It’s All in the Plan

putting together the WHEAT repeating design

Last week I clarified some of my goals here on Steemit, namely that I want to do more collaborative work with Steemians and also to always ask myself whether creating a post reminds me why I love working with clay and creating mosaics.

This morning when I decided to post on this mundane subject of planning, it was specifically because of these goals. Until I have good plans in place and follow them, I am a slave to the squeaky wheels of my work and life. I wind up only taking care of the most urgent tasks and meanwhile the activities that are important but not urgent fall by the wayside. I’m remembering Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ talk about how the urgent things in life usually get done but those that are important - important to one’s spirit, to one’s heart, to one’s future as opposed to the present - don’t. One has to make time for these. I have a whole list of important things that never seem to happen so now it's urgent to give some focus to planning!

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For me a good plan is set up for productivity, good focus and to encompass all of the aspects of running my studio from what I call “steering the ship” type tasks like envisioning, touching base with overarching goals, making decisions about what to let go of and what to pursue, financial planning and creating new products, deciding on new creative pursuits. Then there are the “sailing the ship” tasks that include everything involved in making the projects and orders we have on the table as well as financial tracking, PR, cleaning, office, communications and of course there is Steemit which carries a significant block of time and importance as well.

So, looking ahead at this week my main endeavors and the approximate amounts of time I can spend on each over the course of the week are as follows:

Tile Projects:

The Pool house mosaic, 18 hours

This large mosaic mural is still in the cutting phase, below is a section of a climbing Hibiscus growing up a Banana Tree that I’m nearly finished cutting.

*Climbing Hibiscus around a Banana Tree"

Previous more comprehensive post on this project: https://steemit.com/art/@natureofbeing/news-from-my-studio-revisions-and-beginning-to-cut-the-pool-house-mosaic

glaze test for climbing Hibiscus

This week I’ll finish cutting this (and some more) and glaze this particular section. I want to see how much time it takes to glaze using the watercolor approach shown above. This will help me estimate the rest of the timeline on the whole piece.

Firebox Tile, 18 hours

I have a firebox tile order of 2” x 8” tiles in this stoney blue glaze. It’s a medium size order of 360 tiles and I’m about half way through but need to ship it April 6ish so really have to make this a priority this week.

Production Orders, 3. (me)

Cloud Porcelain: we have multiple orders and this week are shipping out a rather large one of Ash Duals. Rob takes care of most of this but I’ll have a few hours of work related to the shipment.

DUALs in Ash, part of our Cloud Porcelain Collection with Ann Sacks Tile

New Creative Pursuits, 3. hours

I have chosen 1 item from my list and I’ll show you what I come up with once it’s in motion. Sometimes talking about something like this beforehand can dissipate the magic.

Steemit 16 hours

Content creation (aiming for 2-3 posts), curation, communications

Misc, 3-6 hours

Not as much PR will happen since last week I did some really good outreach and an Eblast.

In my goal of improving my plans and accountability, I’ll be giving special attention to:

• getting to and leaving work on time (by 9am and leaving by 8:30pm) and taking a good lunch break
• being careful how many times I switch my focus in a day because it will destroy my momentum and thus productivity. Plus refocusing constantly is exhausting and is the quickest way to steal the joy from my day! This means I have to resist the lure of frequent email and Steemit checking and make sure that I re-establish very clear boundaries regarding disruptions in my studio. Questions and potential disruptions have to be grouped together for planned times unless essential and there are times that are simply off limits to ask me questions.
• planning reasonable amounts of work with adequate time allotments
• Sticking to my plans!! If I have trouble, notice why and strategize about how to prevent this tomorrow.

All of this may sound very strategic and controlled for a creative job but I have an inner rebellious streak that sometimes makes it hard for me to pin myself down to making a plan and even harder to stick to the it! One of my goals for 2018 was to teach myself to become more accountable which also means making better plans that are realistic and achievable. It’s nearly the end of March and in light of my long list of not yet done “important” tasks, it’s high time.

I always imagine that other people don’t struggle with this kind of thing, but if you do or have in the past and have tips and tricks, please share in the comments!

Sndbox Steward