Juggling 12 projects
issue #63 how to not give up
Hi! I’m Hannah/haruh and this newsletter is for those craving art talks, daily life philosophers, and the bored. Every two weeks (kind of not really).
✦ art
Too many ideas
The title is a lie, I’m obviously not doing 12 projects at the same time. But the existence of those projects is not a lie, neither my intention to work on every single one of them. The key to my system is that all those projects are already set-up.
Over the past years I learned to recognize my creative cycles a bit better. I have moments where I am focused enough to keep momentum on a single project and push through the production of it, even the excruciatingly boring parts. And then I have moments where my brain craves to create something new, from scratch, which is, to me, the most exciting part of a project. In this phase I can set-up the bones of a project in one or two weeks.
Now, usually you might think “classic start-project and never-finish” pattern, but that’s not the case, and it took me a while to identify that. My excitement for those projects doesn’t die after having the idea and writing down first notes about it, I don’t feel like giving up on them, but I can’t enter the long and hard production phase for all of them at the same time either. This led me to creating a “mental cue” - there is a line for which project will be done when. This line stays for months and years, and it carries the excitement for the project with it. How does that look like in reality?
I have a Notion page with all the sub-pages for those projects, and those sub-pages are labeled with “not started”, “on hold”, and “going on”. Inside those pages is everything I need for each project and usually one main to-do list and general notes. Every time I have a random thought or insight about one of the projects, I immediately write it in the project page, even if the project might only be worked on in 1 or 2 years. Documenting everything is the key factor for this system of keeping everything active in the background.
Does that actually mean I will finish all of those 12 projects? Maybe not, but if I do end up giving up on something, it will be because of a natural change of direction I decided to take over time, and not because of boredom after 2 weeks.
So, how much am I actually juggling at the same time? Currently, 3, and soon one will be completed and the next project in line will be continued. One of the biggest struggles with juggling multiple projects is honestly just deciding which one should be a priority first. Each project has an intention behind it: either personal expression, or money, or something to help others (educational). I can shift around the priority of each depending on which intention is more important to me right now, and what I have time and energy for. Sadly, all of this happens aside from actual freelance work, so I have much less time and energy than I wished. Part of the projects with the “money” intention are to lessen my need for freelance work, so the other projects have more time to be worked on.
I’m not gonna lie, sometimes I ask myself if I am after all the project-starter-not-finisher and I get insecure about it all. But in those moments I take a look at each project page, think them through, and reach the conclusion that I still want to do this thing in my life and that I am okay with it taking years. That is probably the hardest part - accepting that it might take years.
I feel like nowadays we are used to seeing everyone work on cool stuff, many posting their final results and then we feel like we need to be putting out something too, right now. I always think of this one guy who is creating 3D animated movies alone and feel insecure about my timeline. But then, I also remember that Miyazaki only made Nausicaa (which created Ghibli) in his 40s.
In the end, what matters to me is my confidence in the projects I started and in myself to stick to my plans and intuition. The confidence in my own project is what deeply motivates me to not give it up. The more I personally like the idea, and think it really should exist out the in the world, the easier it is to stay motivated.
If you want to read about the beginnings of my recently-completed comic, check out this issue!
✦ Watching
Fallout s2, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Frieren, Detective Conan
✦ Reading
The Value of Everything
Have a magical week and happy new year!
