The Day's Journal

Finding beauty in the everyday pieces of life

design proposals

Feeding Creativity

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Feeding Creativity | The Day's Design | Hetler Photography

Photo: Hetler Photography

I was up at 3:30 this morning feeding Willa June. I don’t usually have many profound thoughts in this half sleeping, middle of the night state of mind. However, last night I began thinking about food. My life has been surrounded by it lately. In the eight hours while my husband escapes to work, I feed Willa June approximately 4 times. On top of that, Gretta gets breakfast, lunch and a snack. Basically this means that I’ve prepared 7 meals before the 5:00 rolls around and I haven’t even eaten yet. But I am surrounded by food.

I was thinking how this relates to my work. Right now I’m in the preparation stages. I have passed along so many floral and design proposals, brainstormed ideas and am so excited for all of this summer’s weddings to take place. I am surrounded by ideas and inspiration. I’m really really busy working with brides who are hungry for ideas. However, all of these ideas are on paper still. They’re just in the prepartion stages and have not been brought to life. I haven’t fed my creative side, I’m just planned a menu.

Without this extra fuel, our minds and imaginations become stagnant. Our creative juices cannot flow and our tank is running on empty. Its something that people outside of this industry just can’t seem to understand – why do you waste your money on workshops or photoshoots? You’ve got a dynamite portfolio and people know what you can do. Your talent speaks for itself. The answer is, sometimes I need to take time out for myself. Sometimes, I need to eat.

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Organized Chaos

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Today my desk is filled with a miss matched jumble of design proposals, flower orders, coffee cups and parties all over my mind!  Frankly, today is a struggle keeping it all straight.  Ever wonder what it’s like being inside my mind?  Just imagine 2,8xx Internet browsers tabs open all at the same time – only in paper form, scattered across my desk! (I’m sure you’ve heard that quote before, but there’s so much true behind it!!)

The real problem is, I have deadlines approaching for proposals, which I’m super excited about, but more presently on my mind is yesterday, when I had this amazing site visit at a barn venue that I just can’t stop thinking about. And then on top of that, this morning brought a chat with another venue for a project that’s going to be equally amazing.  So I have random thoughts and ideas that I need to chase and then scribble down on the nearest pieces of paper possible (before I lose it), but then I tell myself to go back to my focus.  And then I’m distracted with another thought – it’s a viscous, never ending cycle!

I tell myself that I live in organized chaos, or maybe it’s disorganized, who can even tell anymore?!  But this is how I know I need to focus on the design portion of my job – because even though it may seem hectic, it also makes me feel alive.  I am giddy when I get to work on design sketches and floral orders.  And then making it all come together, well that’s like one big puzzle and I’ve always loved the challenge of an organizational puzzle!

Shelby lynn | Wedding Planner - The Day's Design | Bradley James Photograhy

Picture by Bradley James Photography

How to face this battle:

Focus (as much as humanly & creatively possible) on one project at a time.  Clear your desk of all other distractions and notes.  And when you finish with that one project, you then have my permission to move onto the next, and so on and so forth.  There’s a great sense of accomplishment by scratching a finished piece off of your to-do list.  So simply prioritize and move your way down the list.  Sounds super easy, right?

Okay… I just had to pop in and give myself a little pep talk, now I’m back to work and going to try taking my own advice!!!