Idea Incubator 22: Propelling Passion Daily
For most creatives, there is a tug-of-war between what you want to do and what you have to do. Want-to-do is create or produce ideas. Have-to-do is sales, bookkeeping, and filing, and housekeeping. It is hard enough to balance between—but it is really sad when creative people don’t spend time being creative.
As an art director who has studied creative business models and methods, out of hundreds of designers, I have concluded that salaried staff designers spend 70-80% of their time on billable work. For a designer entrepreneur, it is only 10% of time spent pursuing creative approaches.
Minding the store is important to business. So time allowed for creative endeavors needs to be spent with wisdom. How can you make the most of your creative hours?
Rieva Lesonsky, entrepreneurial expert, knows how dancing to business music requires choreography chosen for best potential. When interviewed, she said:
“Find a business, or the thing about your business, that excites you. Build on that. The best overall joy in work will make a better company for you and everyone in it.”
—Rieva Lesonsky, contributor to Women who Win at Work
Life is too short not to do what you love. And the same with those you work with!
Ask these questions as a reality-check and way to focus passions so potential:
1. What parts of business do you most enjoy?
Identify your top three tasks.
• What strengths does each task use that you most enjoy?
• How can you build on what most excites you through greater use of your strengths?
2. What excites those you work with?
Consider the point-of-view of each co-worker, contributor, colleague, volunteer, or participant.
• What parts of your work can only you do?
• For each task, evaluate whether you must retain, if you can delegate, and if so, to whom?
3. How do the parts only you can do match up to what you most enjoy doing?
• How can you increase the use of your joys, uniqueness, and the benefit of being in your business?
• What aspects of your business gives you both the most fulfillment and product income?
See “Form a Creative Base,”also from Rieva Lesonsky.
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Also please visit the “Initiator Index” for overview and development progress.
When Idea Incubator concludes after Part 3, the online publication will be complete. Segments can be used in any sequence, revisiting like an old friend to remind and revise. As a companion, keep a running check on priorities, originality, and rejuvenation to create a flow for developing the best directions. But this is not the end of the process. Though it places you on your best path, you can go further.
I hope you will continue with your self-seminar into the e-book, Idea Initiator that takes the concepts defined in these first three sections, offers a segment on how to sustain creative energy through project ups and downs, and is a guide for how to synthesize the ideas you have formed into a concise and pursuable plan. Contact me to receive your free copy: please go to my website and e-mail me with your request, using the subject line “idea initiator.”
Always inspired, Liane
Tags: business, creative thinking, creativity, Idea Incubator, Liane Sebastian, Rieva Lesonsky
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