How to prioritize the work that really matters to you

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

When someone gives me a writing assignment with a clearly defined topic and goal, I’m off like a rocket. I’ll quickly dive into research, form an opinion, come up with an angle, and bang out a draft in less time than it takes you to reheat a freezer-burnt tuna casserole.

If someone gives me a bundle of these types of assignments or a list of topics to write about? I’m like Neo from the Matrix, but instead of slapping around computer-simulated baddies, I’m slapping words onto the page. I can write about pretty much anything… that’s what over a decade of studying and exchanging words for cash gets you.

But if I assign myself an idea? And give myself a list of things to write about? I doubt every thought, every decision, every syllable — and struggle to get anything finished.

Given an assignment and a clear directive, I thrive. Without one, I’m likely to lay down on the floor and crumple myself into the fetal position, filled with existential despair.

Professionally, as a freelance writer, I have been incredibly prolific for the clients I work for. But on a personal, fulfill my own dreams by pursuing creative work kind of a level — I’ve experienced a major failure to launch.

When I look back, I can see that this problem has haunted me my entire writing career. It’s like there’s a switch inside my brain that’s firmly pinned in the “off” position when it comes to working on my own projects. To prioritizing them and attacking them with the same verve and vigour that I do my “real work.”

And this past year and a half, after living through months and months of pandemic isolation with nothing better to do than engage in some serious navel-gazing, I wanted to get to the bottom of why this is.

So in my efforts to try and figure out what the hell is wrong with me, I’ve come up with a few theories that have helped me finally get my shit together (it’s a work in progress, brah, don’t judge) and that may help you if you’re stuck with the same type of inertia.

Read on, fellow creator, read on.

It’s money.

Paid work comes first. For obvious reasons. Mama got bills to pay. This means that the non-paid work is less of a priority.

It’s fear.

Working on something that you actually care about is so much scarier than working on something that you’re merely getting paid to care about.

And that’s not to say that I don’t care about the work I do for others, obviously, I do, but not on the same level.

Not nearly.

It’s the difference between the level of concern you feel for your own children versus the concern you feel for the characters on their favourite show. Elmo can put a sock in it already.

This type of fear is a trap that leaves you aiming for perfection and getting nowhere. Because the problem is that you’re waiting for some sign of “doneness” to appear to you like you’re cooking a steak. But when it comes to creativity, there is no “done.” An often misattributed quote puts it best:

In the eyes of those who anxiously seek perfection, a work is never truly completed — a word that for them has no sense — but abandoned; and this abandonment, of the book to the fire or to the public, whether due to weariness or to a need to deliver it for publication, is a sort of accident, comparable to the letting-go of an idea that has become so tiring or annoying that one has lost all interest in it. -Paul Valery, 1933.

The abandonment is a necessary part of the process, but it’s a hard step to get to if you are holding on to any type of fear. Although I do like the idea of sorting my work by degree of annoyance…#2022publishingplans.

It’s analysis paralysis.

Where to begin? Which project to work on? I feel so untethered and free. I can do anything I want!

Only, you can’t really do “anything” because “anything” is almost as big and scary as “everything,” and that amount of possibility is enough to freeze you in your tracks. I’m trying to think of possibilities more in terms of I can do “something,” and doing “something” is much better than doing “nothing,” which is kind of a synonym for “everything” when it comes to these sorts of things.

You can’t hack it

And by that, I don’t mean that you should stop reading right now and lay down on the floor in the aforementioned fetal position, I mean, quite literally, there is no “hack.”

I’ve spent the past five years or so obsessively following articles about productivity hacks, morning routines, and “flow” (a word that makes me think immediately of mensuration and also kinda sorta makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little bit. Just me? We all have our triggers.).

I’ve read all the usual reasons people give when promoting their supposedly mind-blowing “hacks,” and the benefits of having a morning routine and all that.

And honestly?

I’m just over it.

This might set off a hate-nado in the comments… but the thing about this type of advice is that it’s mostly a bunch of crap.

And, overwhelmingly, it’s crap that always seems to be served up by a bunch of single, childless, men.

And when they’re not single and childless? It’s even worse. Because if you peek through the lines of their routine, you can see the blurry outline of a completely exhausted and depleted woman in the background, shouldering all the creativity-stifling “annoyances” of child-rearing all by herself while trying to juggle the conflicting demands of her own schedule, her own career, and her own dreams.

And this irks me because I am that woman. And a lot of my friends are that woman. So I can tell you from personal experience that there’s no way around the work that needs to be done. And getting up at 4:30 am isn’t suddenly going to transform you into a productivity unicorn. You’ll probably just turn into a sleep-deprived monster that no one wants to be around.

Hard pass.

What I’ve found is that productivity isn’t the issue. I know how to be productive. I’m productive all the damn time because my livelihood depends on it. And even more so when I don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn.

The real issue is that we’ve all become a bit too precious about the whole idea of our “routines.” Unless you live completely alone with no job to go to, no kids to take care of, no spouse, no pets, and no outside disturbances, you’re probably not going to be able to establish a routine that isn’t as fragile as a Saltine on a staircase. Or experience “flow” very often.

Especially if you’re a mother.

Did you know that one study found that “the average mum faces a testing 12.5 hour day of questioning — working out at one question every two minutes 36 seconds.” And that’s just for one kid.

Every. two. minutes. and. 36. seconds.

2 minutes. 36 seconds.

But hey, that’s life with kids. So, things are tough enough for moms out there without them having to feel bad for not being able to enter into a magical state of creativity just because they aren’t working from the same place of time privilege that others enjoy.

So I say toss all that and focus on being adaptable instead.

You’ve got roughly two and a half minutes to bang something out before you’re interrupted again… go!

This simple shift in mindset has helped me immensely over the past few months. I no longer worry that I’m wearing the same outfit I’ve been wearing for the past sixteen and a half weeks. Or that I haven’t put in a solid hour of uninterrupted writing.

My aim… is not to measure, but to produce.

Words on the page?

That’s a win. And it’s an achievable win that gives me the motivation to keep going and get more done, two-and-a-half-minute increments at a time.

TLDR: Don’t panic. Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing. Every little bit helps, you’ll build momentum as you go.