips, as well as the creative and business mindset issues all creative entrepreneurs struggle with. I'm your host, melissa Hartfield, and after leaving a 20-year career in corporate retail, I've been happily self-employed for 12 years. I'm a graphic designer, an illustrator and a multi-six-figure-a-year entrepreneur in the digital content space. This podcast is for the artists, the makers and the creatives who want to find a way to make a living doing what they love.
Speaker 1:Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode and a brand new season of the and she Looked Up podcast. As always, I'm your host, melissa, and it wouldn't be a season opener of the show if my lovely friend and semi-regular co-host, heather Travis, wasn't here. Hello Heather, hello Melissa, it's good to see you. It's been a long summer break, so this is nice. We're getting back into the swing of things. Exactly, yeah. So for all of you who are joining us today, it is the first episode of season six of the podcast and our fifth year of the podcast, because we did two seasons in year one. So, yeah, I know Five years is a long time. Yeah, wow.
Speaker 2:Holy moly.
Speaker 1:So today we have a topic that I think is going to be pretty interesting for everyone. It's going to be one of those ones that kind of ranches out across inspiration, process, creative practice, all of that, and it came out of a podcast that I listen to regularly called the Creative Pep Talk Podcast, with Andy J Pizza. I just love saying his name, andy, that's awesome, I know, and as far as I know, that is his actual, real name. So it is a podcast that I love to listen to whenever I'm in a bit of a funk or a bit of creative block or I'm just feeling really blah about my work or my ability to do work.
Speaker 1:We all have those moments where we go through these periods where nothing is going too well. So his show is the one that I always go to. He's an illustrator. He's also neurodiverse, so he comes at things from a different perspective, which I really appreciate.
Speaker 1:And this is an episode he did back in July, I think, or maybe June, and if I was better prepared I would have written the episode number down. But I will put it in the show notes for this episode so that everybody can go listen to it. But it was an episode on how to finish large scale projects when you know we have those moments where we're powering through a really big project and all of a sudden you're just tired of it, you don't want to do it anymore.
Speaker 1:You want to move on to the next thing. I've heard other people call it finishing energy, yeah. Anyway, when I saw the title of this podcast, I had to tune in, because I am super amazing at coming up with creative ideas and starting them yeah, not super amazing at finishing them. Finishing- yes.
Speaker 1:If this is you, this is a great episode to listen to because he has some really good tips on how he has been able to get through working on some larger scale projects. But one of the things he talked about in this episode that I thought was worth doing an entire episode on is how, as creatives, we have to remember that we get to create our creative process, and that really struck me. He was talking about it from the perspective of switching up your process. When you're stuck in a large project, sometimes you have to switch up the process depending on the type of task, and he talks about creative tasks, finishing tasks, those kinds of things and how sometimes you have to switch up the way you do things in order to keep the energy flowing, and I thought this was really interesting, not just from a finishing perspective, but I think sometimes, when we get into a bit of a funk or a block, or whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1:So we don't know how to get ourselves out of it, for lack of a better term, and this episode just gave me so many thoughts on that as to how we could rejig our own creative processes, like why is it we get stuck into these creative ruts where we think we need to do things a certain way, or we don't even question the way we're doing it because we've just always done it that way?
Speaker 1:So, before we dive in too much, I do just want to say I do think there's a place for a creative routine, Like I think a lot of us need that you know you need to have your cup of tea or you need to have your studio, needs to be in a certain state of cleanliness or whatever you know, before you can kind of get yourself into it. So I'm not saying we shouldn't have those creative routines at all.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying I think sometimes there's a time and a place for consciously changing it up. So you you've did a huge project that kind of culminated in your first solo show last year, but you were working on that project for about two years, I think, right, yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a long time.
Speaker 1:It was a long time. Yeah, I've got to imagine I don't think we really talked about this when we did talk about you prepping for this show, but I have to think there must have been points in that process where you were like is this ever going to end? Do I ever get to do something else? Oh God, yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, and in fact I would have ideas for other things and I would tackle like random, I would feel very you know, anybody who knows me or has listened for a long time my love of spray paint and spray painting things, particularly as a distraction from, like, the general artistic creative process. I can distract myself with a can of spray paint very easily. That's the shiny thing I chase. And I would chase those shiny things just because literally I was like I'm tapped out, I'm done, I'm ready to have the show. I need this and I'm so grateful that I had a deadline that was long before the opening date. You know I had to have. I had basically had a whole summer to just make sure that the stuff had hanging hardware, but everything had to be done, it had to be done, it had to be photographed, it had to be all of it in May, before the exhibition opening in September. And so thank goodness for that deadline. One deadlines are very, I think, work really well for me, and that even if it's a self-imposed deadline. But I was tapped out at like, quite literally near the end I was like fuck, I'm done, I'm done, I'm done, I'm done, I'm done, and even I kind of regretted waiting to write the stories. I had taken notes, but I regretted waiting writing to, to write all of the stories for the picture book that I ended up publishing. I I regret writing to write all of the stories for the picture book that I ended up publishing. I regretted writing those at the end because I and I hope it's not obvious when people read it but even writing it I was like I was really inspired by this. Okay, and I'm fucking done, send Next story. Like I kind of tapped out.
Speaker 2:I had envisioned long winding, much more lyrical stories when I envisioned the project. By the time I got to it I was really quite over it. Yeah, yeah, so, uh, and I think that that happens like particularly for over such a long period of time. When I read about people who take like five years to pull something together, I'm absolutely bamboozled by the willingness to take such a deliberate pace and continue to march forward, knowing how far the finish line is. That is really impressive for me. I'm a I rush, I'm known to rush.
Speaker 1:I rush, I'm known to rush. Um yeah, I think.
Speaker 2:I don't. Is it the Enneagram skill that people talk about?
Speaker 1:like I'm. I've never done it, but I am like 100 sure I'd be a quick starter on that scale I think that's the one where they have the quick starter, because, yeah, I I get ideas and I'm just like gotta do it, like like let start it, and if I'm in the middle of another project it's not a good scene.
Speaker 2:No, and I, quite literally, there will be things that like, there's a bunch, if we're recording this on video right now, there's a bunch behind me, they have their backs turned to me, they're in the corner thinking about their actions right now and I might never come back to them. Uh, they're just. I'm over them. I tapped out, uh, I couldn't figure it out. It wasn't looking the way I wanted it to look and I just I think some people would plow through and continue to make it better. I, maybe I give up too easily. I don't know, I don't know. Yeah, like to me, I, I don't know. Like, if it's meant to be, it's meant to be, and if I can't express it the way I want to express it, then maybe it's just not meant to be expressed by me. Like sort of the way I, I feel about it. Do you know what I mean? Like, and it's not saying it, I don't have the talent or the skill, it's just if I, if the expression doesn't feel right and I'm kind of I don't force it.
Speaker 1:I think sometimes for me it is the skill and this was actually one of the things he mentioned in this episode was he talked about sharpening your pencils, like where sometimes doing the preparation is what makes the finishing easier.
