B is for blocks

What is it about the blank page, the empty workbench that brings up so many blocks? Here I am, with a free afternoon to get ahead on some posts and a blank page, and my mind goes blank as well. Saturday, when I finished cleaning up my studio and had some time to play, same thing. No clue what to start working on, how to start to create something out of all that void.

(Aren’t these awesome?
They’re from my dear friend Alex’s Etsy vintage shop.
She has some cool stuff — check it out.)

This is why I like these loosely structured challenges: There’s enough structure here to lead to a start, but enough leeway that it doesn’t feel like a chore. That lovely letter B up there is a mark on the page, taking it from blank (another B word!) to started, a nudge along the road to filling it out, adding to it, weaving it into something. (Maybe not something great, or even useful, but something nonetheless.)

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Freedom within structure is the way I arrange my time. I’m self-employed and loving it, primarily for that reason. I have never been very happy within rigid structures, having to certain places at certain times day after day after day. The illogic of having to sit at a desk from eight in the morning until five (or six, or seven, or eight) in the evening, whether or not your work for the day was done, of rewarding the efficient with more work (but no more salary), never made any damn sense to me at all. [Omit long rant about the stupidities of corporate culture. Not that there’s anything wrong with you if you enjoy that sort of thing; I just don’t.]

I start each day, week, and month with a quick review of the things that need to be done, and then, based on what’s on the calendar, how I’m feeling, and what the weather is like, I make a plan. For example, last Thursday, my to-do list looked like this:

• project A: edit chapter 7
• project A: edit chapter 8
• project A: edit chapter 9
• project B: final correx
• pick up library reserve
• bank deposit
• pick up purchase from antique store
• write intro post for A–Z challenge

That’s a normal list for a Thursday. Here’s how the daily processing went in my head:

Okay, the antique store trip is time-dependent, since Cousin Jim is going to bring his truck to help me this afternoon, so that goes in the afternoon at 3 p.m. or so. 

I can knock out the final correx on project B pretty quickly and that project is due tomorrow, so I’ll get those out of the way first, then write the blog post. I don’t want to get behind on the challenge before I’ve even started, and it won’t take long.

After that, I’ll go to the library and the bank, then come home and work on the project A chapters for a while. 

The weather looks to be pretty nice today, and since those stupid early season weeds in the herb garden have been bugging me, when I need a break from editing, I’ll take twenty minutes to go outside and pull those. 

Then back inside to work on more project A chapters until Jim gets here. 

We’ll pick up the cabinet, which should take about an hour. If I have enough done on project A and he has the time, I’ll take him out for an ice cream or a beer (another bonus of self-employment — the boss doesn’t care if you take an ice cream or [small] wine break in the late afternoon). If not, we’ll raincheck it. 

Project A isn’t due until the end of next week, and I’m ahead of where I need to be on that project anyway, so when I get back home, I can fiddle with setting up my new cabinet or just relax until it’s time to start dinner. Or, if I feel like it, I can get even further ahead on project A. Or, do something else entirely. 

That’s pretty close to how it went down, except that I elected to deposit the check into the bank that has the electronic deposit option (love that!) and was in the zone with writing/editing after my blog post, so I plowed right into project A and put off the library until after the antique store outing. (We ended up rainchecking the thank-you.)

See? Flexibility within structure.

How do you structure your days?
Do you like all of your work days to have the same structure?
Or do you go with the flow day to day?