Creative Quickies Trysting with Your Inner Artist

Creative Quickies Trysting with Your Inner Artist Thekla Richter has been my time management coach for a few months now (a year?), and shes just the bees knees. Every time I get off the phone with her I feel 10 pounds lighter and can breathe more easily, since time management is something Ive struggled with for a freakin long time, but gets even more challenging once youre a Woman of the World (aka entrepreneur)! Thekla just launched her new blog focusing on being a Simply Sane parent, and I was so glad she took me up on the offer to guest post! Youre gonna love her. I have more artistic fantasies than I could fulfill in several lifetimes, an imagination full of giant projects that would take years of dedicated time just to get the skills for, let alone completely fulfill. Image by Gisela Giardino I bet you do too. Even if you have a creative job, your inner artist probably longs for a change in routine, the chance to do something entirely different creatively. If much of your day is filled with things that are not creative, your inner artist longs for playtime with you even more. How do you fit all this creative energy into a busy life on those days you cant dedicate giant chunks of time to being artistic? I used to spend hours, nights, even whole weekends on my various creative pursuits. Ive had hobbies that included pottery, bellydancing, African drumming, bookbinding, jewelry-making and more. However, now that I have a ten-month-old, I feel indulgent if I take the extra time to actually wash my hair while in the shower. Yes, I adore my inner artist to bits, but I dont often have time to elaborately wine and dine her very often just now, mores the pity. Eventually life will cycle through to a different phase, and my inner artist and I will get more time together once again. In the meantime, with our nights out far more rare than of yore, and our weekend get-aways temporarily a thing of the past, we often foster our intimacy with creative quickies. A quickie is a few uninterrupted minutes of doing something joyously creative just for the sheer fun of it. Its a chance for you and your inner artist to hang out and quickly reconnect. Its all about that reconnection and the pleasure of the moment you dont have to make something tangible or experience something profound. Just a quick, fun little tryst. Ten minutes is a good length of time, but do whatever works for you and your lovely artist-muse. Put dates for quickies in your schedule and watch your relationship with your inner artist regain some serious sparks. Only you can know what kinds of activities might feed your romance with your inner artist. However, here are some ideas for ten-minute creative quickies to get you started: Color. Buy a box of 64-colors crayola crayons or a huge set of colored pencils or fine-tipped markers. Buy a coloring book, either a silly kids one that you would have liked when you were six, or something more sophisticated. Sit down somewhere by yourself and color away. Dont worry about picking colors that look good together or staying inside the lines. Better still, just buy a giant-sized pad of cheap paper and draw from scratch. You dont have to be any good just play with color and have fun! Tease your brain. Do an exercise from a creativity book and break out of your normal way of looking at the world. Walk. Go for a walk, but do it mindfully. Pay attention to the sensations and details: notice the smell of grass, the sounds of traffic, the quick smile of a stranger, the feel of the concrete beneath your shoes. Smile softly to yourself and enjoy being in your own body, fully present. Noticing details feeds creativity by re-anchoring you to both your physical self and the present moment, both things that are important to your inner artist. Serialize. Start a ten-minutes-daily creative project. The project can be anything that youd enjoy working on for ten minutes a day and only ten minutes. Examples are: a sock youd like to knit, a super-detailed pen doodle on a giant piece of paper, a humorous novel written just a few hundred words at a time with no editing as you go allowed, a photo-a-day project, a short music piece youll practice till learned on an instrument that you play well or badly. One important rule for the serial quickie: choose something you can be lighthearted about, not something that you feel the need to do perfectly or finish promptly. This isnt about the project; its about the process and the fun you have with it. Catch some culture. Go to the museum or a concert and see or hear something off your usual beaten path but do it virtually, to keep it short and easy. Delight your inner artist with a random wander through the Metropolitan Museum of Arts huge collection, music or dance from another culture on YouTube, or whatever catches your inner artists fantasy. Make a big deal out of the experience for just those ten minutes dim the lights, light some candles by your computer and have some lovely wine or tea. (Just dont get lost in the internet when youre supposed to be sharing quality time!) Groove. Play some music that you love, put on something that you love to move in, find some privacy and bust out some serious moves. Daring variation: do this 10-minute quickie at work during a break, alone with your iPod in a bathroom stall. You can dance more than you think keeping your feet mostly planted on the ground. That way no one will ever know that you and your inner artist are getting it on right in the middle of your workplace. What kind of creative quickie would you like to share with your inner artist today? Share your ideas in the comments so we can all inspire each other. Thekla Richter is a time management coach and work-at-home mom in Seattle. Her latest project is Simply Sane Parent, a brand-new blog about life balance, productivity and personal happiness for parents.