Productivity Hacks for Illustrators - Intermediate Level
In my last post on productivity, I focused on beginner-friendly productivity hacks for illustrators and creators of all kinds. These were not necessarily for beginner artists, but for people who were beginners at trying to improve their creative output. Today, we are continuing our focus on improved productivity with some intermediate-level activities designed to take you to the next level in your creative practice, utilizing the therapeutic lens of DBT.
DBT stands for Dialectical Behavioural Therapy and is a type of cognitive behavioural therapy that explores how our emotions, thoughts, and behaviours all influence each other. In particular, DBT focuses on changing behaviours to improve emotional wellness.
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, either for physical or mental health, nor am I a counsellor or other trained mental health professional. My experience with DBT comes from reading and personal use. The use of DBT in this article is focused on creative output, with the idea that improving your creative practice will boost your overall wellness, and so DBT principles can help! But if you are looking for DBT principles to support any mental illness, address serious life problems, or cope with trauma, PLEASE seek out the support of a licensed counsellor who specializes in DBT. You can find practitioners in your area via the Psychology Today therapist directory.
The Four Choices in DBT
A key aspect of DBT is that there are four options in any situation. Yes, four. Always. Only four. They are:
Change our situation
Change our reaction to the situation
Accept our situation
Stay miserable (or make things worse)
The intention is to move us away from choosing option four and into the first three choices.
But isn’t option number 1 the “correct” answer if we want to improve our creative output?
Not necessarily! We will begin with attempting option number 1. We are not satisfied with our current creative output, so we are trying to change the situation. But there are many situations where options 2 and 3 might be necessary. For example, if you miss a day of your daily creative practice, you might have to accept the disappointing feelings it brings up. No need to beat yourself up over it - just accept something happened that wasn’t ideal, you feel bad, life goes on.
DBT Problem Solving
So we’ve admitted there is a problem - we are unhappy with our current level of creative output. Let’s use DBT skills to try to solve the problem by following these steps:
Observe the problem by paying attention to what is happening inside your body using your senses. How does it feel not to be creating? Don’t judge, observe.
After spending some time in non-judgmental observation, describe what you’ve observed with specific and factual statements. Don’t be hyperbolic and try to avoid assumptions or opinions. Notice in particular what are thoughts vs emotions vs senses vs behaviours.
Check the facts about the situation. We’re working on this, presuming there is a problem with your current level of creative output (i.e. you are not happy, you are disappointed, you feel built-up tension). Is that true? What are you afraid could happen (either by creating more or continuing to create at your current level)? What’s the worst that could happen? Is your emotion based on facts or thoughts or both?
Identify your goal and how you want reality to change. Be specific! If you’re at this stage, you know there is a problem and it’s causing certain thoughts, emotions, or behaviours you would like to have less of. Remember that when you set your goal.
Brainstorm as many possible solutions as you can. What are all the different ways you could incorporate more creation into your daily life? In what ways could you make existing creative time feel more impactful? Spend a good chunk of time on this step so you get past the obvious answers and into some unexpected ones!
Decide how to proceed using a balance of emotion-mind and reasonable-mind. Emotion-mind is impulsive and focused on passions, mood-dependent values, and urges. Reasonable-mind is focused on facts, logistics and goal-oriented solutions. Both are useful and work best in harmony and balance!
Take steps towards your goal using that balance of emotion-mind and reasonable-mind once more. To-do lists, timers, workspace organization, new supplies, and other productivity tools might be useful at this stage, but only if they move you towards your goal.
Evaluate. After giving your solution a fair try (a week or two at least!), reflect on it. Celebrate your victories, troubleshoot difficult spots. You can return right back to step one of this list if you want, once more observing how your new amount of creative practice feels in your body. Remember, this is a lifelong process! Treat it like an ongoing experiment and not a one-and-done fix for creative output.
This level of introspection is key to making a goal change stick, in my experience. When you can convince yourself on an emotional and mental level that you want to spend more time working on your creative activity, and you feel better when you spend that time, it becomes a much easier habit to maintain.
What do you think? Do you think you can incorporate some of the foundations of DBT in the way you think about your creative practice and goals?
