Five good things
From giving away free interior design advice to learning French in the bath.
If you’re a free subscriber, you can read most of this piece and listen to an extract of the voiceover below. If you regularly enjoy reading my writing, why not consider upgrading to a paid membership? You will be supporting my creative work and helping to convince me that I am following the right path. It is very much appreciated.
After a few weeks of a distinct lack of inspiration, I’ve begun to feel a gentle creative warmth creeping through me again and I’m happy to welcome it back. I’m certainly not back to the excitement of feeling like an ideas volcano that I experienced this time last year, but there’s a brightness and feeling of flow starting to return.
I wrote last Sunday about ways to recharge creativity, and I was very grateful for your input and suggestions on how you approach these fallow periods. The general consensus was that it’s best to try to switch off from it completely and go and focus on something else and that’s what I have been doing.
Here are five good things that have happened this week which have felt positive and lifted my creative spirits. They are mostly very simple, but have all helped to contribute to a better mindset.
Good thing #1: I baked a loaf of sourdough bread. The first in over a year.
We’ve had a sourdough starter on the go in the fridge for many years now and go through waves of baking bread regularly and then not at all . I’m a bit fussy about bread and dislike anything with ingredients much beyond flour, water and salt which means we often spend quite a lot of money on bread.
Last weekend I decided I was going to start baking again and set to work discarding the gloopy alcoholic layer that had settled in the sourdough jar which was hiding at the back of the fridge. It took just two days to revive it and transform it into a living, bubbling mixture which meant that on Monday evening I could mix up a loaf.
We tend to use a recipe by
from his excellent book ‘Sour’ which uses a simple method of combining the ingredients and then every 30 minutes giving them a knead and a turn. It’s ideal when you’re at home getting on with something else. I set the timer and tend to the bread each time the alarm goes off. After three hours, I shape it and put it in the banneton basket, cover and leave in the fridge overnight. First thing in the morning on Tuesday I took it out of the fridge and asked my husband to bake it (I had to dash off to a day of teaching). Mid-morning I received this photo from him. It put a smile on my face. I’d created that.
Good thing #2: Helping others
As I build my interior design business, I realise that one of the best ways to attract good clients is to build trust with them at arms length which may then lead to them wanting to hire me to work with them.
I tend to use Instagram for this purpose, but used to be wary of giving away ideas and help for free as I thought it would devalue my work. I’m realising that it’s actually the opposite that happens. I got the idea from a very established interior designer who regularly puts up an ‘ask me a question’ box on her Instagram, inviting her followers to share a design problem which she then gives some suggestions on how to approach it or solve it.
I’ve started doing a similar thing, posting a question box on Monday evenings and answering any questions that come in on Tuesday evening. I’ve done it so far for a couple of weeks and have had some interesting questions. As with so many of these things, it will take time for paid work to come from this but I hope that followers will gradually see some of these creative solutions and at some point may find themselves in a position to reach out and ask for paid help. Let’s see.
Regardless of that, I enjoy helping others and finding out about the kinds of challenges people are facing in their homes. It’s a bit like market research, I suppose.
Good thing #3: Closing the email tab
I’ve read so many articles and books which recommend doing this and yet I never seem to manage it myself. Until recently.
It’s impossible to properly focus when you have an email tab open on your computer or notifications on your phone. When I thought about it, I realised that I don’t need to look at my emails every few minutes, I should look at them only when I choose to.
wrote recently that she doesn’t check her emails before noon. I’m in awe of that, but I might see if I can work up to it. I think it might be good for my concentration and productivity in other areas. As a result of not having this tab constantly open this week, I’ve been able to get back into some work I’ve been putting off for a while. That is….Good thing #4: Re-finding my mojo to crack on with assignments
A course with no fixed deadlines sounds great at the start. How wonderful it will be to work at my own pace! I’ll be able to get it done in no time! Etc. etc. went the thoughts. The reality is that without any fixed deadlines, it’s really hard to prioritise the work and so it inevitably takes forever.
I’d been putting off one particular assignment because it required me to delve deep into some software I didn’t enjoy using. Last week when the creative writing juices were not flowing, I decided that enough was enough and this was the ideal opportunity to crack this challenge and dive in headfirst.
I did just that, with only the absolutely necessary tabs open on my computer and got on with it. I finished it at the weekend, submitted and on Tuesday received feedback and the news that I’d passed it with a merit. Hurrah.