Finding Balance

Finding Balance Between Your Life and Your Crafting

Thank you for your site. I love it. As a crafter I understand how time consuming it is to put together a craft. I crochet, sew, make and teach jewelry/beading and design.

When you get involved in a craft you’re so consumed with what you are crafting that the rest of the house goes to pot. It’s so hard to find balance. You don't want to put your craft away and lose the train of creativity that is flowing through you. Crafters are happy people but messy people.

How do I find balance?

Thank you,

Beth

That’s a great question! I love your line, “Crafters are happy people but messy people.”

Unfortunately I don’t have a definitive answer for you. I struggle to find balance and enough time for crafting myself. Even worse, I have a tendency to stress myself out over all the things I ought to do. So here are some new things I am doing and a few things that have worked for me in the past.

In summary:

Prioritize and Re-Prioritize – life changes, so should your priorities;
Write it Down – the mundane things you might forget, the must-dos you don’t particularly relish and your long term goals;
Be Kind to Yourself – and to those you live with; and
Take Time for Yourself – as an artist.

Re-Evaluate Priorities

Life is a journey and the landscape is constantly changing. We periodically need to step back and re-evaluate where we are going in order to make sure it is where we want to head.

You’ll know it’s time to re-prioritize when you’ve got too much on your plate or you’re feeling dissatisfied and stressed most of the day. Something has to give. To re-evaluate your priorities, you need to step outside of your normal routine – either physically or simply mentally.

If you can’t afford to get away physically, here is an article which includes a simple exercise to help you determine where you want to go with your life.

To show you how powerful the insights gained from this exercise can be, it is what helped me make a 180-degree career switch from a high-paying career in finance to a career as a “starving artist”. ;-)

That was twelve years ago. I’ve gone from making calling cards for my circle of friends to opening my own little gift shop to running my own little website. But I feel the ground shifting and know it is time to re-evaluate again. I have too much on my plate and have been feeling pretty stressed.

This time to get out of my normal routine, I was able to get away physically. I just got back from a marvelous week in Cancun. I walked on the beach alone for hours – drinking in the beauty and feeling grateful for all the good things that have come my way. I thought a lot about which activities are currently bringing me joy and which I want to let go of.

When I got back, I put a plan into action that will free up more than twenty hours a week that I can put toward The Artful Crafter, learning more about Photoshop and taking a refresher course in drawing. Those are the pursuits that came out on the top of my prioritized wish list.

What I need to let go of is my little gift shop. Besides freeing up twenty plus hours a week for crafting and my website, this will relieve me of having to deal with difficult customers and chase down people who forget to pick up their custom orders. The personal selling has always been my least favorite part of crafting for profit.

Write it Down

Of course we all have mundane things that have to get done every day. To make sure they do, I keep a day planner. My husband knows that, if he wants me to pick up something at the store or run some other errand for him, he must write me a note or ask me when I have my day planner handy.

If it’s not written down, it doesn’t get done! I have to laugh at some of the trivial things that get written in my planner. What will my son think when he sorts through my things after I go to that big craft room in the sky?

For example, today’s page has the block of time at the store. Alongside that are things I need to pick up or accomplish while I am there: buy roasted red peppers; buy two sheets of decorative tissue paper for a decoupage project; meet with a client to show her proofs for her business card; I. O. Rosa 10 cents; and call Anita. For when I get home, I have written “wash clothes and clean deck”, as well as “depilate”. LOL!

I check off each task as it is completed and, if it doesn’t get done today, it will be staring me in the face tomorrow and perhaps the day after!

Writing things down works for long term goals as well. I’ve found that if I write a goal, I am much more likely to reach it. Putting something in writing represents a higher level of commitment to accomplish it. It needs to be posted where you’ll see it frequently.

When I knew I wanted to learn digital scrapbooking, I wrote myself a “curriculum” of all the steps I thought I would need to take, along with due dates. I even posted it in my blog and got some encouraging feedback from readers. That’s another thing that helps: sharing your goals with people who will support and encourage you.

You may not be able to meet you due dates when you launch yourself in an entirely new direction. I admit I haven’t reached my original digital graphic goal, which was to be accepted onto the Scrap Girls design team. But I have learned sooo much and I have truly enjoyed the journey.

I haven’t given up. So far, Scrap Girls has published two of my submissions and today I learned I am one of two Weekly Layout Winners. At the end of this month, Scrap Girls will publish a tutorial I wrote in their newsletter.

Though my digital graphic goal dates have long passed, I am still progressing because of that very ambitious (in hindsight) curriculum I wrote for myself. Maybe it’s time to re-write it.

Be Kind to Yourself

… and to those you live with. I learned pretty early in my (40-year) marriage that I was not going to change my DH. I need organization and everything in its place so I can find it when I need it. He thrives in clutter. Talk about culture clash!

Neither of us can change our basic nature but we have made little adjustments to make the marriage work. I have learned not to be bothered (much) by things left lying all over the house, I simply pick them up as I walk by and return them to their proper place. He has learned to confine his (work) clutter to about a two-foot radius of his chair. That way it can be cleaned up quickly if company comes.

We share the housework about 80/20 – you can probably guess who does the 80%. And we share the cooking about 50/50 because we both enjoy it.

As for the cleaning, which is nobody’s favorite pastime, I play little mind games to get me through it. I look for positive aspects of each chore and focus on those. For example, while dusting (which I find tedious if I dwell on it), I appreciate picking up and handling the little treasures we have collected through the years. I think about where or when we acquired each one.

Or I mentally plan my next craft project or ponder a recent reader question (like yours!). Or I pray. The time spent cleaning seems to pass more quickly and perhaps I have gained some insights while I toiled.

Also I love the column that Good Housekeeping recently started called “Good (enough) Housekeeping”. I like the attitude of “good enough” housekeeping. And some of the tips are great timesavers.

Take Time for Yourself

An artist of any kind needs a very strong inner life. That’s where much of our inspiration comes from. We see the same world which our non-artist friends do, but we internalize it differently and we transform it. This internal process requires time.

Take time for a nature walk. Meet your friends for coffee. Read a book or magazine. Go see a movie or play. Get a pedicure or massage. Swing on a swing. Do some mundane chore that doesn’t require much brain power – like dusting. LOL!

Finally, to see how other crafters and artists find their own balance and organization, look at some of the photos in "What's on Your Work Table?" which start here on Cyndi Lavin’s Mixed Media Artist blog. Click on “Question of the Month” at the bottom of the post to see other artists' photo submissions.

Sometimes messy is good!

BTW, I checked out your website Beth’s Boutique and really love your work.

The pre-pleated scarf is a wonderful idea. I haven’t worn scarves in ages because they always slip around so that I look like I’m coming apart. I can see that yours would stay put.

I also see we share a love of tote bags. ;-)