Friends with Structure
“This is about structure,” the therapist said.
I’m sitting across from her because my husband found me sobbing into the carpet of my home office, again, some more. She’s sitting there because I’ve reached the point, now, where I need to pay people to listen to me.
“I thought this was about huge, huge amounts of anti-depressants.”
“No. For the first time in your life, you don’t have outside structure dictating your every move. And it is affecting your writing, and you are very angry.”
“Even though I hate structure.”
“Even though you hate structure.”
I sat for $7.28 worth of silence. Then: “Well, how do I fix it?”
“How do *you* think you need to fix it?”
This is why I have never seen her in the same outfit twice, and it is often a struggle for me to find clean shorts to climb into for the sessions.
How I wish this were a cheerful, ten-bullet list detailing how freelancers produce creative work in structured circumstances. But outside of “How to Build a Particle Accelerator For the Production of Synchrotron Radiation,” there’s perhaps no article I’m less equipped to write.
There are few lamer excuses for a squandered career than “Well, I’m creative. I’m made this way.” I cannot imagine how pissed off God would be if I stand before Him at the end with a blank sheet of paper but a really, really thorough knowledge of ‘80’s commercials on YouTube.
I never used to be like this. “What happened?” I asked a college friend. “You knew me when I was a student. I chaired four committees at once. I wrote for the newspaper. I dealt with a job and a boyfriend and sixteen credit hours. I got things done.”
“Of course you did,” she said. “And then you got a full-time job and cookware and then you got married.”
Well, yes, adulthood. It’s one thing to structure a life when the cooking is done at the dining hall, and one’s entire livable space is the size of a crayon box. But how many people successfully balance a writing life and a day job, a spouse, volunteer work, a household, children? Multiple children? What was so hard about looking at a day planner and checking off the little lined tasks in the little white boxes?
It’s not for a lack of inspiration, or caring, or even, in this era of gold-plated corn on the cob, absolute budget-based terror. I have projects and deadlines and segmented-out plans. Why, why, why, did I suddenly decide it was time for my daily workout and notice it was a quarter after ten at night and nothing was accomplished for the day but a self-proven truth that yep, Google really works as a search engine? Another day goes by, and at the end of each wasted hour, every single one of my German ancestors spin a few centimeters closer to the center of the Earth.
I recently watched an interview with David McCullough, the famous and prolific American historian, who announced that his best advice for writers was to knock out four pages a day. Four pages. A day. I leaned forward, wondering exactly how this came about, but then the host asked something about Teddy Roosevelt and that was that. Whatever McCullough had to say about Roosevelt, he said it first as part of a four-page chunk, the magnificently persistent bastard. How’d he do it?
He sat, I imagine, and he wrote. He let the car’s oil sit unchanged until it was time to change it. If he were struck with a reminder to return a phone call, he made careful note of it on the afternoon’s agenda and continued on with his work. Bills waited until a designated bill paying time, thus neatly avoiding interrupting the writing flow and avoiding frantic drives to the post office a minute and a half before closing time. What simple things to do. What simply impossible things to do.
“You,” said the therapist, “are going to make friends with structure, and on your own terms.”
Structure had better buy the drinks.
Mary Beth Ellis runs BlondeChampagne.com. Her first book, Drink to the Lasses, was released in 2006.
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so true, so very, very true.
Uncanny, Mary Beth. Thanks for this.
Very interesting article!
Beautifully written!
I’ve got ‘Structure is our friend’ coursing threw my brain right now!
Om Shanti Ms. Ellis
~Pat Ann~
Thank you for your honesty and bravery in this post. Sometimes it’s just so, so hard to do seemingly “easy” things. I look forward to sharing in your journey.
Best,
Michelle
Wow. What a great article. Thanks for opening up to us, MB.
This is *exactly* why I got my office. I found myself working from 8am until midnight every day and running myself (my life and my business) into the ground. Now I can separate home and business, and still ditch out at 3pm on Friday for drinks with my friends if I want.
Sometimes just a little restructuring – just one step – will set the tone for everything else to fall into place.
