Managing Creative Chaos
How To Get Shit Done When You Have Too Many Ideas
I’m working out of 19 notebooks plus a brain dump notebook and a planner which is a traveler’s notebook with five cahier inserts and a Moleskine. I made it myself because I couldn’t find anything else that worked for me.
That’s the key for managing creative chaos:
Find what works for you.
The truth is I struggle with finishing things. I like to learn things. I like to learn how to do things. I will start a project and learn a whole bunch of new stuff, but once I get to the point where I’ve learned enough, it’s meh, and the project gets set aside. And enough totally depends on how inspired I am to keep going on a project and how challenged I am in working on it. I can’t do boring. Boring projects die.
I’ve worked in Evernote, Trello, and Workflowy before, but I’m always drawn back to pen and paper; either G2s or fountain pens. I’m less picky about the notebooks. I like Moleskines and Leuchtturm1917s, but for project notebooks, I go for cheap 5x7 polyvinyl composition books in college rule. They’re less than a buck apiece so I can wipe out a store’s stock for cheap.
I have a LOT of ideas.
I love that I get so many ideas. Love it. I love to explore them and see where they go. But it makes getting shit done hard.
But because the whole world is my muse, it can really get kind of annoying sometimes when I have a really great groove going on a project and then some new muse whacks me upside the head with an idea. Wouldn’t it be great if… Oh, you could totally… I really wish…
And if it doesn’t work fast? I drop it and move onto something else. Life is short, you never know when you’re going to be done with it, so why waste time banging your head on the desk trying to make something work that’s just not ready to work?
Which is where the struggle to finish things comes in play. I have so many ideas, I get overwhelmed and don’t know what to work on next. So I created a system that uses multiple notebooks, and can easily be modified for Evernote, OneNote, or any other notebook software that lets you have notebooks or folders to hold documents.
Use a brain dump notebook to capture new ideas
Whenever I get a new idea, I grab my brain dump notebook. This is one of the inserts in my traveler’s notebook. It’s a moleskine cahier, and when it’s full, I slip it out and process it, and then slip a new one in.
Use individual notebooks for each project
It might make more sense to use Evernote or other similar software here unless you thrive in an environment where notebooks are scattered all over the place, and don’t live with people who hate that.
When an idea in my brain dump book grows to more than two pages, it gets it’s own notebook, and I transfer the notes from the brain dump book into that project notebook. I write the name of the project on the cover, and every project gets a name. It helps me mentally keep track of what ideas belong to what project.
When I begin a project notebook, I number the first few pages, or if I’ve got time and attention to spare, I number the whole thing. This is so useful for reference.
As I’m working on a project, whether in sustained bursts of focus or in snippets as thoughts come to me, I write it in that project’s notebook. I also keep a running master task list for that project in the notebook. When a task list page is full, I go to the next empty page and keep going, making a note on the left of the new page where the previous entries are and on the right of the old page where new entries are.
When I’m working on a project I note the date in the margin, and then begin writing. It might be brainstorming, outlining, drafting, planning, something I’m waiting for, whatever. Anything related to the project gets noted. When I’m done working on a project for the day, I close the notebook and move on knowing that I’ll be able to review whenever I pick it back up and know right where I left off.
Each project — I’m a writer — will go through several drafts, so those little notebooks get full pretty often.
When a notebook is full, process it
By process, I mean do something with it.
I have a few rules for processing, but do what works for you:
- If the project is done, file the notebook.
- If the project is not done, ask yourself why it’s not done. Is it just bigger than the notebook and you need to continue in a new one? Then do that. But really ask yourself if you’re actually into this project. If not, and it’s not something that has to be done, but just a creative project, then let it go.
- If you decide not to continue a project, start at the beginning and reread your notebook. Keep your brain dump notebook handy so you can capture new ideas and snippets that you notice as you’re rereading it. You may also find that some of the ideas in a dead project notebook are better for another project that you’re working on. I’ve written lines of dialog in one notebook and realized when processing the notebook that that line would be way better in a different book from a different character. For my non-fiction, I find ideas cross-pollinating all the time.
- Decide if you’re going to keep or throw away the notebook once you’ve processed it. Do what works for you.
Set limits for how many active projects you have
My notebook stack is out of control right now, so I’m going to be shelving some of the ones that I’m not actually working on soon. I may come back to them when other projects are done, but they’ll be safe on a shelf until then.
Ideally, I keep active projects to five or less. More than that and it’s cognitive overload as I can’t decide to work on and I can’t work on them all every day, or even every week. If I haven’t worked on a project for more than a week, and I’m not waiting on something, it goes on the shelf. If I’m waiting on something, I make sure to note that in the notebook.
Set deadlines or rewards for yourself
If it doesn’t have a deadline or reward at the end, it’s not getting done. At least not for a long time.
I find that I’m most creative at the beginning of a project and at the end of a project when it’s nearing deadline. The middle is a slog for me, but if I have a really tight deadline, and outside accountability to put pressure on me, I make it past that slog much more easily.
Deadlines make me focus.
Something that I really, really, really want is pressure. If my Moleskine is about full, I’m gonna make that money to buy a new one. If I want a new fountain pen, I’m going to make the money to buy it. If I want a new deck or crystals or incense or whatever, I’m going to make the money to buy them. That means I have to do something to make money, whether it’s an ebook or a course or a meditation recording or whatever, and then I have to promote the crap out of it to make the money I want. It’s fun because I’m creating and also because I get to get my reward at the end.
External pressures don’t work so well for me, but they might work for you. If I’m setting the accountability and deadlines and telling an accountability partner, then I’ll get it done. If it’s for someone else, I’ll drag my feet until the consequences are so dire, I have no choice to get it done, and then the project is not the best it could be. So I don’t have a job, I work for myself.
This is just what works for me. You need to figure out what works for you, but if you’re a creative, you have to do it or you’ll never get where you want to be.
Gwynne is Chief Bitchslapper at Bitchslap.Life where she helps spiritual folx who are sick of the ish in mainstream spiritual spaces to dig deep into their Soul, mining for the treasures that have been buried by trauma and systemic oppression through journaling, creative energy and emotion management exercises, magical practice, and lots of F-bombs.
You can drop a buck a month on Patreon to keep her writing or you can drop a tenner on her first book, Bitchslap Journaling, on Amazon Kindle.