Speaker 1:Yes, preparation is what makes the finishing easier, you know. He said sometimes he needs to. One of the examples he gave he was working on a large picture book and he realized that what he really hated about the process was the amount of time he had to spend in front of the computer cleaning up his artwork for a book. And so he started thinking like what can I do to make that process so that I'm spending less time on the computer and more time doing the actual hand drawing piece, which is what he loved to do? And so he started looking on YouTube for ways that he could get a cleaner scan or tighten up his paper, stretch his paper so that he could get again a cleaner scan, things like that. And that was you know. So sometimes I think it is a bit of a skill thing. I know for me there's definitely been times where I'm like I'm just not, I'm not good enough to do this.
Speaker 1:Like my skill level is not good enough to do this, and I think I'm not being very articulate with this, but I think sometimes, if you're somebody who certain things come very easily to you, like, there are certain things that I can do that come extremely easily to me. I've never had to really work at them, I've never had to study, I've never really had to learn. When you come up against something that is not easy for you, you don't have the patience because you're not used to having the patience to learn it or practice it or do what you need to do to bring your skill level up.
Speaker 2:And so sometimes that is 100% me, yeah, and so there's just times where I'm like I'm not good enough to do this.
Speaker 1:I don't feel like sitting down and doing this for 30 hours to figure out how to get better at it or whatever. So I just whatever, I leave it and I move on to the next thing. It's easy for me and it's not always a good way to grow as an artist, as a person or whatever it is that you do, and so I've kind of had to learn how to embrace the difficulty or the uncomfortableness that comes with getting better at something. Yes, yeah, so I think that's definitely so.
Speaker 2:It's really, it's actually really funny that cause you and I were just talking, I want to say off air, off air before we started, about the mural project that I'm going to be doing this week and, for me, one of the beauties of client projects and taking commissions, while I fully, I fully know that people approach me for my style and when it's outside my comfort zone, sometimes I wonder but but this one totally not my color palette, it's my design, it totally looks like a Heather, so to speak. You can see me in it. At the same time, it's a hundred percent client driven, which you know any design should be.
Speaker 1:It's a branding piece. What you're doing it's a. It's a. Exactly it's a branding piece and limited on.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and the element of the installation requires me to go really outside my comfort zone. I can't. There's no winging it, there is very much. It has to be like it's a mandala. It has to be precise, the elements have to be level, they have to be symmetrical. Things have to line up, and that does not come natural for me, like lining things up in a room, decorating, having things symmetrical, that's sort of easy enough, that comes naturally for me. But mathematical precision is something that I really struggle with, and so I am like teaching myself and setting up as many strategies as I can so that it isn't a painstaking process for me to actually deliver the project, so that it actually isn't the painting on the wall.
Speaker 1:Hopefully, is very fun, because I have set up enough things to help me get to the finish line with as little frustration as possible yes, and that was one of the big things he talked about is how to make these processes that we don't necessarily find interesting, enjoyable, comfortable, how to make them more enjoyable. Yeah, process like why do we allow ourselves to get stuck in these ruts or of doing things the same way when really is completely within our control, to totally to rip it apart and create something better? Yeah, um, yes, one of the examples he gives is of another illustrator that he knows of. And so when you, when, when you're an illustrator, the enjoyable part of the project is drawing like you, like to draw.
Speaker 1:You like to draw, I you know I, for me it is. I like to draw the thing and then one of the finishing tasks is coloring the drawing. So whether you're doing that with paints or markers or pencil, crayons or whatever, for some people that is very creative. I actually do enjoy it as a creative piece. There's something very meditative about it for me. But it is a very different process from the actual drawing and for this artist, she paints, she paints in her illustrations.
Speaker 1:So what she does is she takes all the surfaces in her studio, so all the tables and things, and she puts them into a giant U-shape in the middle of her studio and then she lays out all the artwork on the studio. If you're watching this on YouTube, I'm using my arms a lot to kind of explain this. But she lines up all her paintings and then she goes and she paints them all in one fell swoop. It's like an assembly line. So if she's doing with watercolor, obviously with watercolor you got to wait for things to dry. So she starts at one end, works her way around to the other end of the? U in a way that makes it more efficient for her, more fun for her, more like she feels, like she's seeing the progress, which I think that didn't even occur to me. But when you lay out all the work like that, you get to see the progress as it's happening, which I think can be very motivating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hadn't even thought of that.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, and that's why, for me, murals if they don't move quickly.
Speaker 2:So if I don't have, you know, when you're painting a 20 foot wall, when you walk in at seven o'clock in the morning and get your bucket down and go okay, and you set things up and start putting the design down, if by lunchtime there isn't, for me at least, a first very clear coat of everything, and it's like taking shape, like what am I doing here? This is like this is taking too long. And so to set things up so whether it's a projector, having images, all the different things, having measurements, stencils, pre-made, like I can spend five days prepping so that I save two hours the day of I don't know, and to me that's an efficient use of my time, like making those stencils, doing all of those things so that it is as pain-free to do that installation, so that it is as pain-free to do that installation. It's like just thinking through. You know, it's like camping and like thinking through. Do I have a thing to stir this with? No, I'm going to have to find a stick at the campsite. Well, why don't I bring a stick?
Speaker 1:You know, like I don't know, I think that's one of the reasons I've always steered clear of watercolors because I don't have the patience for things to dry. What watercolors? Because I don't have the patience for things to dry.
Speaker 2:I got to wait for this to dry before I like the thing in my head I need to get it out Right. Yes, that's why I have a blow dryer Two of them, in fact. I pull them out all the time. Dry faster, go.
Speaker 1:But you know when, when she's doing her work and she's got them all laid out and it's drying as she's continuing on, like she's able to see the whole process, the process is happening in front of her, whereas if, if you're just doing one piece, you, you know, you get up, you go do something else while you wait for it to dry and maybe when you come back you're not that excited about it, or you're not feeling it or Like it's exciting when you make 40 jars of pickles, but one jar at a time just seems very tedious.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which is interesting because so it's not like she's doing 40 of the same thing all at the same time, right?
Speaker 1:Like it's a picture book. No, no, they're all. It's a picture book, so every picture is different.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, as opposed to, like, assembly line creation, so making 40 of the same painting and doing mountains, mountains, mountains, mountains. You know, now that's a whole different type and that's where.
Speaker 1:I'm going is that.
Speaker 2:That's a very different, that's a very different thing.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, but the other thing that I thought was interesting about that is this is she's literally rearranging her studio furniture. She's literally rearranging her studio furniture in a pretty big way for this, and I think that's something most of us never consider doing We've arranged our studio the way that it is and that's how we work. Yes, and the thought of moving.
Speaker 2:I've rearranged my studio a few times, but even still like in the same corner regardless.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's usually a very conscious decision, like I'm sick of this, I'm going to move things around. You're not necessarily moving things around for a specific task. No, like, a couple of weeks ago I was cleaning my windows and my big table that I work at is right in front of the windows and it's a very deep table so I can't just reach across and clean the windows. I have to move the table. So I was moving the table, trying to get it out so I could get in front of the windows. I like this is a lot of work, it's just so I can clean the window, but I wanted a clean window so I could have better light, obviously, um, so yeah, the thought, the idea of actually moving this table around so that I could, I could work on a different aspect of a project never, ever occurred to me that I could do that. Like how?
