Recently I wrote about the time an idea needs before it settles. I left out the obvious next question. What do you do with yourself in the meantime?
My answer is usually to put my attention elsewhere. Go and do something else.
Another project entirely, with a different material and a different problem attached. The things I'm working on are spread around the studio, each in its own spot, and I move between them in no particular order. When one stalls, I take a break from it and go to another project that is pulling at me.
What still surprises me is that the first one doesn't sit politely where I left it. It carries on, quietly or not so quietly, in the back of my mind, and the next step tends to arrive while my hands are busy working on something else. I've stopped treating that as luck.
Some of us worry about having too many things going at once. Perhaps this comes from picturing creative work as a staircase. One project, one clear step after another, and nothing else begun until the last step is done. My mind has never worked like that. It moves more like waves, or shifting sand. It gathers an idea, drifts off, and comes back from a different direction.
For a mind like that, making one project the only project carries a particular kind of pressure. And when that project stalls, as projects do, there is nowhere else to go. A stall can quietly turn into a stop. The thing that was meant to be your focus becomes the thing you're avoiding.
From the outside, my way of working can look like a lot of things started. Scattered is the word people reach for, about each other and, quietly, about themselves. From the inside it feels different. It feels like a lot of things waiting.
A stall can quietly turn into a stop.
Things waiting are not things abandoned. What separates them is whether anything about them is still pulling at my curiosity and attention. A project that pulls at me is one I move toward without being asked. A project I only feel vaguely obliged to return to is another matter, and it helps to know which of the two I'm looking at.
It helps that the projects are out where I can see them. When something starts to pull at me, I can follow it straight away, while it has my attention, without clearing a table or hunting for a file. What's in view gets picked up. What's put away can wait for years.
Things waiting are not things abandoned.
I've come to think there are two different things in play. There are the things that pull at me, which are a matter of curiosity, and there are the things I've committed to. Some of those commitments are to other people, a book, a workshop, a date in the calendar. Some are to myself. A project that began as a pull can become one of those, and when it does, curiosity isn't enough to carry it. It needs hours set aside on purpose, and at some point it needs finishing.
There's a catch. It's easy to keep starting new things and never go back to the old ones. Past a certain point, you aren't moving between projects. You're just surrounded by beginnings, and that's usually how overwhelm starts. When I notice it, I ask the same question of each thing in the studio. Do I want to finish this? Sometimes the answer is yes, and sometimes not yet. And sometimes, if I'm honest, the answer is no, and the kinder thing is to let it go.
I used to think a stalled project meant I needed to push harder. Now I think the better move is often to let it settle while I put my attention somewhere else.
A small invitation
Look at the projects currently in motion around you. Which one is pulling at you? Which one are you pushing yourself toward? And which one have you actually committed to finishing? You don't need to act on the answer yet. Just notice the difference.
Notes on Creative Identity is a weekly reflection on creative work, creative practice and what it takes to remain connected to the person inside the work.
Parish Stapleton
Creativity Coach, artist and writer