Learn to go through one door and many others will open for you; try to go through five doors at once and you’ll go nowhere. ~C. Andrew Ramsey

{Going through one door} is something I — at long last! — accomplished during the month of August. It was a dual celebration for me: A complete shift in my thought patterns as well as whole-heartedly delighting in the single moments of my days.

Bonus ☛ Without guilt, worry or regret!

I realized three parts of {applying} what you {know} …

1. it is a process (yes, obvious — but usually ignored)
2. it requires time and practice (again, obvious but usually ignored)
3. it proves to be a fabulously-liberating, perspective-changing, life-altering experience!

For some time now I have set my heart to experience my life fully. To be present in the moment I was in the midst of — and avoid being {mentally or emotionally} somewhere else!

You know what I mean … Working — and thinking about being off; resting — and thinking about exercising; eating food from a drive-thru — and thinking about nutrition!

Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday. ~John Wayne

This Friday reView is a little different in format. It is more of a reView to prepare me for the next quarter than merely one week. It is a reView from a summit of accomplishment, rest and revitalization for me …

Thus, I will begin with Celebrating!

Celebrating

Since all my proverbial doors were closed for August, I have the opportunity to focus on going through one door at a time. Opting for the other doors to be opened in time and avoiding the mental and physical chaos of {too much}. A {reset button} has been pressed, activating stillness and focus even in the midst of the collage of plans and ideas I have for the this quarter of my business year.

Reading

[It should be noted that I rarely read any book cover-to-cover; this is merely a list of books I have "read" and will be reviewing ...]

• The Sound of Paper and The Artist’s Way at Work by Julie Cameron
• The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women by Gail McMeekin
• The Creative Entrepreneur by Lisa Sonora Beam

☛ Keep me accountable! Connect with me at goodreads.com …♥

Pondering

Business Development — Review and refresh, plan and set goals for my business activities and professional development.

• Goal Setting for Creatives {✉2self: collage ✔notes 2yr business plan}
• reView previous notations, blog posts and plans to {re}groove my memory …
• Make Your Blog Design Work for You | My Best Advice About Personal Branding | Social Media Strategy | Promote Your Blog Posts
• How a small town photographer survives in a crowded field | Simplify your small business marketing plan
• Basic SEO [video] gleaned from “How do you get found in search results“
• Daily (Good) Habits: An online experiment in Daily Actions ✔
• OneNote: Recommended by my business accountability partner {and collaborative partner in crime, er, I mean business!}

Minimalism — How to continue reducing the amount of {stuff} I own, manage and expect myself to do each day.

• The Top 5 Benefits of Being a Minimalist
• Living in the Land of Enough
• 7 Guiding Principles to Help Anyone Declutter Their Home and Life

Priorities — What are the most important, influential, life-giving elements of my life? My relationships? My wellness? My resources? My work?

• Steps to Build a Schedule: Determining Priorities
• How You Spend Your Time is How You Spend Your Life
• Are you stretching yourself?
• Determining Priorities: How Do I Spend My Time

Solitude — Honoring my intention of the daily practice of quiet time, prayer and journaling.

• The art of being still
• Solitude: Where Your Life is Waiting

What is one aspect YOU view as something to:

• Celebrate?
• Ponder?
  
• Evaluate?
• Eliminate?

Got nothin’? If your week didn’t go as you hoped/planned … What will you choose to learn from this week?

Hot Air Balloons [video]

For fast-acting relief, try slowing down.
~Lily Tomlin

For almost three years, I have embraced the concept of not only planning {outside the lines} but also living — a gently ordering my private world — ever-so-splendidly outside the lines! While it was a wee bit disconcerting as first — I consider to be one of my very best life-changes.

Look at life through the windshield, not the rear-view mirror. ~Byrd Baggett

This feat was accomplished by making it my intention to focus on what {could be} instead of {what was}. Instead of all the times I “tried and stopped” …

I incorporated creAtive day-planning techniques in the way I organized my life {my work, my dreams, my miscellany and my eclectic, art-full moments!} and other miscellaneous tasks and actions in the direction of my dreams.

