Create: Day 40

Day 40
The 40 hour work week leaves how many hours to create?

Annual work hours 2004. GNU licensed.

Today we continue  the project planning we started yesterday. So if you missed that post, go check out Create: Day 39 before working through Part II.

It’s tough to find time to be as creative as you’d like when you’re working a 40-hour-a-week job or in school or raising kids or running a household.

But you can do it: simply cut something out of your life (television? investment club?) that will not be as rewarding long-term. Alternately, you can schedule moments for creativity here and there,  or maybe even move to the Netherlands where you don’t have to work so many hours per year.

Let’s figure out how long it’s going to take to finish the project you’ve chosen to do.

Review your answers from yesterday and think about how involved each step is. Will you need an hour to slog through stacked up boxes in your basement to get out the scrapbook you started when your kid was four–and now has a four-year-old of his own?

How long will it take to run your errands? Is your local art store an hour away?

Add it all up.

Be realistic in your estimates. It’s better for our purposes to overestimate rather than not allow enough time.

Creative Project Completion Plan Part II

Estimate of hours it will take to finish project (include errand time):
_________________
How many hours (or minutes) I can realistically spend per week on this project:
_________________
How many weeks it will take me to finish this project:
_________________
(It’s OK to choose a project you can get done in one week, of course.)
Activity (if any) I can cut out of my life to spend this time on this project:
_______________
Date on which I will end activity I’ve listed above:
_________________
Plan (if needed) for extricating myself from activity:
________________________________
________________________________
________________________________
(Explanation: if you’ve decided, for example, to quit your investment group so you can have more time for creative ventures, you’re going to have to get yourself out of it. Anticipate the arguments your bucks-buddies will present to guilt-trip you, decide how to find a replacement, plan for your graceful exit.)

Creative Project Completion Plan Part I (you filled this out yesterday)

Project I will finish: _________________

Specific steps I must take to finish project:
________________________________
________________________________
________________________________
(e.g. for earrings: choose beads for earrings; choose head pin; make wrapped loop; make ear wires; hammer ear wires; attach beads to ear wire; etc.)

Supplies needed to finish project (note what you already have and what you need to get):
Have:
________________________________
________________________________
________________________________
Get:
________________________________
________________________________
________________________________
(e.g. for mixed potted front porch planting: ceramic pot (have), perennials that can be replanted in yard at season end…list all separately (need), potting soil (have), garden mags for inspiration (need) etc.)

Errands required to finish project:
________________________________
________________________________
________________________________
(e.g. for taking and framing macro photography of flowers: mat board at Michaels, frame at Aaron Brothers, photographic paper at Best Buy, etc.)

Estimate of project budget:
_____________________

Create Month 2
What to do so far:
In case you missed a day, the reminders below are clickable.
Don’t put off creativity.
Use your limited experience with unlimited imagination.
Don’t worry about the destination.
If you’re stuck, lower your standards and go on.
Take a creativity vacation.
Value your creative visions.
Moodle every other week.
Fill out Creative Project Completion Plan I.
Fill out Creative Project Completion Plan II.

Need a refresher for Create Month 1? Click here.