I’ve been feeling a little more creative lately. And I honestly think its because I’ve started temping. Yes I know weird. Temping should be slowly sucking out my brains, soul, passion and creativity but I think because its new and takes up a good chunk of my time, my spare time feels more precious, and I feel more inspired to actually do things and start projects.
Last semester I was only doing a handful of things and had a ton of free time that I promptly frittered away. Sure I got some stuff accomplished but mostly I squandered. I am definitely one of those people who need a little bit too much on their plate and I really can get a lot done. Having less time means I have less time to mull over unimportant details that muck with my productivity. For example I spent pretty much two months agonizing over how I was going to create these stencils. I over thought the whole thing. Now that I don’t have as much time I just did it in a morning and stopped being so fussy. And so far its ok. I am going to change some things but its working.
Speaking of frittering time. Real Simple has this ridiculous issue devoted to 15 minutes and how 15 minutes can change my life and all that. Now Elaine Perlov has a nice egg-timer system where you can do short annoying tasks in 15 or more minutes (and I bought a lemon shaped timer from a dollar store last year and it helps) but I felt the magazine was actually putting a lot of pressure on people with this issue. Like every 15 minutes of my life had to be totally productive and awesome and filled with healthy food and no bad television whatsoever. To cap it off they asked a bunch of over-worked ladies what they would do with an extra 15 minutes in their day and they all gave these over the top ambitious answers like writing a novel or learn a language. I suspect these poor women were put on the spot and felt like they really had to make it count. Only one of them was brave enough to have an answer close enough to “probably nothing at all”. Even then it had to mention coffee and a meaningful breakfast. If I had an extra 15 minutes per day I suspect these 15 minutes would be snatched away by the cruel masters of corporate america, sleep, tv or blogs. I like sleep the best.