It began with stickers, color markers and highlighters in my {extremely} left-brain day-planner. (Read: FranklinCovey <= who have “loosened up” a bit with time! ) Complete with its lines and boxes to check, the linear record system … etc. etc. However, I began to add creAtive {addendums} to my planner — extra pages for pattern and color, collaged items or Post-it® notes for creAtivity, for thoughts, quotations and random ponderings.

From there I began to compile daily lists of regular activities using MS Word; then I would print a weekly list (or even an occasional Master To-Do list, etc.) — adding colorful design elements and eye-catching markings via markers, Post-it® notes, stickers and assorted labels, cut-outs, and even strips of torn paper from my junk mail and newspaper or magazine pages. I eventually “graduated” to collage-journal pages within my new eclectic, outside-the-lines {planners} … In the form of wired-bound journals or altered books [images].

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. ~Pablo Picasso

Why it is that we often lose the wonder of childhood coloring pages and “art projects” like doodling and such?

Remember? When purple or green was a fabulous choice for hair and coloring outside the lines was perfectly acceptable?

If we could perhaps recover just a bit of that freedom (and curiosity) — life would {feel} so much easier — or, at the very least, be more colorful! And we wouldn’t have to relearn how to play, to have fun and do what we want during the days of our lives. (Read: Attend seminars and workshops, pore of over countless books and hire pricey consultants …)

Because life is rather complicated and a bit of artist freedom, a scoop of vibrant color with a dash of imagination is like a spoon full of sugar (to help the medicine go down)!

Otherwise … Ugh! … exploring possibilities and the flight patterns for spur of the moment trips tends to blur from view. We establish impregnable boundaries, lock-boxes to keep everything in its place; structure eclipses spontaneity and deadlines stream in each day single (and double) file.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them. ~Henry David Thoreau

Sometimes we must allow ourselves time to simply be … Or perhaps …

• To randomly nap
• To art journal [visuals for inspiration]
• To daydream about possibilities
• To watch movies about fictional characters involved in unlikely storylines which invite us to think outside the lines
• To stroll under trees whose branches seem to touch the clouds
• To chat with beloved friends who inspire us to see beyond possible.
• To resolve to make it a habit of “Telling People Who You Are“
• To define skills we want to acquire {or develop} [Chris Brogan's post "Typing Classes"]
• To “find inspiration instead of it finding you” [ala Seth Godin]
• To consider “Forgetting as an Innovation Strategy“
• To sketch [Sketchbook on the Behance Network]

I am currently viewing life through “Vacation Eyes” … Something I tend to do during the month of August, since I consider September as my {second} new year beginning. Jottings and random collections of plans amidst days without deadlines and weeks dotted by time with friends and family.

How often do you schedule time off? Days off? Extended vacations?

What concerns do you have when you are not “in the office”?

How are your days “on” different from your days “off”?

Making the beginning is one third of the work. ~Irish Proverb

Does change {feel} elusive? Do you {feel} like your “try hard” only to “give up”?

Could it be that you expect progress to occur faster humanly possible? Sort of like those darn notorious {new year’s resolutions} people make, hoping something magic happens at 12:01 a.m. in the “new year”?!

It is about resuming — not starting over.

Today is Mile Marker #230 for this year of creAtive-planning: Day 230 of 2010. There are 135 days until the end of the year of 2010. Let’s agree to resume {instead of starting over; feeling guilty} and allow ourselves a bit of time for creAtive planning [link]. Or perhaps you simply need to “Just press, Play …”

I have continually {re}discovered the benefits of resuming instead of starting over, by putting one foot in front of the other in the direction of my dreams. Those fabulous {mini-steps} along the road to Progress, made possible by letting go of random and miscellaneous thoughts of the past {the wouldas, couldas, shouldas}.

The more you reason, the less you create. ~Raymond Chandler

What do you need to resume?

• Need some {new beginnings} inspiration? [link to quotations]

Being in the midst of extended vacation days, I am grateful to feel unwound and defragged. The proverbial white board being freshly erased and cleaned, ready for new jottings, notations and plans. Family gatherings, lazy summer days and movie nights have allowed my mind the freedom to ponder random ideas without the ringing alarm of deadlines.

