As a multi-hyphenate creative within a tiny team, juggling multiple projects at various stages of production, my To-Do lists can quickly become overwhelming. The daily pressure, the demands of film after film needing my attention, can send me into a pit of self-pity, anxiety, and procrastination.
I fell into that pit this month. Checking emails first thing in the morning, last thing at night, stressing if things were not going to plan or tasks were not completed as quickly as I wanted, led to going to sleep with a racing heart, a self-induced state of constant pressure.
But with the support of meditation, yoga, and Ivan constantly reminding me to slow down and switch off, I was able to work through the pressure before it crushed me.
I reminded myself that what is worth my time and energy and how much emphasis is to be placed into a relationship, task, activity or project, is a decision I need to take as much responsibility for as possible.
If something is not working, the logical move is to sit down and see if what I’m focusing on is worth my time. Should I continue as is or re-think my approach? Maybe it’s better to walk away. Stop headbutting walls until my head breaks.
'Deliberation' by Mario Sánchez Nevado, an illustration of how I was feeling.
I’ve noticed this year that I have been working slower even though I have much more to do since Cats of Malta became a self-distributed project. I’m chipping away at virtual events, building a store, searching for underwriters for our PBS broadcast, emailing distributors, etc. every day. But it is slow progress.
Partly why I’m working slower is due to my anxiety as mentioned, which has me checking every email over and over again before I send it, or procrastinating and getting distracted when stuck for a solution to some technical issue or marketing strategy question.
Then there was pressure with other projects, such as creating our YouTube videos, which we were consistently failing at, contributing to my anxiety.
I needed to reset. Re-evaluate. I needed to put into practise tools and techniques to minimize anxiety and procrastination. Make tasks easier, schedule less in, and be at peace with doing so. Have the gusto to just say ‘I’m not doing this’ and let it go. Or change my spatial environment, or implement a new tool into my routine to help build a productive work ethic.
While evaluate and looking to alleviate anxiety in my creative work, this is what I realized:
The Right Tools can Lead to the Right Process
Last week Ivan and I shot content for two YouTube videos in one night. One video would normally have taken us more than half a day because we are not natural speakers on camera. Previously we would attempt to remember the lines we wanted to say, or usually hit dot points, which often became long winded monologues. The result was an editing process involving sifting through a mess of takes to find something usable. Ivan would spend days editing one video.
Buying a teleprompter removed this time wasting practice and we now breeze through the content (for the most part), never missing a point. Ivan can edit quicker too because there are less takes to edit. In only a couple of hours we had the base video, in half a day the video was polished and ready to post.
We bought the right tool for us, a teleprompter, and it increased our efficiency and professionalism not only in presenting, but across the entire video creation process.
It is Important to Take a Step Back
We decided to take our YouTube channel seriously last year with the goal of being monetized and having an extra income stream. We still haven’t reached monetization, not even close to half way – it’s hard work!
This led us to feeling frustrated with lack of progress, and this frustration was amplified by our target schedule of trying to release one new YouTube video every Sunday and often failing to hit this self-imposed deadline.
But recently we stepped back. Honestly evaluated our time, resources, and capabilities. We realized we simply have too much going on with other projects to realistically keep up with such a posting schedule on YouTube. These other projects, such as distributing Cats of Malta, are more important to us than YouTube too so they would always get priority.
But I didn’t want to give up on YouTube so I did further research on posting schedules. I came to the conclusion it is better to post less often but put out better quality work. So we decided we would reduce our posting to one video every 2-3 weeks, giving us the time to make videos we are proud of without feeling the pressure of delivering to an unrealistic deadline.
This decision felt like a weight was lifted off our shoulders. This past week we posted a video we are super proud of about Film Festivals. In my opinion it is one of our most clear, well-produced and well-reasoned videos on our channel.
Space Matters
In our apartment we seriously lack the space needed for efficient content creation. Half of our 40m2 space, our downstairs area, is our whole shooting space. As we were filming our latest YouTube videos, the whole kitchen/dining/entrance became a danger zone for three days. We couldn’t sit on our couch together because we had equipment on it and it was hard to access the kitchen because a light and softbox took up most of the space.
We would love to have a permanent corner space dedicated to filming.
It also takes too long to set up lights and camera when we want to film new videos. We have to move the couch, get all the equipment out from under the stairs, move the computer and clear the desk; in short, rearrange our entire living space to film.
It is horribly inefficient.
Instead, I would love to have a permanent corner with a light, a chair, and some sort of set that is ready to go for filming, as I see many YouTube influencers do. I know having space for a permanent set in our apartment would mentally motivate me to pump out work. It simply isn’t possible where we live currently as our apartment is tiny. But in the future, when we hunt for our next place, having room for a ‘filming corner’ will be a high priority.
Make a To-Do List that’s Doable
My to-do list should have a max of three tasks a day, no more. I know that is more than enough for me to mentally cope with. Adding too many tasks makes me feel overwhelmed, especially if they are large tasks that will take up half my day.
Some people like to chip away at tasks, others like to finish what they start before moving on. Personal preference, really. But there is nothing worse than having a task that keeps coming up over and over that you never get around to.
Recently I had a task on my To-Do list that came up repeatedly – it was to check a product out, a new platform for Print On Demand. After evaluating, I removed it. I’ve been working fine without that product and having it pop up every few days was making me feel like I wasn’t doing enough. In hindsight, it wasn’t that important.
Conclusion
I like to think that after this crazy month of re-evaluating my time as a creative and my own personal limitations, that I not only know my working capabilities, but I also have workable company practices mapped out. This has helped me alleviate anxiety.
The goal with any creative business should be to work less and still be able to achieve a steady output of high quality content. The key to doing this is not working so hard you become a ball of stress and anxiety. The key is finding a better creative process.
Written by Sarah Jayne