I was fortunate to have a corporate job where I could bring all the analytical, creative, research nerdy, music-loving, reflective, and outgoing parts of me into my work duties doing strategic planning and marketing communications. Being able to extinguish the work/personal life boundary so many people have to maintain was fantastic. There were very strong lines, however, between my corporate job and all the blogging and speaking already going on as Brainzooming, even though the two separate activities fed each other in a healthy way.
For as much as I've tried to have even fewer boundaries since leaving my corporate job, however, I'm surprisingly discovering renewed appreciation for the importance of boundaries.
Photo by: soundboy | Source: photocase.com
Good Fences Make Good Creativity
Working from a home office much of the time, there are now almost no boundaries between The Brainzooming Group and the rest of my life. Pretty much everything revolves around the business, which now includes both strategy and innovation work for clients and all the blogging and speaking that used to be what Brainzooming solely represented.
Interestingly enough, that’s now a challenge.
The few boundaries I did have between work and Brainzooming (which was more of a creative writing outlet) previously made both better. Now, the lack of boundaries between work and writing is having detrimental impacts, especially on blog writing. Blogging time used to be Friday night into the early hours of Saturday morning, then it was over for the week. It was hardly ever an issue to get five (and for a long time, ten) blog posts done during this time window because I knew there would be no blog writing opportunities during the workweek.
Now, blogging can happen any time, and it’s constantly a mental struggle between time spent blogging and responsibilities for client project work, business development, and all the other things for running a business.
Not only has this boundary-less work and creative situation made it more difficult to invest time in writing, the geography and tools of work and blog writing are now blurred in a negative way. The office environment that used to be new and fresh for Friday night blogging is the same place I’ve been working since 5:15 a.m. It’s made writing difficult for the first time in a VERY long time.
No particular answers yet, other than a new respect for healthy, creativity-inducing boundaries and a commitment to figure out how to re-establish some helpful boundaries.
Finding New Places for Good Creativity
Have you dealt with a similar creative challenge in the absence of positive creative boundaries around your work? What changes have you made to address it? - Mike Brown
The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.
