Embrace creative seasons in your life for great progress.

It has been an incredible year for me from a creative aspect. I cannot stress how much I have been getting done in comparison to any other time of my life. I thought I accomplished a lot last year, but I have been kicking some serious butt this year. I will say that I am noticing my own progress much more than ever before. I have been writing more to my blog, writing my first ebook (to be released in April 2014), progressing in my photography and design skills and now more recently I have been writing so much music I don’t know what to do with it all.

About two weeks ago I decided to finally bite the bullet and buy a pre-owned digital piano on Shoppok for a very affordable price, a Privia PX150, so I could write piano parts and write compositions with MIDI. It has honestly changed the way I write music dramatically. Before I had to rely on friends for taking ideas in my head and making them tangible and a “work in progress” aka WIP. As my ideas are able to take shape, when I want to do final recording and production I can replace the MIDI with real instruments to add more life to them.

Below is the third musical composition I have written so far in the past two weeks. It is not quite complete, but it’s pulsing with life. Give it a listen.

I can’t really explain why I am in such a intensely creative season of my life, but I would like to share a few things that I have done that probably reflect upon my success and creativity so far this year.

I’ve really pushed myself to stop procrastinating. This is common problem we all face when it comes to our spare time. I have pushed my focus of my free time to actively creating or learning something. I occasionally will burn out from time to time, but I have made myself more aware of how close I am to burn out. Sometimes I push myself too hard. Eyes burning and red and even feelings of carpal tunnel from using my hands so much. I have now learned to pace myself and listen to my body before my mind. I actually had a few days where I had to stop typing or couldn’t type more than a few minutes at a time. I learned to slow my go pretty fast from that experience.

Procrastination is literally a problem between you and yourself. You just have to grab a coffee, a beer, or whatever your drink of choice is and get to work. It is really that simple. You don’t have to make a fancy plan or anything for each day. Just pick something that day and do it. Once it’s off your list, it’s off your list. It is honestly a mind game sometimes. When you start doing work when you don’t want to, I found some of my best ideas to come out of the misery of “the work”. It’s up to you on what gets done and when it gets done. Make it today, not tomorrow.

I’m on one less social network than last year. Facebook was horrible for me as far as productivity goes. It did’t prevent me from finishing things, but it prevented me from finishing more than I did. I loved the people I met there, but I couldn’t keep myself from staring at the news feed. It was a problem. So I removed it. I am not longer on Facebook and it’s for the better.

I am creating projects for myself rather than waiting for them to come to me. For a while I would kind of wait for ideas to come to me, now I am just making ideas as I go. Things that are currently relative to me create great opportunities. As I meet more people through the new communities I have become a part of I make the best of them. I tend to think “how can I help them out?” or “what can I do with my skills to help the community grow?” As soon as ideas come to me, even the small ones, I write them down. I try to start them and see if they have potential to be something bigger. I don’t let little ideas go to waste and if they are awesome, I make them happen.

So there is a handful of things that I feel have made this current creative season incredibly productive. I am taking full advantage of it for as long as I can, because I know it will eventually end. At the same time I know a new one will begin. When the new one arrives will be even more prepared to be more productive. We all face seasons of creativity, struggle and times of aimless adventure, but we have to know how to handle them and make the best of them.

If you are in a creative season like I am, I hope you can seize it just as much I have. If you aren’t there, it’s coming for you and when it comes, go crazy.