Prioritizing Tasks & Activities: Sometimes the Boring Stuff is the Container of the Well of Creativity

There's an old saying. "It is easy to see what a person's true beliefs are--simply look at their behaviors."

The same logic applies to determining what a person's true priorities are. It is easy to see what one's priorities are by watching what one does. For example, I say creative writing is my priority. But how much time do I actually spend (creative) writing? Am I "Facebooking" instead? Am I frittering away writing time with other non-important time wasters?

Occasionally time wasting activities are helpful. For example, when I'm stuck on a plot problem, I can engage in a computer game that doesn't require much intellectual energy, while working on my plot issue subconsciously. However, if I want to accomplish writing goals, I need to monitor time wasting activities to ensure they don't eat up all my writing time.

That's the obvious. Everyone knows this, right?

What may be less obvious
(at least for us neophyte creative author hopefuls) are the non-creative-writing aspects of a creative writing career. For example, I'm working on a historically based novel (I intend it to also be of literary quality). This necessitates a lot of research: learning about the historical characters, the time period, the housing, dress, food, habits, etc. of the period. Understanding the social and political consequences of certain events, as well as the implications of events leading up to the period I'm writing about, is important to me. Reading other authors who have written literary and historically based novels is important. You get my drift (Why throw away a good cliche when it works?).

So now I must juggle creative writing activities with research activities. Filing and organizing is still important--tax records must be kept, and I certainly wouldn't want to lose all that research. Often writers have jobs that support their writing and that must be accounted for. Maintaining a blog, twitter (or other social media) is important. So is article or short story writing (and publishing), which also means taking time to research and query publications. If one is already a published author, regular time must be made for ongoing marketing--reading and speaking engagements, for example. And then there is networking and continuing education--workshops, conferences, seminars, MFA programs (or, for some of us, college courses to bring us up to speed).

Wow. There's a lot more to being a creative writer/author than just sitting down and ripping out stories! It could be really easy to let the slices of important activities get unbalanced. Neither is it as easy as determining a set daily schedule: writing four hours daily, researching two, marketing one-half hour.... I may need to spend most of six months researching before I write more than a brief sketch of my novel plot. Then I may spend most of my time writing a "shitty first draft," while maintaining a daily or weekly blog or twitter, all while attending to my creative writing education.

This is where intentional prioritizing comes in. Determining what activities are important or crucial to overall goals, assigning a weight to each activity (I usually express this as a percentage), deciding which activities must be accomplished on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis, and then monitoring behavior over a period of time to determine whether an adjustment is needed and if behavior is true to intentioned priorities.

Example of Intentional Prioritizing

It doesn't have to be complicated or exact. I'm not suggesting we measure time in exact increments and track activities down to the second. Having consciously determined which activities promote goals and which do not, then assigning a value to intentionally prioritize goal oriented activities will be enough to help keep us consciously accountable to the goals we have created.

I have discovered, over years of being disorganized, that a little effort in this area is essential to pursuing goals with sustained energy and efficient (focused) creativity. Sometimes the boring stuff is the container of the well of creativity.

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy the following:

When Writing Gets Difficult
Being There for Your Dreams: Organizing the Creative Life
One Key to Increasing Creativity: Improv
Books Have Signatures - Should Writers?
For a Better Quality Break Time: Creativity Enhancing Goodies

eSolutions for Social Media Addictions
How to Get Back to a Daily Writing Habit After a Break