Speaker 2:yes, you know but that to me like what a beautiful creative solution. And you use the tools at your disposal and this and your tools are your space, the work that you're working on, the all, like all of the things. I think that that's quite, that's quite brilliant. And, interestingly, I tend to you know this is really you and I. Whenever we talk, I kind of feel like it's very serendipitous. In the episodes that we're talking about, I'm like I needed this in my life.
Speaker 2:It's like a tarot card that was pulled and I'm like dang, this is what I needed today, because I have been we talked about it, I think, the last time we talked for the podcast. I've been experimenting a lot, but now I've come into a creative rut where I'm like what do I do next? And it's one of the things that I try and do is limit myself, like so, give myself constraints, I'm only going to use X color, I'm only going to use X medium, I'm going to give myself a time constraint, I'm only going to use my non-dominant hand. And so I tend to narrow my scope. But I think finding a creative solution is actually completely widening your scope and thinking way beyond. What do I normally do? It's interesting, like to me, and now I'm thinking to myself hmm, regularly I constrain myself and maybe, breaking from the habit of trying to break the habit with constraining myself, I should just let it all hang out.
Speaker 1:Let it all hang out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, yeah, it's like I'm having an existential moment right now. It is.
Speaker 1:Well, it's funny. I have my list of notes here and number three on the list is question yourself, yeah. So yeah, you're questioning yourself now, like I am, I do the same thing. I find I'm much more creative when there's restraints put on me. And we've talked about this. You know like the worst thing a client can say to you is do whatever you want and you're like yes, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:I have a client like that right now and I'm like, oh my gosh, do you know? Literally no color preference, and I'm like we can't even narrow it down. It's the possibility, unless it's driving me bonkers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, it's. It's pretty rare that you just have a flash of brilliance where you're like I know it would be the perfect thing for you, like, and you just do it. And even I think, even when a client says that you can do whatever you want, there's always that lingering feeling in the back of your head that if I do whatever I want, will you actually like it when it's done Like?
Speaker 2:you know, there's that or, and so it's interesting. There's people who do whatever you want, yes, but they don't really, but they actually so that and there's like, and literally you're like, no, no, no, no. I know the in-between lines are we're sticking to these colors, we're sticking to this, you know, whatever. But I, quite literally, I do have a client who's it's logo design and it is full on carte blanche.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I think one of the first places we can look to this and we've kind of been talking about it a little bit here is to look at your space with fresh eyes, which I think is something a lot of us don't do.
Speaker 1:We set up our studio or our workspace or wherever it is we're going to be doing the bulk of the work and we don't ever really think to question space, the layout of that space or the functionality of that space again, until just one day we're sick of it and we just decide we want to change, but we don't. We don't think about doing continuous tweaks or continue it or or big reshuffles like that one artist.
Speaker 1:Um and it's funny, I I I was thinking about this the other day as I was kind of prepping for this. I remember this one time my studio was in a different layout than it is today and my business partner came over to help me. We were doing, I think we were putting together. We were doing something that we had to physically put together. It might have been swag bags or something. So there was a lot of physical movement and we were doing stuff with our hands.
Speaker 1:And he had never been in my studio before and he came in and he just sort of surveyed the room and he's like where are you sitting? And I just pointed to my desk that I normally work at and he's like, okay, and then he just kind of looked around, plopped himself down in a spot I would never have plopped myself down to work, and just we just started working and he was totally content. And it was like when he walked into the room he saw it in a completely different way than I did, totally, because he had never seen it before. So his brain was just kind of like, you know, calculating where's the best place for me to sit. And that's where he sat and just kind of bumped himself down, and I think it's like that Febreze commercial where you go nose blind to your house.
Speaker 1:We, our senses, get dulled when we do the same thing over and over again. We see our, we don't see our studio. We don't smell the smells people smell when they come into our studio. We don't hear, like you know, there could be a background noise that we don't hear because we hear it every day. So we stopped registering it and I think sometimes we need to kind of force ourselves to look at things with fresh eyes or question why, totally Like why is this table here, I don't know? Like that's just where it's always been.
Speaker 1:So one easy way to do this Go ahead, yes.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no. I was going to say, and that's inviting, I think so to your point about having somebody in, and that I think, as artists and creatives, we generally it's so in our own, and that's asking somebody to come into your space, asking, just saying, hey, I'm thinking of like I need to do this. How do I? And literally, as you were talking, I was thinking and it came up quite literally yesterday at lunch with a girlfriend. She introduced me to another friend, as this is the person who, when I got divorced, helped me rearrange the house and love my house again, and it was literally got the house and the furniture You're not going to divorce is expensive, you're not going to buy all new things, right. And so how do I make this space feel like my own?
Speaker 2:And not the space that was just, you know, the space that I made the exhibition, or the space that I shared with this person and just invited me in and we threw spaghetti at the wall and rearranged the whole space and we had so much fun doing it. It was a great time and the space is now more functional and so it's just inviting somebody in and the willingness, I think, the willingness. So the willingness to invite somebody in and then the willingness to experiment, because quite literally, you could rearrange the whole room and say you know what? It doesn't work. We have to. The desk only works in this spot. It doesn't work to have all my tables in the center of the room. I don't have the room like. It just doesn't work. And that's, I think I think, the willingness to explore, that is even that.
Speaker 1:I think that's a healthy part of the creative, creative process no, I totally agree, I I think, yeah, I think it is and I think it can be. It can be hard to kind of see things with fresh eyes, like, like you said, when we walk into the same space every day or we head to the same part of the house every day or wherever it is that you work of us, our studios or our studio space is kind of sacrosanct. It's like, yes, my space, yes, right.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's where I go to that Seinfeld episode is where I go.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, all of my toys. Yes, it's my home, elaine, it's my home. Oh, honestly, I mean, you know, we know that Brian has a little tiny square of this and when he like, literally when he veers an inch out of that space, I'm like what are you doing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what are you doing? Don't do that.
Speaker 2:You're out of your allocated zone.
Speaker 1:But I think having somebody come into the space, just you know, like hey, this is my studio, or what do you think, or something like that, can help. I think also a great time to maybe do.
Speaker 2:This is if you go on vacation.
Speaker 1:When you come back and you go into your studio for that first time, instead of just rushing in to get back to work, walk in with fresh eyes and like, look at the space and be like, huh, I never noticed that light doesn't really sit where I need it to sit. Or why is this huge stack of boxes here, like it's been there for eons? Why is it there? Like, how can I get rid of her, how can I move it? Or you know things like that, and so I think we're you know we're at the beginning of September here. So for those of you who've maybe been away, now's a good time to maybe have that moment, I think, also doing a deep clean.
Speaker 2:Yes, I just did it. It's so gratifying, like a clean slate. Yes.
Speaker 1:And it is where you start to question why you do things. Because you're clean, you know you got to clean it and you're like why is this here?
Speaker 2:It just collects dust Like what am I doing?
