FINDING FOCUS IN THE CHAOS: Part Five
An email series to help you with the overwhelm - let's go with the flow
Hello again!
I hope that you are enjoying this FINDING FOCUS IN THE CHAOS series, designed to help you deal with overwhelm and introduce you to some potentially new ways of structuring your time to help you find more clarity and joy in your work and life.
Today we are going to look at finding FLOW and this relates back to part two where we scheduled and made time for our creativity and our work amongst the admin and the business tasks.
When our time for creativity and play is what fuels our business and our work, we need to pay attention to how we make that time as good as it can be.
You’ve probably come across the idea of being in a flow state and will no doubt have been in flow, many many times. One of the benefits of being a creative person is that you will have much more experience of this delicious state of being than most people do. Flow is us at our most productive and best self, those parts of our day or week where other things melt away and it’s just us, creating and being at our best.
But still, it can be elusive and being in that peak state of creativity doesn’t just happen, we have to plan for it and create the right kind of environment.
Eliminate distractions - turn off your phone, better still put it in a different room. make people aware you are doing focused work. If you aren’t using a computer put that away too. if you are, turn off as many distractions as possible - use something like Freedom and turn off your emails too.
Set a time limit - define the time you are going to try and create in and set a timer so you can forget about checking the time. If you know you lose focus, try shorter periods of time - this can also help create a bit of a sense of urgency to just get stuck in and get started too.
Have an idea of what you want to create or get done. If it’s just unfocused play, that’s fine too, just know why you are there.
Think about the environment. Is it tidy? Do you have what you might need to hand? It the temperature ok? Would some other sensory input help, like music, the right lighting?
Create a ritual. I often light a candle if I am going to write and I always have a drink to hand. This symbolises that it’s time to go within and for the magic and mess to begin!
When it feels like we have limited time for our creative work, as it often does, finding ways that work for you to encourage and activate flow and focus are essential. i hope this has helped you.
With love,
Sarah x
PS If you’d like some support with anything that crops up in this series, you can book a CLARITY SESSION with me, where we will discuss your ideas and thoughts, get focused and plan some action to take you forwards.