Thank you to Sammy at bemuzin for this blog post!

I am asked how I manage to be so productive.  We have our business together and I am working 25-40 hours/week.  And I have several blogs — see the side panel —
and I have no commitment to writing on them at any certain pace.
Mostly I want to paint paint paint, and eat pie.

Okay, here is the trick.  I dive right into my days.

Run your own architectural firm for a
decade while teaching 20 hours a week to University design students and the rest is
easy because you are so disciplined.
I literally hit the floor running.
I was born that way, bright-eyed first thing;
it’s a curse if you are surrounded by people that need to acclimate to having their eyes open.
I don’t need coffee, though I LOVE it and
have it loaded with fresh ginger and
brown sugar asap in the morning.

When I am not planning on lolling in bed with cats and husband, I get up, throw painting clothes on before showering, and head for my little studio.  I breathe in the colors.  Seriously.  That is my meditation!  Other people can pride themselves on their limited palettes but I love paint.  I leave a bit of an unfinished drawing or painting on my desk (or if writing, an unfinished piece) then I can drop right into it.  I love silence in the morning, a thought that at any other time is anathema — but maybe it is because loud music is not permitted early!

I don’t get distracted unless Jai
BITES me in the leg.  At that point,
I must stop and pick him up or he will bite harder and harder until he gets what he wants.  They start at love bites and progress.

If I have two hours or sometimes three
(did I get up at 5am or 6am?)

I can get a lot done.  Again, years of design work and teaching have allowed me to get past the doubting voices and nay-Sayers in my head so I am pretty much going to DO IT.

I know when my creative times of the day and when I hit a slump.  Knowing myself allows me to plan my days so that no matter the type of work, I can place it in the proper time frame.  The most creative time is 3am to noon.  I love to paint or write creatively early in the morning.  My least creative time is afternoon, sooooo, I put repetitive things in the afternoon, like stitching many itty-bitty stitches or beading for a client.

I admit that I do most of the cooking, but Mitchell handles coffee and cat duties in the morning, and sometimes breakfast if it is peanut butter on toast with berries or sliced peaches, or eggs, or leftover Chinese!  I answer emails while paint dries.  Mitchell often reads news or cool stories to me once he is up.

After that precious time, the world owns me unless it is a day off.  Sometimes I love what I am doing and it is not a terrible thing to have to go to work (which may mean turning around) and sometimes it is the worst thing in the world (taxes or government bids, which means legalese, which makes my eyes glaze over and I get very sleepy at the thought of either.)

So that is my secret: good habits started early out of necessity (and biting off more than I could chew.)   Getting to it and not procrastinating or
listening to the negative voices in my head.
I wrote this while waiting for the Chinese food to arrive!

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