Speaker 1:I think, and this is a great time to do a deep clean, because you know there's something about for me September and back to school. Even though I haven't been to school in a very long time, it's still a new start, I guess. To me it's more of a new year than the new year. So what better time to embrace that than to do a deep clean of your workstation or your workspace or wherever it is that you hang out when you're working, and it's also great to do as we're getting ready to prep for the holidays, right, so it's nice to just. You know you're going to be really busy and you know that, as you're getting ready to do markets and and get stuff out there and shipping stuff, you're not going to do markets and and get stuff out there and shipping stuff. You're not going to have time to clean every day.
Speaker 2:So do a deep clean.
Speaker 1:Now get things organized and then you can carry on and um and, and. If you're going to do the deep clean, that's the time to sit there and question like yeah, totally, and that's also.
Speaker 2:I mean I just did a deep clean. I found so many. I mean, honestly, I'm a little bamboozled, I forgot about them. But I I mean maybe it's because I have a hoarding problem and a thrifting problem, but that's not for today's discussion, you know I think part of where a hoarding thing comes from is just not being able to see like you just become acclimatized to the piles of stuff and so, quite literally, I had a pile of empty frames.
Speaker 2:I also then found a bunch of prints that I forgot that I had made and so I framed. They're all hanging over there. I have a boatload of framed prints now and I'm going to be moving forward with having a big sale, another studio sale, and so even that process of finding things, making action for them, putting it out there, going forward Even that, even though I'm not making something new, I'm removing hurdles in that process. Having stuff that hasn't sold and making a plan to get it out the door to me is removing obstacles to start more new.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, we all know how we feel after we do a deep clean. It's just like, ah, your brain or maybe not everyone feels like this, but my brain just feels like it can do stuff now, like because it's not processing this mess in the background, processing this mess in the background, right Like. It's like that part that's off my plate now we can focus on something else. So I do. Yeah, a deep clean is a great way to.
Speaker 1:And also, what happens when you do a deep clean we've talked about this on other episodes is you tend to find stuff that you forgot you had in terms of supplies and materials, and very often you'll come up with like, hey, I could use this for. Or you ask yourself what you could use this for. And some of my best ideas have come out of doing a deep clean and coming across something I forgot I have or that was left over from a project, and being like you know, you go through the process of like, do I need this? Should I get rid of it? Should I sell it? And then you're like what could I do with it? And then you kind of your brain starts going well, you could do this and this.
Speaker 1:And yeah, so I think that's another benefit of doing a deep workspace cleanup.
Speaker 2:So absolutely, and for me too, that deep clean like I enjoyed I shared that on Instagram and for me, a big one in terms of the creative process and I touched on it at the beginning of the episode was at is deadlines. But in addition to deadlines is is public accountability. So if I have a deadline that's just mine and my own and nobody else knows about it, I can move it because it it really a deadline.
Speaker 1:Is it really a?
Speaker 2:deadline. If it just exists in my brain, that's right. But if I am accountable to Instagram people, to people I send an email newsletter to, if I am accountable to even just a peer group so not a public, not your Instagram, not your fans maybe it quite literally is just that person. It could be your mom, it could be your BFF, like who's that person that checks in with you and says, hey, how's that big project you're working on going? Didn't you say you wanted to have that done by the end of June? You know that person in your life.
Speaker 2:I think that one for me is a is a big one, and that's part of that. Inviting people in, so bringing people into the studio saying how's this working, or even pitching a concept. Like I've been creating a lot of experimental stuff and I've had some really interesting conversations with people just saying, like floating this. Hey, I've been experimenting with this, would you do? You think there's an opportunity for that, do you think? And having those conversations, particularly with people who aren't fellow creatives, so just a random person, has been really valuable for me. And I think open, just opening yourself up to, because sometimes people say, oh, that's a shit idea, and honestly in my brain I'm like well, okay, I still think it's a good idea.
Speaker 2:And so it doesn't like and so you want other people's opinions just to think about, but not because it's going to. If you think it's a good idea and somebody says it's a bad idea, if you still think it's a good idea, you should do it.
Speaker 1:You can still do it. Yeah, absolutely you can still do it, but you just brought up a good point. This was way further down on my list, but it was on my list, okay. This is so funny because Heather and I don't really chat too much about what we're going to talk about in an episode.
Speaker 1:We kind of both bring our ideas and then it's always interesting to see how closely aligned what we come up with and the other interesting thing is Heather did not listen to the episode that gave me this idea, and yet so much of what you're saying is stuff that he brought up in the episode, like it's so interesting it's been that's too funny.
Speaker 1:It is Um, but yeah, one of the things on my list was to create or to have some kind of support network or something that you can um invite in. So I have. I'm part of a mastermind group. We meet once a month, so that group of ladies is really helpful from an accountability standpoint. Talk about what we need to be doing or what projects we want to work on, and you know, if you mention something more than two or three meetings, our meetings are monthly in a row and you haven't pushed forward on it, somebody's going to call you out on it. Yep, and that's super helpful.
Speaker 1:And then a smaller group of us from that group also co-work via Zoom three days a week in the morning, and that has been really, really helpful for me, keeping me accountable for my internal deadlines, because we're on Zoom, they get to look at my studio every day and I get to look at their spaces every day. So there is kind of that little bit of an incentive to make sure that it's not a god awful mess in here, because I'm sharing that space with somebody else that I'm working with, but just being able to talk to those people and there is something for me, even though we're not in the same room, they're just on a screen, knowing that I mean I could go look on Facebook for an hour and they wouldn't know because we're not in.
Speaker 1:To get done Like this is my way of keeping myself accountable and it's been. It has been a game changer for me. Coworking has been a complete game changer for me. And, yeah, all the women in this group, we are all self-employed, small businesses. We are all within a certain niche but we all do very different things in that niche, right? So very different businesses, which is also nice, because just being able to bounce ideas off of somebody who understands where you're at because you're all in the same niche, but who does a very different thing from you, so their process is very different from yours Having them be able to look at what you're doing and saying, well, maybe you could try doing what I do and sort of extrapolating that for what you do.
Speaker 1:And that can be really, because I think very often we get into like you're a graphic designer, you talk to other graphic designers and by you're a graphic designer I mean I'm a graphic designer, not Heather world with your graphic design blinders on and you don't see outside of that and to have somebody who's in a different uh, who does something completely different, to come in and say, well, why don't you just do this?
Speaker 1:And for you, totally oh, oh, but that's not what all the other graphic designers do. And then you realize how silly that see it all the time. Most of my clients that I work with are content creators and because I used to be a content creator, I recognize their blinders almost immediately. But it's so interesting to see how completely narrow they can get into this, like, yeah, very narrow set, what's the word I'm looking for? But just field of view. Their field of vision is very narrow because we get into this habit of doing things a certain way, because it's easy and we know that the results are going to be consistent and very often for a lot of the things we do.
Speaker 1:We do want consistent results. Like there's certain things when you, when you're doing your marketing tasks, there's a certain result you want. Right, and if you know this works, you just keep doing it, Even though if you tweaked it a bit or did something different, you could get much better results. But it requires your brain switching and trying something different. And what if it doesn't work? Like then? I just wasted all that time when I could have done the same thing that I always do. That I know will work fairly well, right and I think I know.