To have structure you also need discipline. It’s difficult not to pick up that phone or check the scores online while you’re working. For me, I have what I like to call a liquid structure. It adapts to the situation, and the level of focus varies based on the need. This way, I find it is easier to get “in the zone” rather than trying to force myself to get into it everytime.
The age of gold-plated corn on the cob? Around these parts (NY,USA), the train rides are third-world, the cost of living is out of control and the jobs are sparse: freelancers toil at first than struggle at every step thereafter well into what you would define as success. Structure and discipline is not something “you learn” or “discover”, how utterly self-involved and spoiled of you to imply that. There are antecedents to the question of work ethnic and responsibility. Results and ironically, the cure-all for depression, will only come if you are (a) responsible (ie, take responsibility for your lack of disciple, that’s a start). (b)Discipline (ie, realize that a sense of ownership of your condition will trigger action steps on projects). One precedes the other. You can’t have discipline without responsibility. Sitting in a therapists office, talking to your friends about how awesome you were in college; these are symptoms of a rather distressed individual hanging on to their ego or current lack of accompanying ego to the nostalgic one. Tell your therapist I said that and see what she says. We do that alot in the US, I’m guilty as well. I’ll agree with you on that but I’ll add that I was there years ago and it’s a natural progression for a free-agent. You get beyond it than you come back to it, like a cycle. It might last a year or two, even be exaggerated by seasonal affective disorder but as soon as you take responsibility for your condition, it goes away. If anyone would like to further their study on this style of direct harnessing of hi’s and low’s read “Comfortable with Uncertainty:108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion” by Pema Chodron. And please, Steven King writes 4000 words a day, the writer of Twilight wrote her book in 2 months and now its a sensation (she has 4 kids too), the list goes on. If you have bi-polar or other things going on in your life, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater and say its a structure issue. You might really just have issues you need to deal with first.
For those of us with creative ADD (and my father and I fall into this category), structure is a godsend. The trick is to use your creativity to build a structure that works for you and doesn’t drive the other people in your life nuts. It can be done. I did it, and I’m now teaching my dad some of my structure tricks.
Wow, very well written.
I’ve been a project manager for a couple of years and I’ve always found it easier to create a structure for others than for myself
Now that I’m freelancing I have to create structures mostly for myself and I can see that the same rule worked then and works now: it’s the thrill that drives me.
Of course I use Covey’s first things first rule and of course I plan but I do it in an agile way: I set up a roadmap of tasks and then I use the thrill driver. It works like this:
Today designing gives me a thrill (“Oh I feel a designer today”). Next day programing gives me a thrill (“Oh lets build something”). Another day selling gives me a thrill (“Come on, let’s show the world I can design things”). I try to use my skills accordingly to what gives me a thrill on a particular day. Works most of the time for me
I strugle from this on a daily basis. Since i have introduced more structure in my life it has helped. Basic things like lists, daily todos, and scheduling times to do everything, errands, work, eating, relaxation time are all important. Make the schedule, then abide by is as tightly or loosely as you want.
The part i have trouble with is getting behind and letting it pile up. Not getting overwhelmed is a tuff one.
Great article. Is that a set up for a followup?
As someone with a *deep breath* 9-5 40+ hour a week job, 20+ hour a week freelancing career, 10 credit hours trying to finish my degree, a family including a baby, a dog, a house to clean up and cook for, bills to pay… the list goes on and on… I can completely sympathize with you. It’s all a little much and friends who come by and give me crap for being on the computer don’t understand. I look forward to more of these.
I’m glad you mentioned structure, as I’m learning more about that everyday. Hell, being a freelancer IS a struggle and if you don’t have discipline you will crash and burn, professionally and personally. I’ve only discovered this recently. I’m a freelance flash animator and my jobs earlier this year were all on site. Most employers demand this, so they can keep an eye on us scattered creative types. But since the economic fiasco, a lot of my big clients dropped and I’m working from home for small, home-grown creative businesses. I have more responsibility now, and can’t rely on a boss right down the hall, or even concrete deadlines which I love for the structure they provide around creative projects.
Loss of structure made me step up to the plate and take more responsibility in my career. Before working on site was really no more “free” than working full time at an office. Now I’m starting to realize that I really can be my own boss.
