How Artist Megan Auman Finds Inspiration and Keeps Creating
Megan mentions that she’s not super productive in the afternoon, so instead of freaking out ( which she sort of did at first), show now goes for a walk, or takes a nap. The main idea is that it’s important to understand you’re own creative process. While I fully understand, that it’s not always simple to create your own schedule, but understanding how you work best is the first step.
It’s also really helpful to understand what kind of creator you are. Here’s what I mean, plus an exercise.
What type of creator are you?
In order to be highly productive, it’s helpful to understand what makes you feel the most productive and how do you get the best use out of your time. There are 3 main elements that play into being productive:
Planning: This is focusing on, how much you time you spend planning out your creative work. Do you develop a strategy, do you create sketches, or do you dive head first into creating?
Creating: This is the time that you’re spending doing the creative work.
Life/ feeding your mind: What’s taking place during all of the times that you aren’t creating. How are you spending your time and energy?
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Planning + creating without much of life: If you find that you’re all about making and implementing plans, but don’t allow for much free time, playing , or experimenting, this is where you fall. People that are great at planning and creating can got a lot done in a short amount of time. However, they aren’t great at coming up with new ideas because they aren’t taking the time to feed their minds.
If this you, you need to create space in your life for some curiosity, or you need to surround yourself with curious friends that will naturally feed ideas, information, and inspiration to you.
Planning + Life/feeding your mind without creating: If this is you, you love to come up with ideas, talk about ideas, and are curious. However, you’re not so great at follow through and getting things done.
If you’re great at coming up with ideas, but not implementing them, you need to a hire a coach, get a mentor, or set strict deadlines that make you create your ideas.
Life/ feeding your mind + creating without planning: If this is you, you love learning new things, and enjoy putting them into action, but you never have much of a long term plan. This is okay if you’re just creating for pleasure, but if you’re hoping to make money or an impact from your what you create this doesn’t work well. You likely have a lot of projects going on, but you’re bad at finishing them. Of you’re doing work without a clue of where it’s leading.
This used to be me. I never finished anything. I would make a scarf and do everything, except for tying off the ends before moving on to a new project. This is not effective if you want to make money. As I started selling scarves I had to get strict with myself about finishing. I usually get myself to finish things by signing up:
ie: applying to a craft show, committing to a trunk show, an order, or teaching workshops.
Planning + creating + life/feeding your mind: This is what we’re all shooting for, but not likely where anyone falls naturally. In this space you’re great at planning out your ideas, creating them, and at the same time taking in information around you.
If this isn’t where you fall, what kind are you lacking and what can you put into place in your life to make that area stronger?
Examples of Megan’s Work