Lisa Call

Home #3
©2008
10.5" x 8"
Purchase Here

Organization and Energy

When people ask me about having a lot of energy, one of the common threads is to ask how I have the energy to stay so organized with everything I do. I think the answer is that because I stay organized, I have energy for other things.

I find that clutter is a huge energy drain. Be it clutter in my mind or the more concrete piles of junk all over the house. If I let things get into too much disarray, all of my energy is spent thinking about what I have to do or hunting for stuff I can’t find and there is little energy left for doing anything. Staying organized frees up a ton of energy for other projects.

Mental Clutter

When my mind is full of unresolved issues with people or events or projects I tend to be low on energy. Or maybe more accurately, all of my energy ends up going towards ruminating about these situations.

Yesterday when I got home from work I ended up doing very little. Watched old episodes of The Office online. I never watch TV and I had 5 hours that could have been spent on studio time but something was off.

When I find myself stalled like I was last night I don’t beat myself, instead I look around and try to figure out what is draining my energy. I made a list of the things that were nagging at me and will spend today cleaning up those lose ends so I can get back to focusing my energy on making art, not worrying about stuff.

Getting the jumble out of my head and down onto paper, including my thoughts on how I feel about some of these things, is a huge help in plugging up the energy drain. Just recognizing all of the things that are pulling me into different directions is very freeing. Now I can prioritize the list and deal with the issues in a sane manner, instead of freaking out and shutting down.

Physical Organization

It’s not just my brain that need to stay organized for me to think clearly and have the energy to get things done. I also work better in an organized environment.

I’m a big believer in "a place for everything and everything in it’s place". When I don’t have that my things end up in random spots and I spend too much time looking for them, which is a complete waste of energy.

Just because I know a piece of paper is in a huge pile doesn’t mean it’s a good use of my time to dig through that pile every time I need it. Getting and staying organized is a way better use of my energy, so when I need something it is easily found. No distractions about clutter need enter my head when I’m in search of papers. I was able to pull together all the documents I needed for my construction loan in about 10 minutes because my files are so organized.

I had to buy an new quick release thing to attach my camera to my tripod as the old one disappeared. In my old house that thing had a home, if it wasn’t on my camera it was in it’s home. It had no home in this house so it apparently felt neglected and went on vacation. I spent over a month hunting for that thing, worring about taking pictures without and in general letting it annoy me. All of which was a huge waste of energy. The new one just arrived and first thing I did was decide where it will live in my house during the remodel. Energy drain plugged by a bit of organization.

This might sound like a silly example, but when a huge number of silly little things like lost quick release plates pile up together, I end up with a life that is only about distraction, not about making progress.

Home #3

These thoughts about clutter and organization tie in nicely with my thoughts about what makes a home. One thing I ask myself is why I crave so much space in a house. Why is my 900 sq ft house so in need of being made bigger for me to live here?

One of the answers I came to is that in 900 sq ft it is really really hard to be organized and uncluttered. There is simply not enough space to put things. Or to be more precise, given the things I own, there is not enough space to get organized. If I were told I had to live in 900 sq ft I could do it. But I would get rid of a lot more stuff. A huge roll top desk is not something that fits into a house of this size.

Fortunately I do not have to live in 900 sq ft and it turns out with the addition my house will be closer to 2300 sq ft. I’m pretty excited about that as I love big clear open spaces with minimal stuff. So while the frugal, virtous part of me feels like a big american pig for wanting such a big house, the efficient, productive artist in me is excited that in a few months I’ll be able to get really organized again and hence have more energy for making art. My energy is not best spent riffling through a cabinet crammed full of pots and pans to find the right one.

I’m ignoring the voices in my head that tell me there is some virtue in living small. I’m listening to the voices that say there is virtue in living large and honoring my desire for space for making art.

I completed Home #3 this morning and find it interesting how this piece of art, which I subtitle in my head Big House, Little House, and this posting came together at the same time. Rather serendipitous. And it’s the first photo I’ve taken in about 2 months with my tripod. Woohoo.

Structures #53    ©2006    41" x 66"

Busy

The last few months I have been doing a bunch of art marketing work. All of the art and scrum stuff really helped me get focused and motivated on that part of my art business. It feels great to feel all the resulting forward momentum. I’m in love with my art career and know it is going to work out great.

Previously I would often find myself busy doing stuff but not really accomplishing much. Doing things isn’t very productive if they aren’t the right things to be doing. I’d fall in the trap of filling up my time with activity that doesn’t move me closer to my bigger vision.

Space

I’ve also taken a lot of time off to relaxed recently. Spending time in the mountains with Jim and not doing art stuff. Long hikes, excellent meals, fun conversations. I could lose myself in doing nothing. It creates a space in my life that I treasure and Jim is wonderful.

Unfortunately with all this space and all the activity around the art career something had to give. And that thing was creating art. Yes I’m actively working in my studio each day but an hour a day only adds up to 7 hours a week. With the weekend away for my show I’ll end this week at 4 hours of studio time. Not much after years of working 20 hours a week on my art. I can feel my inner artist screaming "I want to make more art!"

As I work towards turning the art career into the main source of money in my life I know that means I will have less time to make art. Now that it is happening I’m feeling a bit of rebellion, which is probably natural. I need to process it and make sure it’s all going in a direction I’m okay with.

Balance

Basically I’m in search of balance. Course aren’t we all. I’m not one that believes that balance means that every day or week or month I’ve got it mastered and everything falls into place perfectly. I do think there is an ebb and flow to activities, but something has triggered my "you are out of balance" meter and I’m finding myself a bit on edge and in need of adjustment.

