Last week, I talked about self awareness and the importance of understanding your emotions, needs and goals. This is essential when you're on a creative journey, where structure, habit and routine, can go against creativity's essence of flow and inspiration. Finding a manageable balance between the two is what I found myself focusing on this week. 

I've been experimenting with work schedules and routines to improve my work flow for a few years. There's no actual system and I prefer to change it up depending on what's happening in my life. I like using a to-do list that details current and upcoming projects. This list is all—inclusive of every task, big and small, and somewhat scattered. From there, I prioritize tasks and projects based on their deadlines and use my digital weekly calendar to plan my week; a routine done every Saturday night. 

I learned time management at my previous job, and it worked perfectly well at the time. It was very normal to be busy all day long. I used to bring my laptop home to work on weekends too. On some level, my brain is wired to recreate the same working habits. I often find myself feeling burnt out. This is especially difficult because creative work sometimes feels like play. There have been many times when I'd forgotten to eat or move from my seat for an entire day. I went from a 42-hour work week to a 55+ hour work week. When the plan had always been to work less, not more. 

I don't know how to work less. Being a hard worker is part of my identity. Hustle culture has its hooks in me. Do I deserve to rest when my current income is 80% less than my previous job? Maybe I need to work a little more before I can take a break. This is the constant internal battle I often find myself in. I have an ingrained belief that I'll rest when I've succeeded, when I've made it. These thoughts are always on my mind. The mind is a funny thing, but these are all natural beliefs considering my life experiences. Our minds are always looking at previous patterns in our lives in order to make decisions. It's our job to understand the deeper meaning of those beliefs to make better decisions. 

This was an unusually busy week for me, and some tasks came up that had to be prioritized. I felt like I had to follow my schedule, and add the new tasks on top of that. It was not manageable and by the middle of the week I was experiencing both physical and mental exhaustion. Knowing that If I didn't fix this fast, I would soon experience burn out. And then I wouldn't be able to do anything for an extended period of time. I dropped some tasks and moved them to the following weeks, and made a promise to myself that I would not work on the weekend. 

I was already anxious at the idea of not doing anything work related on the weekend. I am not used to that and I don't really know how to do it. Thankfully, on Friday, I went away with my family for the whole day. And on Saturday I slept for 12 hours straight. Proof that my body desperately needed the rest. I spent the rest of the day listening to music, journaling and reading. When I woke up this morning, I felt recharged and ready to take Week 3 head on.

My goal moving forward is to use my calendar wisely and focus on rest and daily breaks. It’s a self-reminder that as a creative, incorporating rest is just as important as work tasks - even if that means that some things on the schedule will be shifted around. Listening to my gut has never steered me wrong; rest may sometimes come first, but creativity will be sure to follow.