How to 'Create Time' for Creative Practice as a Parent
3 steps + a mantra to get creating now that hibernation season is over
There is a very accurate meme circulated throughout the year, particularly during shoulder months, about how New York City has twelve seasons. Last week it hit the almost-80s. The city collectively opened her windows, we all ate outside, parks were packed with people, tulips, and azaleas—all primo signs of “The Pollening.” As early as next week, the temps will be in the high 50s in the morning with no sign of dipping back into the 30s—“Actual Spring.”
Recently, my friend Kara wrote in her newsletter
that March 1 should be considered another New Year. She wrote: it feels slightly more urgent.How can we take inspiration from this season of rebirth to ringfence time for our creative endeavors and pull our practice out of hibernation? Especially if like me, you have some of the under 48” crowd pulling on your shorts—helmet out, ready for packed snacks and a day in the sun?
I strongly believe the annoying truth is, we have time. We find the time for what we truly want. Hear me out. Maybe you’ve created a budget and stuck to it, cutting back on some things you love, to afford something you wanted more than the things you cut (a family trip, a class, whatever it may be). Time is exactly the same.
What I find to be annoying about this fact is it puts us completely in charge. It makes us examine what we actually want and value vs. what we say we do. Are you shifting around while reading this right now? It makes me uncomfortable, too.
These are the tangible steps I take to shake off the cobwebs and get doing.
Warning: they aren’t sexy.
1— AUDIT. What are you spending your time on? Keep a log for a week. Write down how you feel.
Before you can create a time budget, you must see where your time is going, much like you’d have to take stock of your spending to set a financial goal. During a typical week, jot down exactly how you spend your time. I like to use an online calendar for this to color-code, but you don’t need to be that type A—a pen works fine. Here is an example of mine:
5-7am WORK
7-8:30am KIDS
830-3/3:30 WORK
3/3:30-7:30 KIDS
7:30p-10p constantly changing, track how I feel when this time is “wasted” or goes awry
10p bed, if I go to bed too late I am so cranky and bothered first thing in the morning
2—PLAN. What can you move? How to successfully plan your week:
Keeping track of this for a week, I noticed sometimes in the 7:30 pm slot I am too tired to create and I scroll on Instagram for an hour (usually more towards the middle-end of the week). Sometimes I want to watch TV with my husband by 8:30 so I can still go to bed at a reasonable hour. Sometimes I end up going to bed at 11:30 if I do too much in the evening, and then at 4:45am I feel like a kid being told it is time to leave a birthday party. I also need to work out and not be sedentary all day. GAH.
So then I started to see, OK, what can I move that seems immovable? If you are trying to get healthier, you might start meal planning very consciously. This is the time version of that.
In practice, for me, this means:
Mornings when I don’t have a meeting, I might run/cycle first thing, and start my work day a little later. Other mornings I create first thing, work till a little later, and my oldest stays in aftercare a bit longer. Sometimes my husband does bedtime and after-dinner routines, and I write from 6:30-9 pm. Sometimes he takes the kids to school and does the morning shift so I can work straight through, end my day earlier, and write in the afternoon. On those days, I work out at night after bedtime, which still gives us time to hang out as adults and go to bed at a reasonable hour. The later in the week it gets, the less chance I want to write at night. I rather run at night, which doesn’t take any mind work, and once I actually start moving, relaxes me. I usually work out every M, W, F and often Saturday. On Sunday, I am only with my family and I do not run or write. If we are doing an all-day weekend activity, I try to make it on a Sunday. This loose schedule also informs my boundaries, and what I say yes and no to. For now, this is the routine that works for me.
TLDR: no day looks the same but based on how I feel I was able to identify patterns and create some kind of schedule. What is the same every day is communication with my partner, and time blocking the day ahead as much as possible. If you are trying to get healthy and don’t plan your meals out, you will reach for whatever food is nearby when you are starving and (if you are like me) that’s probably something packaged and Cheeze-Its. If you plan your meals and snacks, you’ll have far less temptation of Cheeze-Its because you will be satisfied and prepared. Your time is no different, especially as a caregiver.
3—GET OVER GUILT
As I said, it kind of sucks to admit this because it means you are in charge. Your partner can’t fix this for you. No one is going to knock on your door and ask where the painting is you’d said you’d make, or ask for a new poem. Yes, you can find an accountability buddy and make friends in your field—yes to all of that! But to start, you need to move the needle yourself. The best way I have found to get over the guilt hump—what I perceive as wasted time or “I shoulda been” etc— is to repeat this mantra:
Action Absorbs Anxiety.
If I feel inertia, like I can’t stop scrolling or I am in a worry hole, I do something. I carry a book with me so if end up stuck in the car with a napping kid, I have the option to read. Am I in my head about a poem I have to send to my mentor, so I just keep avoiding the editing? Moving my writing time from one calendar slot to the next? I set a timer for fiteen minutes. I remember that no one is asking me for this poem, and I only have so many quiet hours so if I want to write like I say I do then there is no writer’s block, there is this hour I have blocked off right now and now is when I will do it. With the timer set, I start writing proper crap. But before the timer goes off, the action absorbed the anxiety and the simple act of doing has me moving toward progress. An object in motion, and all of that.
In a workshop recently, the incredible and generous Ellen Bass reminded us (I am paraphrasing) we have so much in life that isn’t parenting. So much more than kids takes up our time. Isn’t that the truth. We are citizens of this world so sometimes you aren’t creating and you are out living life, being a friend, being an aunt. Sometimes you are stuck working because you need money to live this life. But I promise if you audit your time, you can come up with a plan for how to fit in your creativity. And that action will absorb your anxiety about your creativity. And you will create something that didn’t exist before you made it. And it will live in this world.
Damn, this really hit where it hurt (in a good way?). Thanks for the vulnerability and concrete ideas
"Action absorbs anxiety" is one of the wisest things I've ever heard! I love seeing what your week actually looks like, too, including the shifts from day to day. Inspiring!!