On our morning walk, we saw a bin of freshly cut arborvitae branches. My fam was due in for Thanksgiving in a couple of hours. I had no business starting a crafty project. But wow! “Wouldn’t they make an awesome wreath?!” M said nothing. I checked myself. “No, I don’t need to. I don’t have time. Don’t let me take those on our way back by.” M said nothing. But the whole walk I thought of nothing but the wreath and when we circled back to the bin, I announced, “I’m just taking a few.” Mark said, “I know.” I pulled out as many as I could carry, took them home, and, by the time the loved ones arrived, the festive item was hung on the door and all the mess swept up. (I added the awesome Trader Joe’s monster felt pinecones a few days later.)
So there, a happy little story of a successful creative project!
But it’s often not like this. I am a serial over-extender, interested in making EVERYTHING, but also over-invested, a total perfectionist with no concept of limitation in skills. I approach it all with the attitude “I can make that! How hard can it be?” (I tried to make a mattress once, for god’s sakes.) But then I get upset when my end product is not the flawless thing I imagined.
Not all projects go south, of course. But I’ve never really analyzed what separates the good ones from the bombs. And so I’ve been pondering why the wreath project worked. Why no lingering mess, no swearing, no tears? Why was my entire self worth and meaning of existence not tied up in this door decoration?
Could I be getting better at choosing and managing creative projects? Possibly, but there’s certainly more room for improvement. Therefore, to help myself (and maybe others), I’ve come up with a list of questions to ask before I begin to make my own cookie cutters or build a greenhouse. (Both things I’ve seriously considered.) And before you ask, yes, I did Google to see if anyone had come up with a checklist like this. They had, but I decided to do my own, because of course I did.
Questions to ask before you start making something. 1) Do you need this? If so, would it be better (cheaper, faster) to just buy a solution? Why do you have to make this? Be specific. And if you don’t need it, why do you want it? What will you do with it? And again, would it be better (cheaper, faster) to just buy it?
2) Have you ever done anything like this before? If so, how did it go? Did you enjoy the process? Were you satisfied with the results? If the answer to either of these last two questions is no, will this time really be different? How? Specifically. As in, really seriously, how is it going to be different? If you have never done anything at all like this before, what makes you think that this particular completely and utterly novel endeavor will not be the completely and utterly irritating and frustrating experience that novel endeavors are capable of being? Again, please be specific.
3) How great an investment in time and material costs do you estimate this project will take? Multiple that by three. Are you willing to invest that much time and money to achieve this goal? Are you willing to invest that time and money even with the possibility of not finishing the project? And if necessary, would you be able to recognize when the project is no longer worth your time and/or resources and stop working on it? And if you do that, will you be able to reframe it into something positive rather than a “waste” or a “failure?”
4) Are there other projects “in the hopper” that you would rather spend your time on? Why do you think you haven’t started those? Why does this one have more allure than those? Could you come back to this idea after finishing one of those? (In other words, after this one loses its shiny newness, will you really still want to do it?)
5) If you decide to begin this project, would it be worthwhile imposing a deadline or other limitations to either ensure it gets finished and/or to limit your frustrations? And finally, how can you lower expectations of perfection in the finished result? How can you have more fun with this?
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