Despite being on vacation from my work, I did keep my weekly appointment with a colleague this morning. It is a mile marker for both of us; and our hour-long, online meetings prove to inspire, clarify and keep us both on-track! This is also an element of my ritual of counting days. Sort of a new thing, sorta not. Basically, the habit of planning the days {weeks, months and years} between dates I assign to my goals and projects {and vacations!}.

I used to be concerned about time off from work. Freelancing can be a crazy way to earn income due to the {often faulty} belief: If I am not working, I am not earning. However, part of a freelancer’s offering is to inspire “out of the box” thinking. Such thought is a renewable resource — thus, it  must be renewed.

Do one thing every day that scares you. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Time off work, vacations, creative scheduling — all of these options provide us with a new perspective. We can return to work or a routine with a new way of seeing our skill set and expertise, a client project or even the way we value and “count” our days. Another bonus: Burnout can be completely avoided with a routine sprinkling of time off!

A vacation is what you take when you can no longer take what you’ve been taking. ~Earl Wilson

In the midst of my daily quiet times {even — and especially — for days-without-deadlines} I continue to collage-plan {how-to collage journal}, art journal, and mind-map.

How often do you schedule time off? Days off? Extended vacations?

What concerns do you have when you are not “in the office”?

How are your days “on” different from your days “off”?

P.S. Regarding counting days, I have not personally used the following resources but they provide you with some ideas for keeping a visual count{down} of your days …

• Calculate duration between two dates
• CountdownClock  1.4.5 for Firefox
• Time Left {widgets}
• Human Calendar {just for fun}

Ever wonder why checklists, calendars and daily schedules don’t work for you? Perhaps you have even parked yourself at the corner of Discovery and Realization in hopes of learning why daily schedules seem to be a recipe for hair-pulling frustration and emotional dead-ends. Well, I started a list!

Despite 25 years of consulting, listening and teaching {and my own trial and error! } I keep expecting {hopin’ and wishin’} that I will not stumble into random, garden-variety forms of schedule worship, planner-envy and just plain ‘ol aggravation over my personal stash of schedule forms, planners and calendars!

Alas, I stumble. I fall. I get back up!

10 Reasons Why Schedules Don’t {usually} Work

1. Ideal versus reality: We plan for the ideal {flawless; exists only in our mind } day and we live in reality (multiple responsibilities, ever-changing energy-levels, duties and demands).
2. Unrealistic expectations regarding the optimal time required for personal tasks and work projects {and rest }.
3. Being an original and trying to be a copy. Assuming there is actually a one-size-fits-all planning method.
4. CreAtivity cannot be scheduled; when inspiration arrives, art {creAtive but deliberate combination of elements} happens.
5. Schedules and deadlines are the polar opposite of art {creAtive but deliberate combination of elements; appealing to the senses}.
6. Right brain thinkers have the option of {collaging} art and schedules, deadlines and To-Do’s — but that is a process of intention and habit. Read: It doesn’t always work either.
7. Perfectionism … A Perfectionism Review by The Flylady Crew. This is a cancer that consumes our vibrant, creAtive energy. Avoid it {or redirect yourself back into grace — immediately}.
8. Nothing works all the time.
9. We are human. Life happens.
10. What we do when we are “procrastinating” reveals what we need to allow more time for … (Listed last because we all need to ponder this, and then incorporate time to do what we ♥ to do!

The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists. ~Charles Dickens

Right Brain Planner is a resource for creAtive-minded, color-outside-the-lines folks who typically see their days in random sequences — and rarely in straight lines. With the mission of developing a collaborative {wiki} planning system — accommodating the distinct flow of the creAtive mind — by and for creAtive, right brain thinkers and life-doers.

♦ More about creAtive planning.

♦ Fabulous list of creative brainstorming quotations!

