The Simple 3-Step Method to Creative Progress
I just shared my first finished art piece from the Unscaled Collection and I just about threw up in my mouth sending that out into the world. While I’m a creative at heart and have been creative in the public before, there was something about sharing a piece of artwork that felt more high-stakes than a book or a business course. Creative progress doesn’t always feel like progress.
For some reason, I felt embarrassed about my art while I’ve never felt embarrassed about the pages and pages of detailed and raunchy smut I’d written in my six romance novels. I recognized I needed something to ground this process because everything suddenly felt urgent. So I started looking at the next three steps to creative progress in a process where everything felt like a priority, and nothing was getting done.
One of the things I pride myself on is being able to capture an idea and move quickly toward action. I love seeing a finished product and seeing creative progress. I love moving through the process of going from something I thought of, to something that lives on a shelf or the internet or even on my bedroom wall. Whatever the idea, if it takes hold, I’m going to need some room.
The Feeling Before the Shift
Deciding to make this move from consulting to creative wasn’t something I did lightly, but it was something I did easily. And once I had made the decision to shift my focus, my entire focus became this new adventure. Maybe you’re like me and you just want the world to go away so you can make your stuff, do your thing, or binge watch that Netflix series. But within that untamed passion, there is often doubt, confusion, and fear. These are the killers of creative progress.
I focused on updating my website, getting my SEO in order, and creating spreadsheets to track my progress. And then I caught myself. I’m getting so good at identifying these sneaky little ways I pretend I’m being productive in preparation. What I really wanted to be doing was painting that first piece for the Unscaled Collection. Instead, I was preparing to paint. I bought a new notebook and started outlining the project. Then, I created a 5-tab spreadsheet in Google Sheets to track URLs and affiliate links and images. I talked to ChatGPT for what seemed like hours about how I would share this project with the world.
But what I should have been doing was painting. Do the thing that would harness creative progress. That was the project: painting. The spreadsheet just creates work. I’m good at just sitting down and doing my work so I don’t need a tracker. The website was just a safety blanket I was holding onto to make things look perfect before I launched, but this is an experiment. I don’t need the website to be rock-star quality just yet. I need the basics. A minimum viable product. One piece of art. One blog about the art. And a few posts sprinkled on social media.
Catching Myself in the Act of Procrastination
I caught myself wanting to sign up for courses on how to blog full-time, bend Pinterest to my will, and make money from affiliate links. I almost upgraded my Thinkific account so I could be ready to rework old courses on the shelf to have other revenue-generating products on the site so it would be “ready to go” and “look professional.” As if professional is ever something I strive to be. [insert eye roll here]
And that’s where I hit pause. I thought about what the actual purpose of this creative journey was, and let everything else go. I realized I needed to focus on the next few things to move the needle, not all the things. At least, not right now.
My business brain kicked in hard and bucked against the idea of doing this entire project on a pad of sticky notes, but I decided it was good enough.
So, here’s how I ditched the spreadsheet tracker, decided to delete old business blogs instead of trying to find a place for them here, and got to work releasing my first piece of art within one week of coming up with this idea.
The 3-Step Sticky Note Method to Creative Progress
You’re not going to believe this, but I grabbed a pad of sticky notes. Hot pink. I grabbed one of the 300 pens strewn across my desk and wrote the numbers 1, 2 and 3. Rocket science, I’m telling you. It’s rocket science. Then I thought to myself: what needs to happen now so that I don’t spend my time messing with technology and I can get this piece of art out there right now?
Here’s what I wrote:
There were just three things I needed to focus on to get my first piece of original artwork out there. I needed to finish the damn painting, first and foremost. So I did that, easily falling to my endless creative flow where I had to stop myself from doing more when I looked up and realized the piece looked perfect the way it was. Then I sat with my laptop looking at it and wrote a short blurb for Facebook and Instagram. Then I got distracted and messed around with the blog for a while (of course I did!) and suddenly it was too late to share, so I committed to posting it first thing in the morning.
And I did.
