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One of the most useful tools I ever learned was to apply the rules of Time Management.

I first read ‘How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life’ by Alan Laken when I was 32. I still have that battered paperback copy, though its contents are in my head.  It has helped me achieve and reset higher, achieve and reset, at least five lifetime goals.

I have also attended a range of seminars in time management, bought audio tapes, and now I research on the internet when I want a refresher course.

Applying the principles I learned, assisted me in my creative profession and I continued studying this subject and teaching it and see it as a helpful life tool where the questions may not change but our answers like our goals are constantly evolving as we grow.

I reach stages where there is not enough time to complete what I want to be doing, so I ask, the most useful question I ever learned to ask myself:

‘What is the best use of my time ~ NOW’

 

"Wisdom is the power to put our time and our knowledge to the proper use" Thomas John Watson (1874-1956), founder of IBM

By asking yourself Laken's question "What is the best use of my time right now?" and doing the task that best fills your time at that particular moment you will increase your overall efficiency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done



 
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I have a policy to never cry over broken pots.
I strive to accept the creative disasters, think about what is important in life and move on.

When I was a potter sculptor, I had a policy, of never crying over broken pots.  I had some exhilarating experiences when I opened the kiln door and saw thousands of dollars worth of exquisitely beautiful reduction fired, glazed pots glowing at me.  I also saw the devastation of two months of work, shattered and broken or glued to the kiln shelving on several occasions and once those broken pieces cooled I took them and placed some of the more attractive broken pieces around my garden, arranged like sculptural interest then walked back to the studio and began production again.

You say thanks when the creative work turns out well, you learn to accept the disasters.

I once attended a master class in watercolour with Robert A Wade, OAM and he taught his students that to be a good watercolourist, you needed to have strong wrists.  When we looked at him with wonder at why we required strength for the job, he picked up a quite nice looking watercolour on the expensive 100% pure cotton paper and he tore it in two. ‘That’ he said, ‘is what you need to do, if it isn’t good enough’.  This was another example of accepting what we learn when a creative process goes wrong.

Many oil painters are never happy with the painting they create so they re work and re work it and the painting shows the effects of this pentemento. Pentimento, means, ‘the artist repents’, and in the case of oil paintings, the application of darker paint over light paint usually causes the dark paint to crack and placing light paint over darker paint has the result of the dark pigment eventually bleeding through. Sometimes it is best to learn from our creative mistakes and move on rather than rehashing a work repeatedly.

A code I had inserted into one of my web sites to allow Google search engine to track it, became corrupted.  This made it hard for readers to find my web site and when I checked the site using Google Analyticals  it showed my web site as a dead flat line. It took me several tries over a week to correct the code and get it back to the rising line that reflects the interest level I have from readership in that site.  I could easily have felt distressed that six months of my work was not even showing on the web and stayed up all night obsessively working on trying to fix the problem and increase my Google rating. I just worked at it within my allocated hours of work, slept contented and had a life outside of my fix the problem, web work.  I kept my ‘do not cry over broken pots’, rule in my head, and told myself that while ‘my writing and reputation as a writer is important to me, I must never allow it to become an obsession, the best work is created by healthy minds’.  I have a great deal of belief in the value of positive self-talk messages.

This morning I logged into Google Analyticals and the flat line of web death, has risen,  my web site is ALIVE AGAIN, What a relief

I have been a creative artist now for sixty years. Maybe time and experience help me shrug off creative failure. It may help new artists if they know that even the masters made mistakes at every stage of their creative careers.  I can recall digging clay from a ditch, fashioning a teacup by hand and air drying it, as a child. The pot, was strong for an unfired raw clay pot and I adored it, felt intense pride in it and then when I dared to lift it by its handle the inevitable happened and it broke.  I felt intense disappointment.  

I am wondering, if it was my mother who first said to me with a smile, ‘Do not cry over broken pots’?

I am not one for saying, “hold back tears”. Tears can be healing, great therapy. All I am saying is, “to LOVE your creativity but don’t wreck your life with obsession over it, keep a balance of a healthy mind and body along with your joy in being a creative person”.

 
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