As a start, this morning I went and had acupuncture, which I absolutely love and find it does wonders to restore my sense of well being. Not to mention the huge physical benefits.

Next step in understanding my needs is to take nothing with me to distract me from myself on my trip to Ohio this weekend. I usually have a list of todos when I go away. I can’t help it sometimes. I’m a 3 on the enneagram and my natural state is that of doing and achieving. But even I can get sick of myself and all my activity sometimes.

So this trip there will be no quilts that need beads or other stitching. No papers to shuffle or magazines to get through. No todo lists to make or organize.

I am bringing one book with me to read, I Will Not Die an Unlived Life: Reclaiming Purpose and Passion by Dawna Markova, and my journal.

For those not familiar with this book it starts with this poem by Dawna Markova:

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.

I’m looking forward to seeing where I find myself at the end of the weekend. I don’t think I’ll have a lot of time to be alone, as there are many friends to see and the museum show opening, but instead of thinking I need to do something in the down time, I plan on doing very little so I come home rested and ready to get back to life with a better sense of what I want next

Structures #53 at the Butler

The above piece will also be in the Butler Museum show that opens this weekend. This is one of the first pieces I made with the very thin lines and it’s still one of my favorites. I will be on an airplane flying to Ohio to see it at the Butler Museum around the time this post appears on my blog. Can’t wait to see it in the museum!

And a Clock

As a final note, artist Paula McCullough from self taught artist is doing a fun promotion for her first 10 piece edition of her found object clocks. She’s got an ebay auction going with a chat box on her blog to follow along. Lots of fun to interact with an artist in this way. Check it out!

Paula’s Art Clock Auction

Paula’s blog is one of the first blogs I read when I see she has a new post. Her writing is wonderful and her honesty about her life as an artist is refreshing and informative. I always come away with something to think about after reading her posts.

Managing the Work

In my last Art and Scrum post I talked about tasks, which are basically todo lists for each of the stories.

As we all know there are many ways to maintain todo lists. I’ve tried all sorts of different methods of managing them and some work better than others.

For a while I was managing the project and task lists from Getting Things Done with a spreadsheet. [as an aside - I find the project lists and task lists from GTD very similar to stories and tasks from sprint - very similar - just different names and slightly different descriptions as to what they are]. There are also several software programs that can help project teams maintain their tasks lists. I think they are overkill for what I’m doing with my art business.

I didn’t much like the spreadsheet as I’m not big on putting lists online. I much prefer to hand write my lists as there here is something more satisfying about the writing process than typing. I also find online lists get out of date quickly and lists online are basically obsolete as soon as they are printed. I’d make notes on the printout and then weeks later I’d give up with the online list.

So I’m going with what many scrum experts claim to be the best way to do this: a task board.

The Task Board

A task board is a whiteboard or corkboard or some such thing that can be divided into columns and rows. I’m using one of my smaller portable design walls and have it attached to my wall as shown above.

I’ve written each story on a notecard and these are all in the left hand column. Acceptance criteria are noted on the card along with deadlines or any other notes I think are important to remember. Only stories for the current sprint are placed onto the task board.

Each task for each story is written on a white index card (sticky notes work great with white boards). There are 3 columns where a task card might be placed:

1. Not Started: The tasks all start in the second column on the left. This is the column for tasks not yet started.
2. In Progress: When a task is started it is moved into the next column over – this is for all tasks in progress
3. Completed: When a task is completed it is moved again to the next column – for all tasks completed.

By moving the tasks physically on the board I can see in one very quick look how the sprint is going. As you can see in the above photo, I had just started this sprint as almost nothing is done and just about everything is in the not started column. As the month has progressed I’ve been moving cards to the right. At the end of the month I’ll take another picture and show what it looks like.

The Daily ToDo List

I find that having this huge pile of tasks to tackle can be overwhelming and I can start spinning my wheels. This board is really pretty and cool but I can’t use it on a day to day basis.

So each night I evaluate where I am and I move tasks cards around as they change status. I then pick 2-5 tasks that I want to work on the next day and write them down on a piece of paper. My favorite – little scraps of paper that I can carry around as I move through my day. And I get to cross stuff off. Who doesn’t love crossing stuff off a list.

This little todo list allows me to put the big task board out of my mind (so I can avoid those "oh my gosh I have way too much to do how will I ever get it done" thoughts). I just focus on just a few items knowing that they are steps that make sense that will move me forward towards my larger goals.

A Few Notes

You’ll notice some yellow and orange story cards on my task board on the right hand side. These are for stories that I’m not actually working on right now but I don’t want to forget about. Things like juried shows I entered and I’m waiting for results, or commission projects that are on currently being approved, etc. I know I won’t have to "do" anything this month on these stories but I don’t want to forget about them either.

You’ll also note there are not tasks for the last 2 stories on the board. That’s cause I didn’t have them written when I took this picture. I now have tasks for one of them and am working on tasks for the last one (the update of my website). This is not good scrum. I’m not sure I care.

The Rest of the Stories

The stories on this board are just the stories I want to work on for September. All of the rest of the stories (in scrum called the product backlog) are also written on index cards and they are stored on a shelf next to this board. Every once in a while I flip through them to make sure I’m not missing anything important.

I also add new stories to that pile when I think of new things I want to do. I used to have great ideas for things to do with my art career but didn’t really have a good way to capture them. I’d write some in my sketch book, some got added to todo lists and many were just forgotten. Now I keep a stack of blank note cards and just jot it down and add it to the list.

 
I find this visual and tactile representation of the goals I’m working on for the month to be really helpful. In one quick look I can see how things are going. Right now I’m thinking this is one of the better things I got out of my scrum training.