Organised chaos

Day 9: This morning I'm so excited.  I finally managed to create some time to go through the 7-figure speakers system training program, which I recently purchased and was beginning to think perhaps I made a rash decision, and wow it's brilliant!  I'm going to sound like an affiliate now but I assure you, at the moment I'm not; it's a fantastically comprehensive programme and it offers me such clarity.  I'm really looking forward to actually doing is this program.

One thing I've discovered about myself recently is that I straddle a line between organisation and chaos!  I am methodical and organised and I love systems because I am my most productive when I'm fully systemised.  However, I am my most creative when I am in chaos and I go with the flow.  My creativity Muse resents being boxed in by structure.

Being a planner and a project manager, I have been operating almost exclusively in organisation mode for the last 20+ years.  And I really felt my creativity had suffered.  I can remember a time (before I went to university and learnt the fundamental rules of planning: identify all possible courses of action and all possible consequences) when I'd spend hours painting and writing poetry and stories and making things out of junk (a legacy from my Blue Peter and Play School watching days).  By the time I had spent years as a public sector worker (dutifully following every rule and regulation) and added Prince2 project management to my already systematic way of thinking, my creativity had become nothing but a fleeting illusion to be pursued only through the odd requests from my son to "make me a… (whatever the latest thing that he now wanted to possess was and I'd refuse to buy for him)".  And even that had ceased as he had grown older and acquired the capacity to make the things himself.

So naturally when I found myself without the structure of an organisation – a.k.a. taking the entrepreneurial step into self-employment, my craving for a chaotic creativity environment let rip.  I was like a heroin addict falling off the wagon.  Having been denied the absolute freedom to think and express my creativity for so long, I dived headfirst into a pool of unstructured freedom and swam and splashed around like a newbie on the first day of their package holiday in the sun.  Every so often I’d lie on my back in my pool of chaos, lapping up the sun and coming up with image after image of new innovative ways of doing and thinking about things.

Unfortunately, for me, I am at my least productive in this state!  Ideas happen so fast that I end up constantly chasing one brilliant idea after another and, eventually get overwhelmed.  But like the junkie, I was reluctant to give up on the amazing buzz/kick that I was getting from my chaos.

After 12 months of doing this, I was beginning to realise that my freedom to be creative was starting to spread its chaos to the rest of my life.  My business was full of ideas and no money and I began to actually crave the structure I had rejected a year ago.  Like everything in life what I needed was balance, a way of moving effectively between the two In order to give my ideas the opportunity to become more than just thoughts.  Somebody once told me, ideas without actions are fruitless and I've just spent 12 months proving them right.

I think I'm definitely back on track now.  Over the last week I have committed to writing a blog a day, written out and committed to my definite chief aim/ passion purpose and now I have commenced action on my 7-figure speaker system training program.

Just to make sure I don't fall off the wagon again, I'm now building into my structure regular periods of chaos for my creativity.

When are you most productive?  How do you give time to your creative energy?  Please do share your thoughts and opinions.

image: Chaos Sphere by Danilo Rizzuti