The Dichotomy of Creativity and Order
By Barbara O'Neal | October 9, 2023 |
Earlier this week, my massage therapist called to remind me that we had an appointment that started…five minutes ago. Rushing in, hair askew, I apologized, and admitted that I used to have a lot more trouble with things like appointments before the iPhone was invented. It usually reminds me, twice, but we changed the time and I forgot to add the alerts, and…
She gently interrupted my whittering. “You’re just creative. That’s how it is.”
As artists we’re often forgiven for being scattered, losing things, forgetting commitments, and for good reason. It’s not laziness or lack of respect, it’s just that highly creative people are often lost in another world, with only a tenuous connection to this one, where the physical world of time and space and money and other humans exist.
But I have to tell you, I hate being late. I hate missing appointments. I hate feeling like the world is full of wind, knocking me around at its whim. I dislike clutter and mess. I hate to have nothing to cook for dinner so that I’m eating frozen macaroni and cheese for the third time in a week.
Left to my own highly creative, scattered mind, that would be the constant state of things. In fact, it was always the state of my life as a young woman and young mother. Things were often forgotten, or insanely messy, or I lost my keys or forgot appointments or we ate crappy meals because I forgot to plan.
It made me feel like a failure. Why couldn’t I juggle the world the way other people did, like my sisters and my friends?
The secret is so simple. Planning and routines. Good habits. I hate to sound like a self-help cheering squad, but honestly, I am a die-hard planner these days, and it goes along nicely with my diarist side. I can plan and then check things off to the satisfaction of the diarist who wants to know exactly what we’re doing with our days.
Learning to plan started when I began to write novels under deadline. At first, sometimes those deadlines were insanely tight—three books a year while running a household of elementary school children and making a budget based on advances work. I had to know what and when and where I was working, where I would be at a given time, and to do that, I made calendars with color coding.
It didn’t work that well.
I tried several systems. The calendar. There was a thing called Sidetracked Home Executives that used a file box with color-coded cards divided into daily, weekly, etc tasks that helped me stay on top of things for awhile, but it fell apart, too. Kids took priority, then work, then high nutrition over food I could fix in 10 minutes because I forgot to thaw anything. (Pre-microwave, young friends.)
Over time, I tried and discarded dozens of systems. And then came two life-transforming tools: the iPhone and the bullet journal.
I love the bullet journal. Planning, it turns out, is a deeply satisfying activity if you bring some color and systems into it. Everyone uses the BUJO differently. I’m not in the superfancy camp of little boxes to check off or special divisions for every one of my goals (though, you go if that works for you), but I do plan a lot. The overview of the year; two weeks spreads where I note appointments and loosely plan meals.
I create plans for writing, of course. This is the one area where I use boxes to color in for every thousand words of the work-in-progress. I also keep a log of what I write each day. (See Rachel Aaron’s post on 2k to 10K, which I’m sure I’ve talked about before.)
The iPhone is the big thing, however. I have created lists for shopping, grocery, Costco, others, and because you can train Siri to add things, I don’t have to stop and type something. I can just say, “Siri, add eggs to my grocery list,” or “add reminder to do laundry on Tuesday at 10 am” and the robot in my pocket does it.
She will also remind me that I have an appointment if I add it properly, and despite my recent lapse, I don’t miss many anymore.
Systems create habits. I like to have things happen at the same time, same day of the week, as much as humanly possible. Second Tuesday, 2 pm, massage. Fourth Tuesday, 2 pm, cleaners.
This goes to watering plants, Thursday morning. To making a grocery list, Sunday afternoon along with looking at the BUJO and weekly plan, and planning meals that work with this week’s tasks. Going to the farmer’s market, Friday morning.
I know, I know. All of you out there who don’t suffer this brain chaos are thinking, “Duh!” But for those of us who don’t have your gift, planning and habits are a godsend.
What is the connection to my creativity? It’s about making space for the writing (and the painting, which is another post). If I’m not backtracking to the grocery store for the forgotten butter, or rescheduling a missed appointment, or using up my creativity tring to think of what to cook for dinner, I can write more freely. External order creates space for wild internal creativity.
How does that work in reality?
This morning, I’ve been planning my upcoming year. I finished the first round of my book for next year and need to get moving on the next one. I’ll do revisions on the WIP this fall, and I still have some visitors coming.
There’s also a side project that calling my name very insistently, and I want to give it some space.
The only way to accomplish those goals is to be real with the amount of time I actually have. How much time will I need to revise the book? Not sure, but at least a month or two. Do I know what the next book is? It’s between two, and I have to decide which one goes first.
