Why September is My January
And why I focus on process over goals
Gettings Earthlings!
I’m excited to be back!
You already know that I look at the world a bit differently than most people. One unique thing about the way I approach business and creativity is that I don’t set New Year’s resolutions.
Maybe it’s because I went to school for so long (13 years of public school, 4ish years of college, and 3 more years of law school), or maybe it’s because I have four kids still in school, but September has always felt more like a time for fresh starts than January.
Each August around my birthday, I go off on a day-long solo adventure where I empty my mind and fill my senses. I’ll be sharing more about this year’s trek later this month.
I then spend most of another day examing my life and business.
I don’t set specific goals anymore for any aspect of my life. I do set what I call waypoints. These are general notions of the direction I want to head towards. Then I get extremely detailed about formulating processes to get me towards my waypoints.
A process is something I can control. I can evaluate how well a process fits into my workflow and how close it gets me to my desired waypoint.
One of my waypoints is to publish more frequently. I’ve refined my writing and collage art processes to ensure that I finish projects and ship them before I start something else.
Focusing on processes instead of goals gives me greater flexibility and keeps me from being discouraged when I fail to reach something. I also like the idea of tweaking processes as I go. This feels more natural to me than the binary of succeeding or failing at reaching a goal.
One big change for me this year is that I’m moving all of my copywriting marketing efforts under my Weirdo Poetry brand alongside my poetry, fiction, and comics. This allows me to save time and eliminate a lot of duplicative work tending to multiple websites and online accounts. For the past 10 years, I’ve been keeping these two sides of me separate online. I’m excited and relieved to be bringing them together.
Most importantly, this allows me to more fully be my weird authentic self. I love a clever headline as much as I do a brilliant twist ending.
This won’t change how I show up here. I’m still going to be writing about the creativity of business and the business of creativity.
Creative Challenge:
What is your most important creative process? Think about the last time you revised your process. What can you do to make sure that your creative process is serving you in all the ways that you need?
I’d love to hear from you about how you go about your creative life.
Cheers,
Jason
P.S.
A few weeks ago, E.R. Flynn (who publishes a must-read comic Substack) suggested I make a t-shirt out of one of my comics. I finally did just that. I also put a different comic on a shirt and made both comics available as stickers.
These are currently available on Redbubble. Here are the links if you’re interested:
What Justin said...
The waypoints are definitely it for me. I’ve even stopped getting too detailed about process this year. Simply letting creativity lead me wherever it feels like.
Good to have you back, Jason, and get some insight into your end of summer soul search!
I love the idea of waypoints opposed to “goals” because firm deadlines with projects (especially creative ones) can lead to unnecessary burnout and stress. I’m going to adopt this immediately. Thanks for this, Jason!
The most important part of my creative process is taking care of my body and mind. The best way for me to relieve stress is to exercise and get outside. Once I start feeling anxious, or sad, or without hope, it affects my creativity. That’s when my writing droughts happen. I chase those demons out of my system by running or biking - by something active. Anything. Then my mind is in a better state and I’m able to get creative again.