Keeping Your Projects Moving: Sustaining Momentum in Your Creative Business (On-Demand)

This is a video replay of a workshop from August, 2023 and is watched on-demand at your own pace.

Creative projects can be like tending to a garden. A number of factors have to come together in order for the garden to come together, and they don’t all have to happen in an exact order.

First there has to be a vision to create the garden. You might not consciously have this vision but it’s usually there in the background. Then there has to be a space for the projects to exist, whether it’s on a balcony, a backyard, or in a communal space. And from there you work on sprouting seeds and seeing them through to plants. You have to consistently water the plants, prune them and fight off insects and other problems that come up along the way.

It’s not a linear process and can often be messy. Sometimes we lose a few plants that aren’t a good fit for our garden. But we hang in there over time and enjoy the fruits of our labour.

This workshop is designed for people who either have challenges getting projects off the ground or they struggle to keep them going when things get difficult.

The spoiler alert is that there is no one method that’s going to solve these problems, but it’s a chance to sit down and think about your own methods and see if there are any new skills and ideas you want to incorporate into your work.

We will be covering the following items:

• What makes a good project or venture worth pursuing?
• Applying business model thinking to creative projects
• How to set goals in a healthy way
• Scheduling the right amount of time for projects
• Developing a better relationship with sales and money to create sustainable work
• Making use of email and social media to help bring energy to your projects
• Using journaling and Morning Pages to manage your inner critic
• Tools for maintaining focus as you work on your scheduled blocks

My approach to working with attendees is grounded in a mix of experience working in both traditional businesses on one hand, and navigating a career as a musician and composer on the other.

As a graduate of the Masters in Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (MMIE) program at the Smith School of Business in 2019, I am continually defining my own vision of what productivity means in a world that is continually harder to find focus in.

As the author of The Most Creative newsletter, every week I prompt people to think about what their Most Creative Work is. These workshops are an extension of this research and writing and give me the chance to engage with you about helping you nudge your projects forward. I wish for my attendees to find success as creative people and would like to see us achieve our goals together.