To meet my deadline for next year, when do I need to get started on that new book? Not just the world-building, which is great fun and necessary but can go on for ages if I let it? Figure that in. For the sake of transparency, I often draft a book in 4-5 months (rough draft only) but 6-7 is a lot more comfortable. That date, hard and fast, needs to go into the schedule.
Only then can I look for pockets of possibility. Planning gives me the tools to find that time. Routines give me ways to manage the mundane wilderness of hours and appointments and meal planning.
Just to be real, these systems don’t make me or my house perfect. My desk is always a mess of things that I need to see to remember to take care of. Currently, I’m at war with sand, and I’m losing. We’ve twice this week eaten apples and cheese for dinner because I let things get away from me.
But you know, it’s better. My iPhone and my BUJO give me order and then I can be fully in wild mind when I can turn my attention to creative work.
Are you in the naturally scattered or naturally organized group? Do you feel overwhelmed by the idea of planning or are there ideas you’d pass on to the rest of us?
Barbara O’Neal is the author of more than a dozen award-winning, bestselling novels, including the runaway bestseller, When We Believed in Mermaids, which has been published in more than 20 countries and spent many months on the Amazon Charts, as well as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Washington Post bestseller lists. Barbara lives on the beach in rugged Oregon with her husband, a British endurance athlete who vows he’ll never lose his accent and their zoo of cats and dogs. You can find more information on her newsletter and where to find her on social media at barbaraoneal.com.
The iPhone has made me seem a lot more on top of things too. People are so gratified that I remember birthdays, but really it’s just that my phone beeps a week out, then a day out, then the day of. My desk is always a mess, but I have a 6 inch rule — it can’t get more than 6 inches deep, because that’s when things start tipping over.
Ha! Love the six inch rule!
Order allows creativity… yes. Thank you for making this point, Barbara.
I’ve looked at a few systems like those, and I think the common factor is that the freedom comes from making tasks “a load off our mind” and noted down in the system. How it’s stored and sorted and displayed and all that can work differently for all of us, but it’s a relief not to have to *remember* the thing anymore. It’s down there, somewhere we can find it and that we have a plan for checking in time that it won’t get forgotten. Brain space, freed up!
Yes, that is the wonder. The big help for me is that the phone goes off like a little assistant to remind me.
Hi Barbara:
I fully intend to steal the term “brain chaos.” Not because it’s apt or anything. Nope. Uh-uh. Not me. Now way. Negative. Abso-lute-ly NOT. Nyet. Non. Nei. Ní hé.
Ahem.
I must admit I have resisted the organizational regimen you have so capably laid out here, and I have only myself to blame for the shambolic results. But though a slow learner I am not impervious to change once I see the benefit, especially when so clearly demonstrated as it is in your post.
Then again, maybe I’ll just wallow in my shame. Call it my comfort zone.
Always lovely to see you hear and hear what you have to say. Be swell.
Well, there is always a lot to be said for comfort. Like piles of books. You never know when you might be trapped in a chair (probably by a cat in my case) and need to just dip into something.
A wise person once said that creative people are messy. Well…maybe that’s just an excuse for our minds picking up on too many things ALL AT ONCE. We love IDEAS. We love color and movement, which means we love art and more ideas. Whatever you have done, Barbara, to organize your world, to write, love and carry on…YOU ARE SUCCESSFUL. Maybe your post will teach me something…I know for certain it will remind me to open myself to the world around me. That’s why we writers write.
I’m told being organized is a Virgo tendency but none of us is just one things so…as a young single mother pre smartphones I became a list maker. I loved checking things off at the top, adding things at the bottom. Lists saved my sanity and still do. I make them for my novels. Punch lists. Plot point lists, which have become maps and even drawings (I’m also a painter, so visuals stick in my brain.) It’s funny, I’m okay with chaos in some areas of my life and not others. Messiness in my living space makes me nuts but I’ve learned to trust the mind chaos as part of my writing process (this took time!!) So, lists. I can’t (read won’t) talk to my phone, so its just as well. Still, holidays tend to sneak up on me.
It’s funny how many of my friends are Virgos. A part of me deeply admires that organization. List away!
Thank you, Barb. I use the notes feature on my phone for all kinds of things, but it’s a relatively new thing in my life. I fall in the camp of the naturally organized. I’ve always needed some sort of order to be creative. My method is simple. I make lists, use a desk calendar. Although I’m not a slave to it, because people always come first over things, it keeps me mostly on track.