Speaker 1:I think we all fall into that trap oh, big time. Yes, I do all the time, all the time.
Speaker 2:All the time, all the time. And that's I. You know I am my own, you know we are all our own biggest critic, I think. And so particularly when I try something and it fails so you know we talked about at the beginning of the episode in terms of, like, some of that has to do with skill level. Sometimes it's just lack of patience. Sometimes I give myself too tight of a time constraint, so I'm trying to get something done in half a day that really Heather, like this is a full day project, like who are you kidding yourself that this is a half day project? And so sometimes and again, it's removing the obstacles, and so sometimes my own expectations are my obstacle.
Speaker 2:I guess it's not. It's not a reality check, it really isn't, but it's literally just being like I guess it is a reality check, but it's it's. It's more just being setting your own expectations and just thinking things through in like a really practical manner. I think sometimes that's my problem is that the creative process is so exciting and so energizing that you look to the finish line as opposed to just thinking things through in like a very structured way, yeah, and and because thinking in a structured way is not having fun and just throwing paint on the wall when you have to allocate every ounce of paint and the wall space and the time that you're at the wall space and you know, yeah, yeah, sometimes the boring things they overwhelm, they overwhelm, they overwhelm.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I think those are like the finishing tasks.
Speaker 2:They're not fun. No.
Speaker 1:And it's funny because I'm just finishing up a mammoth five book design project. Ooh fine, and 98% of it is done. 98% of it is done, and the stuff that's not done is these niggly little tasks that have nothing to do with designing or creating.
Speaker 2:They're just niggly little tasks. It's like filing your taxes. You just gotta do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just putting in some little bits of text that are missing and just a few just odds. It ends and it's like it's taking me forever to do them right because they're not interesting, and I am so done with this project. It's it's been a huge project. I'm done with it. I want to move on. Um, I loved the project. It was super fun and I got to do some really cool design stuff in it. But that part of the project is done now and I don't really want to copy and paste some text. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:Yep, and so it's interesting, my exhibition, like in terms of I was tapped out of the creative process long before we even mounted the exhibition. When the exhibition was going, I was so excited to talk about the artwork. Even when the exhibition finished, I had open houses, I welcomed people in. I was delighted to talk about the artwork. Even when the exhibition finished, I had open houses, I welcomed people in. I was delighted to talk about the artwork.
Speaker 2:Now the stuff that hasn't sold is leaning in a pile against the side of my studio and the thought of marketing it and talking about it again and again, and again until it sells. I am tapped out, tapped out, and so I'm actually at the process of figuring out what pieces mean enough to me to not paint over and what pieces am I just going to paint over because I am so done with it that this is now time for new and it hasn't sold. And that doesn't mean that the artwork isn't valid, doesn't mean that doesn't mean that there wasn't an audience. It just means, in the timeline that I had, which is probably rushed, uh, I'm over it and that's.
Speaker 1:It's sort of like yeah, yeah, yeah, um, and this is where one of the things I had on my list was, you know, getting help for some of those monotonous tasks, like I just got a new bookkeeper. She deals with all that stuff that I is not creative, like come on, it's just not.
Speaker 2:If it is creative bookkeeping that we might have some problems with the CRA a little bit later.
Speaker 1:It's not creative, I don't like doing it. I put it off because I don't like doing it, so then it turns into this mammoth task that I have to tackle at tax time because I put it off and then, um, so now she does it. I just brought my old assistant over from food bloggers of canada. She's just starting to help me out with the podcast and doing some of the social media marketing for it, because I don't particularly enjoy that aspect of it and and so you know she's helping me with that. And so to if and we're not always in the position to bring somebody on to help- us but you know, like Valentina, she's just doing four to five hours a month.
Speaker 1:For me, it's not. You know, just doing four to five hours a month, for me, it's not.
Speaker 2:Yep, you know um, but that four to five hours is making is removing a huge obstacle from you and allowing you to actually do the other things it's not the four to five hours, it's the mental space she's taking.
Speaker 1:Oh, she's giving me back in my brain yeah, um, and for for you know what? What I'm paying her, that is worth it to me, same with my bookkeeper, itkeeper. It is so worth it to not have that in my brain. And I think this is something, too, that we often is I can't afford somebody full time, or I can't afford to pay somebody 30 hours a month. You don't need to pay somebody 30 hours a month. You can pay them for a couple of hours a month, or an hour a week or whatever it's like.
Speaker 1:Maybe having somebody come in to clean your house for every two weeks, that's a couple of hours a week, a couple of hours per session, and it just makes it so when you leave your studio space, you can reintegrate back into your daily life without worrying about all this other stuff, and you can get creative with what you get people to help you with. It doesn't have to be a cleaner, it doesn't have to be a bookkeeper. Maybe it's somebody who comes in for an hour a day to hang out with your kids, or yeah, I don't know. Think about where the challenges are with your time and see if you could bring somebody in to help you.
Speaker 2:And I would say too and this is again, this is just speaking from complete personal experience I have started integrating new practices into my I can't believe I'm going to use this word self-care routine, but I have been experimenting with different things like meditation and light therapy and a bunch of other things, and inviting new, and so thinking outside of the box, thinking outside of the heather comfort zone, allowing myself to expand my brain in other areas, has allowed me to like I've had lots of creative ideas as a result of the things that I've been doing, and if I hadn't done those things, would I have had those creative ideas? Probably not. And so it doesn't necessarily have to be within the creative process or even within boundaries of your studio.
Speaker 2:Reorganizing your studio, reorganizing your supplies, trying new things, constraints, opening yourself up. Perhaps it's opening yourself up in other ways, like participating in a new community, joining a mastermind group, hiring somebody or trying a new form of exercise therapy. I don't know. Maybe you enjoy going to Starbucks and you never do it, but it's a treat. And maybe you say to yourself you know what? I'm going to go to Starbucks once a week for the next month as a really lovely treat, and I'm going to enjoy the decadence of sitting there and see what that hour in that space does to me. Maybe that, maybe that's the way you let loose.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had two variations of that on my list. One was one was different spaces for different things and I think I wouldn't be particularly busy. So I would avoid things like after school or really early in the morning or those kinds of things. But those times where it's not as busy and I would do stuff like answer emails or if I needed to write content, I would write content during that time because there was just something about removing myself to a different space, kitty Corner to.
Speaker 1:That is our local library, and so I would often go work in the library too. There was just something about moving to a different, very different space. The library was a very different space from the coffee shop, but there was a different ambience around you, like in the coffee shop. It's very different space. The library was a very different space from the coffee shop, but there was a different ambience around you, like in the. In a coffee shop it's bustling, there's people, there's music, people are laughing, talking, um, and that can trigger certain kinds of energy to help you do certain kinds of work. And then going to the library, very, very different it's quiet, it's peaceful, there's still a lot of people around, but it's just got a different vibe to it, and that is very helpful for me with other types of tasks.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it might just be getting up and moving to a different part of your house, like go work at the dining room table instead of in your office or your or um. And that got me thinking, like if you were somebody who, let's say, um, I have a friend who makes jewelry and she does a lot of it on the couch because then she can watch tv, but she's on her couch. It's not super comfy. So maybe, if that's you, what about setting up a space in your actual work area and, instead of the TV, maybe you set up your tablet so that you can watch Netflix while you're working, but you're in a better space for your ergonomically, all your tools are around you, you don't have to worry about spilling your bits and pieces on the couch and then having to go through the couch cushions trying to find them all.
