Christmas is a time of
despair and New Years eve celebrations are a time
for renewal
01/01/09 17:56 Filed in:
Journal
Always has been for me. Surrounded by friends or
on my own I think of the year past and what's
ahead. The Christmas celebrations enhance the
sense of despair in me as they feel so empty. It
must be in my dna as I have friends who really
get into it all. But come new years eve I focus
on the possibilities ahead, and that is a good
enough reason to celebrate.
My past year has been in a state of flux. I think
a lot of what I was working on will bear fruit in
the year ahead. Working as an artist and writer,
I can clearly see the need to setup a better way
of organising my time and the work I do each day.
Back when I was managing direstor of my design
studio I did this as second nature. It worked
very well, it had to, I was managing twelve
co-workers as well as living as a family man with
a wife and two children. Paradoxically now that
I'm living on my own I've no one else to answer
to, and that means self motivation and
organisation is more important now than ever.
I've tried just letting go at times over the last
few years and that ended up with large tracts of
chilled out periods were I did good work but not
a lot of it. By setting up my days better I can
still let go but within a time frame. By letting
go I mean not trying to stucture my days, 'going
with the flow' would better describe what I mean.
I think from experience what works best is the
freedom of 'going with the flow' but within a
structure. I don't have unlimited time and I do
have a lot of things I want to do, artwork,
writing, travel, developing income streams etc.
So on this New Years day onwards I'm still going
to 'live my life as an artist' but apply some of
the skills I learned and honed as a managing
director in my previous life. I'll let you know
how this works out as I move into 2009.
This is one of the differences between being
amateur and turning professional. A professional
makes it work, with an amateur it either doesn't
matter or they don't know how to make it work and
refuse to find out. Turning professional is the
moment you 'burn the boats' - no way back, defeat
the enemy. Mostly that enemy can be ones own bad
work habits, attitudes and fear. It is with me.
I can smell the smoke!
Best wishes for 2009 - Barry
Tags: Organisation