1. A Simple Structure for Focused, Creative Work

If you’re an artist, writer, or work-from-homer, how do you structure your hours?
I’m always curious to hear from folks about this. There’s often a lot of romance in the idea of flexibility and building our own schedules. More often though, the lack of assigned structure can feel like a battle between productivity and constant distraction. After many years of trial and error, I’ve found that my best work gets done to a pretty simple structure.

Timed 1 Hour Sessions

Working in hour-long blocks of time to a timer is what (for me) works best for sinking into focused creative art, thinking, and writing.

A few key things I do to prep for focused hours:

1. I turn off all inputs like phone, texts, email, news and social media.

2. I prep my space, get water, light a candle (which is grounding, but also, more simply, we don’t want to leave the room with an open flame burning!)

3. I turn on music or sound ambience for writing or brainstorming. For art-making I listen to podcasts, audiobooks, or watch shows (terrible reality shows or good stuff that I’ve seen already keep me entertained but not distracted).

4. Set a timer to 60 minutes.

Pretty simple! After the timer goes off, I move away from my desk for a 10-20 minute break. I use some nifty break cards for those segments (and will share all about those on the next Creative-Tea break…).

I’d love to hear what structure you’ve found works best for you. (And, if you have a favorite timer, please share!)

“Everything good needs time. 
Don’t do work in a hurry. 
Go into details; it pays in every way. 
Time means power for your work.”
~ novelist Amelia Barr

Cheers!
~Eliza

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