Speaker 1:So what could you implement in your space that would make it a more welcoming place to work on certain tasks? And maybe it is something as simple as setting up an iPad so that you can watch TV shows instead of having to be in front of the television. Or do you have a good sound system in your workspace, Like if you're a person?
Speaker 2:who uses it?
Speaker 1:right.
Speaker 1:I know one person who got herself a really, really good pair of Bluetooth headphones not the earbuds but like the big, you know headphones Bluetooth, so that she could blast her music while she's printing her stickers. And she has multiple Cricut machines, so she's printing a lot of stickers and so she can kind of dance around her studio while the sheets are printing. She's pulling them off. She's kind of, you know, she's doing her thing and she's got her music going and it makes it so that she can, you know, she's enjoying herself so much more. I actually just had this conversation with my mom yesterday. She was, we had been for a hike and she was going home and she said she was going through all her slides. My mom, photography is her hobby. She's been doing this since we were little kids.
Speaker 1:She has buckets and buckets of slides and she's been going through them all and getting rid of all the ones she doesn't want and she's like it's very tedious. And I said why don't you just turn some music on, because my mom loves music? And she's like oh, I don't have a music player anymore. I was like you don't. And she said no, and I'm like you need to get one. She's like I know, but that's not going to help me today. And then I was like why don't you just turn your TV on to one of the music channels? And she's like oh, I never even thought of that. So you know like. And so she's going to go home, she's going to turn on one of the music channels. It's going to completely alter her mood and she's going to get into what she's doing and she'll carry on. So, like, something so simple is just thinking of like oh yeah, the TV has music channels.
Speaker 2:And what makes you happy. So, quite literally, like the speaker system we have in here came from a Legion, so it's like a massive like this should fill like a wedding dance hall. Apologies to my neighbors and anyway, but when we got them, I quite literally rearranged the studio A for placement so where I, in working, get the sound that I want straight at me and B how can I use them as part of the space. And so, quite literally, like there's workspace that's hovering just about, like I integrated them into the design of the studio because they're that essential for my creative process.
Speaker 1:I asked my accountant if I could deduct Spotify as an expense, because I always have music going in here or I am watching. If I'm designing, I like to have like, I like to have like a show on netflix or whatever that I know really well that I don't have to watch yeah, like downton abbey yes, downton abbey is a good one um, big bang theory, stuff like that, uh.
Speaker 1:And she's like, yeah, if you're using it to listen to while you're working. So I, I deducted spotify last year as an expense. Oh my god, I'm gonna.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I got that idea from a client whose accountant told me she could do this. So the other thing I have, like you can see it if you're, if you're watching the video but, I have a jigsaw puzzle down there and I always have a jigsaw puzzle going, because when I'm really stuck in my head, I'll just go sit on the floor and put a few pieces in and and it usually gets my brain going and I kind of got the idea from my dog when he was, when he was younger and very high energy he was.
Speaker 1:He wanted attention all the time and so very often what I would do is I would get up from my desk and I would go sit on the floor so that I could roll a ball for him or give him belly rubs or just give him attention, but keep working, um, and very often just sitting on the floor. The act of sitting on the floor would make me see the room differently or change things up, and it was just I'm just giving my dog a belly rub so he'll give me peace.
Speaker 2:Totally. I do that Interestingly. I do that with pieces of artwork, so as I'm painting it, I'll be painting, and then I quite literally turn it upside down or turn it sideways, and I work on the piece from a different perspective and all, quite literally, all is is just turning it around. But that changes things drastically and my mind immediately sees the piece differently. And that is so, yeah, and sometimes I'm like and that is so, yeah, and sometimes I'm like, oh, this looks cooler this way, which is sometimes maybe not a good thing, but I yeah.
Speaker 1:It's so funny because you were talking about doing mandalas and I do. I draw mandalas quite often. It's one of my ways to kind of relax and I was always struggling with my line art on it because I do them by hand. I do the measurements with a compass and protractor and stuff, but I do the actual art line work by hand and I was always struggling with it. And I watched a quick little video on Skillshare, again learning how to get better at some things to make it easier for yourself. But in the video the guy is like remember to turn your paper, turn your paper turn your paper, turn your paper.
Speaker 2:And I was like I never turn my paper, like so it's so funny.
Speaker 2:you say that I know I know I was doing the mandala design and again I was doing it on my iPad. I had all the lines and everything mapped out and one of the little elements is a heart, and so I was drawing these perfect hearts when it was me. And then ups, and I'm like god, I really can't draw a heart upside down. And then I'm literally holding a fucking iPad that the screen rotates like I don't even have to turn anything, I just go with my fingers, and it turned and I was like ding, like how thick am I? Anyway, but these are, you don't think of it until you think of it, right, and so I mean, it sounds as simple as turning the page yes, it's embarrassing to even admit I'm an illustrator and a graphic designer.
Speaker 1:Like how was I not turning my paper?
Speaker 2:I know it's just funny, because I bet you a hundred dollars, melissa, I bet you a hundred dollars that if you were coloring in a Miss Doodle you would turn the page to get like the skirt. Like I bet you, you've turned your page in the coloring in process.
Speaker 1:I'm not good at moving things around.
Speaker 2:Really, I'm really not.
Speaker 1:Like it's, it's's, it doesn't come naturally to me. I mean, maybe that's a really weird thing to admit, but yeah, I I'm. I tend to kind of like get into that situation where it's literally blinders, like here is my paper it's like your page is taped to your table yeah, and I can't move it, and it's not, and it's so ridiculous. It's so ridiculous and yet I will bet you a hundred dollars. Somebody's listening to this and thinking, oh my God, I don't turn my paper.
Speaker 2:Honestly, the number of light bulb moments I've had recently are quite literally, I'm like I am 46 years old and I just learned that and I, and sometimes I'm like how far of a hole was my head in? Anyway, you don't see what you don't see, and I think sometimes you see it when you actually need to see it, and so perhaps somebody has said that to you before, but it never registered.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so funny, but just like oh my God, I can turn the page.
Speaker 2:Turn the page. Yeah, what we need is the. Um, do you remember those books that we read as a kid and it was uh, like when the record made the sound or the tape made the sound? Uh, but in my gen, your gen, the record made a sound and it was to the sound to turn the page yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, anyway, that's, we need that sound.
Speaker 1:Turn the page, so funny, um, anyway, uh, the other thing you mentioned was trying something new, um, which I also had on my list, um, one of the things to check out, like if you've ever done the artist's way. If you haven't done the artist's way, it is a great way to help, uh, kickstart your creative process or to. But one of the things she talks about that the thing that everybody always remembers is morning pages from the artist way. Everybody talks about doing morning pages, which is a very helpful tool. One of the other things she talks about that was really really key for me was the artist's date, where you take your inner artist, who is? She equates to a child, a small child who has temper tantrums and can be very moody, and, um, yeah, who?