This article is so very true. Not only do I run a professional website design business, I run a few smaller niche web design companies, I go back and forth between my house and my girlfriend’s apartment (who’s also a freelancer so we always end up working 10 hours a day) an hour and a half away, I spend most of my time on the phone selling so I’ve had to get freelance project managers, designers, and developers on my team. It seems like there’s never enough time to complete everything and sometimes the lure of that structured 9-5 cushy job sounds good.
I freelance part-time and have been working 9-5 jobs for the last 10 years so I already have structure drummed into my brain. I’m also very jealous of my personal time which definitely helps me keep my freelance work on-track – I know that an hour I spend messing about online is an hour I have to put in at the end of the day when I’d rather be playing Fable
I just use two things that really help me maintain structure, both at work and in my freelance work – I set time limits on everything, and I keep lists. Time limits force me to focus on the essential and totally rule-out work-related-procrastination, I love them.
It seems like there’s never enough time to complete everything and sometimes the lure of that structured 9-5 cushy job sounds good.
I wish that were true
! Unfortunately my experience of 9-5 jobs is not only is there never enough time to finish everything, but often if you’re working for some crappy employer you are expected to stay back and work extra hours (for free – of course) to try and keep up with *their* time-lines.
I’d much rather set my own time-lines, give myself 40 hours to get a small project out the door and set my own tasks and limits to make it happen. I think working for yourself is one of the best ways to safeguard your own free time and sanity but you have to *make* it happen, just as you have to make it happen in 9-5 jobs; the bonus is with freelance work you don’t have to put up with crap from anyone but yourself if you choose not to work overtime.
No writer should fear structure. Structure is your friend.
Interesting. I wrote “structure is your friend” before I saw Ms. Lewis-MacDougall’s comment. Where would Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven have been without it? And don’t say simply, “they were geniuses.” Part of their brilliance was their insight into structure.
Sometimes we need to ‘look from the outside’ to sort things out.. What is more important to us and what is less.. Which task should come first and which one is not. Being a freelancer should mean ‘The one who controls their own time’. Not the other way round. The more important of a person to us means the more they own our time. Everybody has their own decisions to make.. No regrets afterward..
Great insightful article.
As I read somewhere else: “If you aren’t chronically well-organized, punctual, and dependable, rest assured you’re competing with someone who is”
Interesting article!
Ever read The Pilgrim’s Regress (http://tinyurl.com/5m64tp)? Verture always does his 30 miles per day, my friend.
Thank you Mary Beth for being honest and putting yourself out on the table like that for us to devour.
Structure is extremely important, absolutely. More important than structure alone (particularly when feeling depressed) is to look at WHAT is in your structure. Who is in your life? How do they treat you? Do you go out? See friends? Exercise? Eat healthy? Accomplish things that bring you joy? Do you have life challenges to invigorate you? It sounds like there is a lot more to think about than simply making a good schedule for yourself. I will elaborate on this topic soon.
P.S. That image is fantastic!
A very well written article – I’m not a commenter generally, so hurrah for writing something that inspired me to spend a few minutes congratulating you on your good work!
I’ve been climbing this very mountain for the last year or so. I’m a freelance photographer building up a fledgling family portrait business, mother of a 15 month old and 6 months pregnant with #2. Its been a crash course rollercoaster ride into ‘adulthood’ for me too!
I think when it comes to structure I need to set it up as a challenge. Almost that childhood, “I bet you can’t…” mentality, except I’m betting against myself and the challenge is having 6 productive hours a day that are really focused…then I bet “you” can’t do that for 2 days in a row…then 3, then a week..then 8hrs a day if need be. As much as I hate wasting time, I know I wouldn’t if I embraced structure a bit more – structure accompanied by a roadmap throughout the day so I don’t get as easily off track.
I used to work at Structure for extra cash in the holiday season. Structure turned to Express… weird.
Very entertaining and useful article (I’m Stumbling it right after I finish this comment). It’s refreshing to get some useful insight tucked inside a creative and engaging piece – except now I’m wondering if I need my own therapist
Weird. I was just talking about this same topic with my fellow independent consultant sister.
Very well written and so true.
I’m going to start today!
Very interesting !!!