THE CREATIVE WORKFLOW

We proudly present the creative workflow!!

As a creative and an entrepreneur of three years, I have been struggling to maintain a creative workflow, making it feel like a true rollercoaster ride. Being overwhelmed by all the different tasks there are and never feeling truly satisfied with what I had done that day. I realized I was living in a 'get things off my to-do list' mode and that I was missing out on the actual journey, the one I loved so much. I felt like I was always and primarily working towards a goal, and whenever I did finish something, I could hardly enjoy it because it seemed like everything else had just piled up and my to-do list somehow got even longer in the meantime.

I realized I had to analyze my business: Name the different things we do at Bobbinhood, and by naming them, making time for them. Instead of running from one thing to another just to get things done. It was so good to talk about and question the different elements that make up Bobbinhood. What do we love? What are we good at? What simply has to be done, and what do we want to focus on? By seeing all the tasks together as my creative flow, I felt I would get more done and feel more creativity.

In the end we came up with 19 themes that we made into cards, with a couple of empty ones for future bright ideas. On the back we made confetti to celebrate when you have given attention to one of the tasks.

I made these cards for my own personal creative flow, convinced that I was the only one struggling with this. When I showed the cards on Instagram, I got so many heartwarming and enthusiastic reactions, it blew me away.

It makes you wonder what it is with this 'I-am-the-only-one-struggling-everybody-else-has-everything-totally-under-control' feeling we have :)

So many of you recognized the struggle and asked if we could make it available. We first wanted to see if it would work for other creatives as well. We asked 10 creatives, from hobbyists, to full on creative entrepreneurs, to test our creative workflow with us. We made the cards more generalized so that they were suitable for all kinds of creative outlets (for example, we had ‘screen print’ as a card and changed it to ‘make ’instead). Also, we added some cards that we felt were missing. It was so lovely to work with these artists and to get their feedback!

How does it work?

The creative workflow comes as a ready made package with 330 cards, stickers and a step-by-step guide.

We used an old bed bottom and painted it white. These boards are also available at home depot stores. You can, of course, get a ready made pegboard, but you can also use a pinboard, washi tape, or simply lay them out on your table. We will do a blogpost with a DIY for the pegboard that we use, and another where we show you how our testers have set up their own creative workflows.

We have set up our board like this:

I like to start by deciding on the FOCUS of that week. What are our main themes? We like to use a note card to specify.

Then we fill in every day of the week roughly. I like to work in small blocks of 30-60 minutes, but do what feels best for you.

We try to make a nice balance between things we love to do and things that simply have to get done.

We like to use the LUNCH CARD as to break the day in two, indicating which tasks are for the morning and which are for the afternoon.

Remember, the creative workflow is not about getting things done that day, it is about giving attention to these themes. It is a BIG game changer seeing all the attention you give as part of the process. It is hard sometimes, I just have to keep reminding myself that it is the process that counts.

For example, one day I had a couple of tasks for that day, and the last one was one of my faves: MAKE. I wanted to screen print some stars around a tiger I had printed before. By the time I got to this card, I realized I had no time to do this. So the feeling came again of not getting things done, and not having enough time to do what I love. Then I realised it is about the process, and I DID have time to cut my stencils, mix the ink and get everything ready for the next day. So I still got to turn the card and celebrate with confetti. I biked home feeling so fulfilled! The next day when I came in to my HQ, there was this happy invitation to start screen printing. Win win!