I first learned “Discipline is Freedom” from Garth Fagan, a modern dance choreographer. I’d attended a master class with his troupe back when I was a grad student (my advisor has always supported the arts and she was responsible for bringing him to our small university town). And I’ve discovered it over and over again because whenever my discipline flags, I tend to be less creative, whether it’s in science or writing or cooking or making music. It makes sense because if the mind is occupied with baseline things, it doesn’t have space for the higher faculties. It harkens back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
I really, really admire people like you who are able to make a living from their art, from doing what they love because so many never gain that freedom.
Yes, the hierarchy of needs. When I dropped the ball so often, it was my shame over having that pyramid all mixed up that was so hard.
Thank you, Barbara, for sharing the details that make your personal and writer’s life work. Although I have a regular morning routine and Friday’s are watering plants then driving to the parents’ place to help out, other days outside of the day job still flip-flop along! I get crabby when my expectations for the day was nebulous or I’ve not felt particularly productive in my a.m. writing.
Though it’s been around a while, I discovered the Kanban board this year. It’s simply three columns: Ideas, Doing, Done. The Ideas column is the backlog, the inspiration list, the revision and editing list. Only 3-5 Ideas are moved into the Doing column, and only when one is placed in the Done column, then another Idea is moved into the Doing column. Like Ken noted above, it helps me to get ideas out of my head and listed. In one physical or virtual spot.
That sounds intriguing. Thanks for sharing.
Along with the bullet journal and the daily list, I add the writing timer. When I have a writing opportunity, I set a timer (please, may I have a big chunk?) that will alert me when to return from story world. That way, I can set aside the anxiety of missing an appointment and feel free to go deep.
There is a good reason that so much historically important work—not just in literature but in science and math, music, art and sculpture—has been done by men and women who were not only weirdos, but were *supported* by someone. Sometimes their families were rich. Sometimes they attracted the attention of the monarchy or the church, but they didn’t have to go downtown and punch in. (Yes, yes, never mind Proust and Einstein.)
Barbara, I am in awe of your ability to produce good books while dealing with children and still thinking about shopping and cooking. Kudos to you and to everyone reading this who has managed to juggle this stuff and still write. Even though I knew all my life that the only things I wanted to do were to read and write, I did not finish a lick of decent work until I retired.
And by the way I suggest that much of our problem organizing our days and tasks is not caused by our creativity, it is a matter of not really wanting to do that crap, so we don’t. But that’s another whole discussion.
True. We could all use the extra hands of a person to handle the mundanities of life. My husband does a lot, I have to say—shopping for food and take the cars to appointments and arranging for service calls. He doesn’t cook, but I do kind of like that take when I’m not scattered.
“Be regular and orderly in your life, like a good bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” – – Gustave Flaubert
My aspirations toward order far outreach my ability to achieve it, but like you, I know I write better and we eat better when I can keep some control over external things and follow routines, even though it makes my husband laugh. (My revenge? The cleaners who come every other Fri at 11 refuse to touch his desk!) I use lists and a paper planner; my attempt at using the phone was a disaster — one more thing to stay on top of and lose track of. A tip: I don’t make appts on Mondays, so I can dive deeply into writing after taking Sat afternoon and Sun off.
I leave Mondays free, too, and Wednesdays, which are the days I am alone in the house. (No dogs, mainly. One likes to bark.)
Barb, to speak the Myers-Briggs lingo, you sound like an INFP. :) I’m right on the line between J/P. For me, it’s a nature vs. nurture thing. I’ve always been a bit more spontaneous and scattered naturally, but was forced to learn planning and order because not only were both of my parents this way, but then I went on to become a teacher and quickly learned that without planning and some semblance of order and a working system to keep track of everything, I was doomed. It has carried over into my writing for sure. I enjoy the planning process. I think of it both as “pre-writing” and as exploratory so for me, it’s a great way to wade into a new idea (and then have those touch points for when I get lost somewhere in the middle of my first couple of drafts, which is inevitable at some point). Love the post and insights. xx
I am always putting reminders in my iPhone, it’s helped me to be organised, but even tho I knew I had a exercise physiologist session I slept through my alarm or it didn’t go off?! Thankfully my daughter woke me and I quickly called to say I was on my way. The appointment after mine had canceled so even tho I arrived 15 – 20 mins late we still had enough time for my session. But I tell you it was panic stations when I awoke and I moved through the session in a bit of a post panic/half asleep blur! Oh the joys :-)