Speaker 2:needs.
Speaker 1:So that's not the grown-up artist no, it's a very different part of us and, okay, she's like. You need to take that inner child, that inner artist, on a date once a week where you go out and you do something that is just meant to nurture that inner artist, and it could be. It doesn't have to be big and fancy, it could be something super small. It could just be like a walk in an area that you've never been to before. It could be going to an art gallery. An art gallery is one that always works for me. Another one that works for me is taking public transit. It it sounds so weird, but just plopping down on a bus and looking out the window, yeah it was when it was for me.
Speaker 2:It's a meal in a restaurant by myself and it's yeah, so anything is public transit like just literally sitting there and people watching.
Speaker 1:It is so glorious um, I will often go to my local community garden and I will just walk around and take pictures of the flowers for later, because I just like looking at how mother nature creates color combos. Yeah, there's so many different things you could do. It could just be going for a picnic on your own in a place you've never been, just, you know, take a water bottle, a sandwich and sit on a rock somewhere and just watch what happens around you. On this same podcast, the Creative Pep Talk podcast, he had an illustrator on who had done a really interesting project where she was capturing the small critters of her local area and I can't remember what the name of the book was, but one of the things she had to do was to go out and find them all so she could draw them. And so she would go to these random places and just sit herself down and wait for all these little critters to come to her. So we're not talking like squirrels and things, we're talking like bugs, basically Little bugs, snakes and stuff.
Speaker 1:And in one instance she went to this kind of empty lot that was near an apartment building. Uh, that, because she just didn't really have anywhere else to go at that point and she's like you wouldn't think there would be anything in an empty lot, but there was a little bit of a pond or something. I might be getting this wrong. It's been a while since I listened to the episode. There's a little bit of a pond or something. I might be getting this wrong.
Speaker 1:It's been a while since I listened to the episode. There's a little bit of a pond or something and she just kind of sat down next to it and then she started to notice like there was little water bugs in the pond and there was little critters coming around. And anywhere she went, if she sat down long enough and paid attention to her surroundings, they would reveal themselves to her. And I think there's a lesson in that is that sometimes we're in such a rush or we dismiss something because it looks boring or mundane, whereas if we just sat with it for a few minutes it would start to reveal its secrets whether it's little critters whether it's noises, whether it's changes in the light, so that could be an artist state and it's doing those kinds of new things that can really shake things up for us, but we have to consciously make the decision to do them.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, big time, and for me they have to. Those things have to involve the senses, multiple senses for me. So I like sound is a big one. Music in my studio, the feeling, and so funny enough sometimes for me, even just shaking things up, I turn music up ridiculously loud and dance quite literally because no one is watching, I'm sure I look like a crazy person, don't care at all Feels fantastic and it is an incredibly cathartic like delightful, and I taylor swift, I shake it off, but literally like I just wow and it's, I'm like, and I'm back, she's back, let's go, and it's not. Yeah, that's. I think sometimes it's just that simple.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sometimes one of my go-tos is 25 jumping jacks, like sometimes that is all I need is just like get up, do 25 jumping jacks and sit back down again and it just gets the blood flowing and you know. Or making a cup of tea is another one. There's something very methodical about making a cup of tea and you can't rush it. You can't rush it.
Speaker 2:The kettle boils when the kettle it you can't rush it when the kettle boils you can't make it grow faster? Yes, and it doesn't come at like the. The tea doesn't come out of the tea bag any faster. You can squeeze it all you want, it don't? It's? Yeah, you have to let it sit.
Speaker 1:Something is super simple, is that? The last one I had on my list that I wanted to mention was time, and this is one that I've been paying more attention to recently. We and this is so interesting because once you become self-employed, you can work whenever you want to work and yet we all tend to slide into a rut of working very often the same hours. We worked when we had a job job, and we just do that because that's when we work. But are those necessarily the best hours for you to work, particularly for you, yeah, or anyone and you know like are you a morning person? Are you a night owl?
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, one of the things I've noticed recently is that I used to have a very hard and fast rule that I always took one full day off on the weekend. No work, didn't matter which day it was Saturday, sunday, but no work, just away from screens. And that was when I was coming out of a very bad episode of burnout, and I am still a big believer in having one day where you don't do anything. You just need to.
Speaker 1:But, it could be a Wednesday, it could be a Wednesday, it could be a Friday, it could be a Wednesday, it could be a Friday, it could be whatever day you want. But one of the things I've noticed is that when I work for a couple of hours on a Saturday or Sunday morning usually earlier in the morning, so let's say from nine till 11, I am so productive in those two hours that is like almost a full day's worth of product, weekday productivity for me in two hours, because during the week I'm getting interrupted by stuff going on Emails, people wanting things from me, just and so those two hours, and so I've started embracing that. Now I just do a couple of hours in the morning on the weekend and don't work. You know like we're on, we're recording this on a Monday, so we just came off of a weekend.
Speaker 1:I worked about two hours on Sunday and I actually worked a full day on Saturday because I was so disrupted with so many things going. You know, like we had plumbing issues, so I had plumber in and out all week and I had to take my dad to a bunch of appointments. I just couldn't get into a flow. So I'm just like you know what, I'm just going to work Saturday and I got so much work done on that Saturday because I wasn't getting all the interruptions that I have during the week, and so maybe for you, maybe, instead of watching Netflix in the evening, go sit in your studio and try doing some work For me.
Speaker 2:Sunday mornings are my big and even still and it's interesting because you know, now I'm not out of the house full time but I do have a job and so that I'm leaving the house for and Sunday mornings. You know people are like, oh, but then you're working on the weekend. I'm like, yeah, but it's my craft, like it's not really working, like tell me, it's punishment that I get to spend time doing the thing that I love, that gives me joy, in a beautiful studio in my home in a very safe country. Tell me, something's wrong with that country.
Speaker 1:Tell me, tell me, something's wrong with that, like if you're doing for a lot of us, creating is is what we love to do, so if you get to do that uninterrupted for a full three hours on a Sunday morning, that could be very joyful for you. It it is right and so if it is. What's wrong with that?
Speaker 2:totally and it's not and it's not, it it's not work. If I was doing the accounting, that 100% is work. That 100% is work. But painting and even cleaning my studio. Like I spent five hours last weekend cleaning my studio, that was a glorious five hours. I found things, I had ideas, I had music going, I had a great time in my studio by myself and loved every single second of it. I in fact, skipped lunch because I was, which is shocking that I forgot about food.
Speaker 2:But I was so. I was just having a great time and I honestly didn't think that the time was passing as fast as it did. And it did, yeah, yamy, yamy.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. So, um, yeah, I think I think probably, to wrap this all up, the thing to really think about is all the places where you find yourself doing the same thing over and over again, because, yeah, because that's how I do it. Um, there's nothing wrong with having routine. I can't start something new in my studio with a hot cup of tea and a very clean desktop those two things I need to have. That signals creating to me.