Why This Worked For Me
Even though I got a little distracted by the blog set up, I didn’t mind because I already did the most important task on the list: I finished the artwork. I had the foundation for the rest of the work that needed to be done. There’s no description without the piece. There’s no post without the description. And I love this because part of this journey for me is to let go for the strict structures I’ve come to rely on to get things done in my business and be more open to other ways of doing things.
I’m not looking to “produce” or “keep up” or manage “deliverables” here.
I am the deliverable. I show up and make something. That’s the success.
Creating vs Controlling Creative Progress
As a creative person who loves business, it’s easy to fall into the trap of perfecting the messaging, the branding, and the feel of something. But that’s not what this is about. Sure, I know how to do all of those things. But this time around, I’m leaning into the passion, the purpose, and the story behind the work. I can follow my gut on this one and not worry about competitive analysis or market share. I just want to make stuff. It happens to be beautiful stuff, sure, but the point is just to make it. Share it. Offer it. And then do it all over again.
The urge to systematize my creative work is strong. And for good measure: I’m great at systems. This urge took me off track for a few days, but I caught it. I named it. And I sent it packing.
What do I need to make things, write about them and share them with others?
I need to make things first.
So when I sit down, feeling anxious about where I should be spending my time, I’ll use the 3-step method to creative progress and remember that if what I’m getting distracted by isn’t resulting in more things made, written or shared with others, then I don’t need to do them.
How I’ve Brought this Project to Life
Here’s some examples of ways I’ve used my time of the last week in bringing the first piece of my collection to life and made creative progress.
I wrote down thoughts, feelings, ambitions, and ideas in my new notebook.
I sketched out what I thought my first piece was going to be using colored pencils and I created a legend of what the colors and symbols meant to me.
Then I wrote some journal entries on the process to reference later because I knew I’d be creating a blog to accompany this project.
I burned down and then rebuilt most of a new website. The homepage isn’t finished. Maybe it will be by the time you read this. But it’s day 8 of this process and I haven’t looked at it again since I put it up. I added a newsletter sign up box because I do want to connect with people periodically about things I’m making and share blogs like these. I’ve resisted having a newsletter for literal years in my consulting business, so it’ll be a once-a-month thing.
I started painting the canvas I bought. Then I painted over it entirely and started again. I felt the need to do something else. You can read about that shift in perspective in the blog where I talk about painting, The One I Would Want.
Then I got back to work updating the website, blog layouts, SEO and I created a Pinterest account, revived my Instagram account which has been dead for several months thanks to a lack of interest on my part. And I deleted the spreadsheets, crafted a simple template for Pinterest and feature images for the blog in Canva. And then I put the finishing touches on the canvas, signed it, posted it, called it done and went to buy groceries.
It was the burning down of the old consulting website that had me spinning and where I recognized I needed to refocus on activities that were going to get me closer to my 3-step method of making, writing and sharing.
Make. Write. Share. That’s How to Make Creative Progress.
Sounds simple, but that’s all I really have to do.
Under the make category, I’m focusing on the Unscaled Collection I’ve designed. There will be other projects, but this is the focus right now.
Under the write category, I’m focusing on this blog as a storyboard and journal. I’m also writing another business book which the Unscaled Collection is based on, and I have a 7th romance novel in the works.
Under the share category, I’m focusing on Pinterest and Facebook with a dab of Instagram. I mostly creep over there so we’ll see.
The goal is to avoid getting bogged down in the admin of this project. I know how to run a business lean and I know how to get the job done. So I’m focusing on doing the work I want to do, which, at this point in my life, is making things.
I’m not worrying about optimization so much as honest clarity and connection.
I’m not worrying about perfection so much as progress and purpose.
And I’m not worrying about amassing followers so much as evoking emotion from those who choose to follow my journey.
I just want to make stuff and share it.
If you’ve already loving this mindset shift and focus, feel free to follow along by joining my newsletter below.
If you want to support my art, you can view the available pieces of my collection here.
There’s more to come here, but I’m taking this one step at a time.