You do not succeed because you do not know what you want or you don’t want it intensely enough. ~Frank Crane

I have a swirled response to that idea. Because sometimes knowing what you want becomes a work-in-progress, and the passionate intensity with which you pursue it is indeed {enough}. You simply are not “there” yet!

You are merely collecting and weaving selected “threads” to creAte the homespun yarn  in which you will fashion the next phase of your success. Succeeding — accomplishing your intended goal(s) in succession — is a process {visual: the yarn in the image}:

• multi-threaded
• handspun {What is handspinning?}
• unique result from a standardized process
• art {creAtive but deliberate combination of elements}

A handspun yarn also tells you a story about the person who made it. You run your fingers down the yarn, and you feel the impressions made by the hand of the spinner. ~pluckyfluff.com

How do you determine what you want?

Are you willing to admit {and embrace} that what you want is a more of a journey than a destination?

What stories do your proverbial handspun yarns tell?

Image Credit

The romantic view of a freelancer {living the dream} is accurate to a point; but there is a definite down side when it comes to the costs of freelancing and the ugliness of project (and client) management. Then there is the reality of learning to “clock-out” and have a life separate from working all the time!

Here are some excellent resources for freelancers and rural solopreneurs {and for learning more about said good, bad and ugly! }

• The Solopreneur’s Guide and Ten Excellent Freelance Resources
• @SmallBizLady‘s {#SmallBizChat} on Twitter [How to participate in the next chat]
• 8 Tips for Creative Solopreneurs via @freelancesw
• The 5 Most Important Entrepreneurial Lessons I’ve Learned in Business by @SmallBizLady
• Over 12 Must-Read Posts That I Wrote Especially for Writers by @TXWriter
• Twitter resources for small towns by {the innovative/resourceful} @BeckyMcCray
• What it Really Costs to Be a Freelancer via @FreelanceFolder

Perhaps your experience could be compiled into an e-book?

• The 5 Stages of Creative eBook Writing by @stickyebooks
• Massively Promote Yourself by Creating Information Products by @redlemonclub
• How eBooks Enhance Your Business
• Ebook Basics by @BeckyMcCray

Could you use some ideas to jump-start your social media creAtivity?

• 50 Netsetters You Should Know About
• 10 Ways to Attract the Attention of Clients Using Social Media by @redlemonclub

This is simply my quick {and random} review of resources. What are your recommendations?

Plan your work for today and every day, then work your plan. ~Norman Vincent Peale

Yep. I used the “s” word; the dreaded linear tool creAtives typically love to live without. However, the road to distraction and lost clients are paved with a freelancer’s good intentions!

So … how about we accomplish this task creAtively?

1. Begin with compiling a list, using:

• {literal} note pad and pen
• labpixies.com To-Do
• Microsoft Notepad file
• Post-it® notes

2. Dump the mental chatter and create a Master To-D0 list.

3. Divide and conquer. You didn’t accumulate this list in a day — and you will not conquer it in a day!

• Determine your Top Three To-Do’s for today.
• Determine what you will do tomorrow and the next day.

4. Use a Master Calendar(s) {daily, weekly and.or monthly}.

• I use Google Calendar for repeating tasks and my desk calendar for daily to-do’s {and collage}.
• Google Calendar also includes a column Task List for maintaining a To-Do list.
• Google Task List is a tool for tracking project time. Or consider keeping a daily log like this.
• My clients successfully use Word documents, Excel, fill-in-the-blank calendars and good ‘ol legal pads.

5. Assign day(s) and times {or blocks of time} for:

• Rest
• Recreation
• {Art}
• Reading
• Family
• Friends
• Project Work

Include self-care first; if you don’t take care of yourself, you are not adequately equipped to consult, freelance for or take care of anyone {or anything} else. [Read: You will burnout! ]

Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan. ~Tom Landry

This is merely a suggested mode of determining a schedule. Your mileage may vary.

Just do it.

Trial and error is the best teacher. Don’t wait for the {perfect} planning method or tool — creAte your own system. Get started now! Even if you merely accomplish Step One, that is progress!

Dear creAtive planner: We know there is no one-size-fits-all method of planning. What scheduling tools do you use?