Speaker 1:It could be very different for somebody else, but I am so bad at falling into ruts of how I do things without giving it a moment's thought as to why I'm doing it that way or if there's a better way to do it, and so I'm trying now to make a very conscious effort to if something isn't sitting right with me, like if I'm not enjoying what I'm doing doing, or if the task is just something I'm putting off, like why? Why am I putting off? What could I do to make the process more enjoyable? And sometimes it is something as simple as turning on some music. Sometimes, maybe it means I need to get up and move to a different room, or maybe I just need to go for a walk.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, that's all it is right, yep, yeah, yes, and for me, like I'm, and again I'm going, just going back to that, but it's, it's preparation. And what obstacles can I remove for myself so that? And so part of that is a clean studio, if I know that my water is clean, if I know that all of my brushes are where they're supposed to be, all the paint is hanging on it. That preparation is part of making sure that when I start the thing, it's just I can go, and if I reach for red, red is there, just like you, making sure you have a stack of paper, you have your pens, you have your computers on your mouse is charged, other things, like things. There's things that need to have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they need to happen in a certain order, but you can also release yourself once you're there, and I think that's the, that's the beauty of it yeah, I, I agree, preparation is is huge um and, and it's something I'm not always good at, because when I do get the idea, I just want to start, I just want to start, I just want to do it. I just, you know, and it's like, and then I get irritated because, oh, the marker I want is dried out. Or you know, and it's like, and then I get irritated because, oh, the marker I want is dried out, and then I just get frustrated and like, and I just stop off.
Speaker 2:That's the mural that I'm painting this week. Actually, one of my favorite things about it is that it's a new construction site and so, quite literally, like the there obstacles and I'm not pulling, for instance. So I've painted murals and businesses where I literally I have to pull the desk away from the wall in order to access it, but I can't just go straight at it. Boy, that desk has been against that wall for 25 years and I needed to clean the baseboards, dust, clean up all the wires, da, da, da, da. And it's like an hour and a half later and I just wanted to get this show rolling and I'm starting behind the eight ball and that if, yeah, it's the unanticipated, yeah, anyway absolutely no fun.
Speaker 1:No fun. The prep works well. I think that is probably it for today's episode. You got it. Do you have anything else, or are you good?
Speaker 2:no, no, I covered all my things. Funny enough. Awesome Me too. Yeah, Funny how that works out.
Speaker 1:Yes, so I think that's it for this week, everyone. I hope this was an enjoyable start to the season. As far as the rest of the season, we're going to be making some tweaks to kind of how we do things. The prep for the holiday series is going to continue, running all the way up to probably I don't know how many more episodes there will be, but it's probably going to run up to early December as because there's just tasks that are going on all through that. So those episodes will continue to air.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure how often we're going to be releasing new long form episodes. It'll be at least twice a month. But I haven't decided if I'm going to move back to weekly or not. I'm still kind of on the fence about that. But, um, kind of been re-evaluating. Last season was not the best season and and I'm trying to figure out how to get us back on track to where we were at the end of season four, which was by far, um, our, our best season we've ever done. And um, you don't get a ton of feedback when you do podcasts. All you have are download numbers to go by. So download numbers go up. You assume you're doing something right and if they're like something's not right.
Speaker 1:But, from the feedback I have been able to get, the episodes that people love are the ones that we do together, which I totally get, because I think we have fun doing them and I think that comes across when people are listening. And the other ones that people like are the ones that I do on my own, which is shocking to me because they're my least favorite to do, because it's just a lot of talking.
Speaker 1:You're talking to yourself, I know it's a lot of talking and it's very it's weird how exhausting talking for almost an hour is, because your breathing is completely different when you're talking constantly for an hour, so you're not breathing breathing properly. That's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:When I do shart, it's literally shart. It's like 20 minutes and people are like, oh, that's it. It was so short. I'm like, but it was 20 minutes of me staring at me, talking to me, hoping that you guys were there. Yes, like it's kind of. Yeah, I'm like by 20 minutes. I've talked to myself enough.
Speaker 1:I know, and I mean you and I can talk and talk and talk and talk when we're together, because we're bouncing off of one another, but to just sit there and talk, so that was quite an eye opener to me.
Speaker 1:So I am thinking about how I can do more solo episodes. There's still going to be guest episodes, but I am definitely going to be working very hard to bring on guests that I feel are a good fit. I think that what people really wanted from a guest is they want to hear. They want to hear firsthand from other creatives and their business journeys as much as their creative journey, and those are the episodes that always do really well. So we're going to try and do a few more of those. We've got cool ones lined up.
Speaker 1:Uh, yeah, so we are trying to film for youtube this year. Not sure how that's going to go. This episode, I think, will probably be on youtube. Um, the solo episodes will definitely go on youtube. Guest episodes will depend on the guest. Um, a lot of guests do not want to be on video, so that is totally fine, but the ones who are up for it, we'll try and make those video episodes. So see how that goes and I think that might be fun for people to be able to see. You can see our studios, you can see yeah, totally, all of that, our crazy hand gesture.
Speaker 1:Exactly, I mean honestly, when you're just listening, you're missing half of what's going on.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of hand gestures going on. I feel like I don't know.
Speaker 1:we both talk with our hands a lot, correct? Yes, for those of you who want to, who are enjoying the show, and you would like to support us, you can do that on Patreon and through Buzzsprout. There are links for that in the show. And you would like to support us? You can do that on Patreon and through Buzzsprout. There are links for that in the show notes.
Speaker 1:And if you are a Patreon supporter, you get access to solo episodes every month and you can sign up for that at any time. You get access to all the back episodes. Uh, that I do for Patreon. You can even sign up for one month, listen to all the back episodes and then unsubscribe, um, and sign up again in a year's time to listen to the rest. But it is a great way to support the show. It, uh, it does cost money to produce the show and I don't run ads or anything like that, so this helps to offset some of the costs that go with creating the podcast. Um, so I think that's it for this week and we will see you all again in another two weeks. It will be a solo episode, the next one and Heather will be back. She'll be back once a month or as many times as she wants to come.
Speaker 1:She's always welcome, but she'll be back at least once a month for the rest of the season, and if you have any suggestions for things you'd like us to tackle, you can drop us a note at anneshelookedup at gmailcom, or you can send us a DM through our Instagram account at and she looked up um, or you can leave a comment. If you're watching on YouTube, please leave a comment in the comment section for for the video, um, I will a hundred percent respond and we love to hear from you. So that is for this week. Heather, thank you very much for being here. Thank you very much. It was nice to get. We have we haven't seen each other all summer, so this was fun. I know it's very nice, yes, and we will be back, uh, shortly. Talk to you all then. Thank you so much for joining us for the and she looked up creative hour.
Speaker 1:If you're looking for links or resources mentioned in this episode, you can find detailed show notes on our website at and she looked upcom. While you're there, be sure to sign up for our newsletter for more business tips, profiles of inspiring Canadian creative women and so much more. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe to the show via your podcast app of choice, so you never miss an episode. We always love to hear from you, so we'd love it if you'd leave us a review through iTunes or Apple Podcasts. Drop us a note via our website at andshelookedupcom, or come say hi on Instagram at andshelookedup. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.
