When I posted last night that I was happy to be getting back into the routine of daily blogging, it was with the thought that I was doing a good thing for myself. This morning, I’m wondering just how good it is.

As a creative person I’ve always Detested — with a capital ‘D’ — any type of structured environment. Schedules and I do not get along, and haven’t been on speaking terms for years. Ditto with the alarm clock. I truly cherish my freedom to be able to go where I want, when I want, and to be able to write when the mood strikes.

However, as a creative person working at making a living as a creative person, I also know that I need some sense of structure and routine in my working life at the very least. Case in point — almost three months between blog posts. (Being a diabetic means I also have to have some semblance of routine in the rest of my life too if I want to keep it under control. But that’s a story for another day.)

So anyway, back to the story here… This morning when I was trying to decide what to write I went searching for a quote to sum up how I feel about creating a work routine that works for me. I was really shocked to find a whole raft of thoughts that portray routine in a really negative way. For example:

“Habit and routine have an unbelievable power to waste and destroy.” Henri de Lubac

“Habit is the beneficent harness of routine which enables silly men to live respectfully and unhappy men to live calmly” – George Eliot

“Routine is not organization, any more than paralysis is order.” – Arthur Helps

“The less routine the more life.” – Amos Bronson Alcott

“As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge.” – Henry Van Dyke

That last one by Van Dyke really resonates with me. I’ve had some friends who schedule every minute of every day, and day in and day out never change their routine at all. They call it good time management. I call it no time to live, but they’re my friends and I love ‘em so I put up with having to make appointments to spend time with them. But I can certainly see the point that is being made here.

As a person who hates being labelled and stuffed into a box — whether of my own or anyone else’s making — being so bound by a routine that there’s no room for change would be a fate worse than death.

But I know that in order to be a good writer, I have to have some type of routine that requires me to spend time with my butt in the chair with a pen in my hand. So I guess the challenge is to find that happy medium that gets the job done and falls somewhere between the no-room-to-live, destroyer of creativity brand of routine and having no routine at all. I’ve come to the conclusion this is another one of those things that there’s no right or wrong answer for — it’s another one of those life choices that is unique to each one of us.

For me, I’m thinkin’ my routine will look something like this: write and work out in the morning, do client work in the afternoon, and spend the rest of the day doing whatever the heck I want.

Oh, and I did find my quote finally:

“Most of life is routine – dull and grubby, but routine is the momentum that keeps a man going. If you wait for inspiration you’ll be standing on the corner after the parade is a mile down the street.” – Ben Nicholas

So what about you? Where do you fall on the routine spectrum? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.

You know you’ve been off your game when you log in to make a new post and you’re shocked to see that it’s been almost three months since you’ve even visited your own site! I’ve taken breaks before, but never one that’s lasted quite this long or left me feeling this disorganized.

I’m really glad that the theme for this months NaBloPoMo is “routine” because it’s painfully obvious that I need one. Whether I can find 31 days worth of ideas on the topic or not, I can say that I will definitely be creating a routine for blogging every day. And since I have more than one blog to take care of and get whipped back into shape it’s something that’s long over due.

So, it’s the first day of the second half of the year, my playtime is definitely over, and it’s time to put the butt in the chair and write if I hope to meet even half the goals I’ve set for myself this year.

How’s your year going? Are you where you want to be after the first six months?

There was an interesting comment made on a post over at Divine Purpose Unleashed last night. It got me thinking about accountability partners and the role they play in productivity.

In the original post which talked about making a commitment to living your purpose this year, CK Reyes asked us to find someone to support us and hold us accountable.
One of the commenters said that she didn’t agree with the concept of an accountability partner because it was like giving your personal power away.

Now, I have serious issues with giving my power away that stem from my background as a victim of abuse. I’ve been working for years to reclaim my own power and get my life back. So the thought that I might be giving it all away again was pretty disturbing, to say the least.

I ended up chewing on this for most of the day today, trying to figure out just how I feel about the relationship I have with my accountability partner, and whether it’s an empowering or disempowering relationship. Thinking about the whole issue of accountability and responsibility made me realize that for me, being accountable to someone in this way isn’t giving my power away, it’s empowering me to be better at what being who I am and doing what I do.

It’s like knowing that there is someone there who I can tell what I got done in a day and who will encourage me to do more is really freeing. By the same token I know that if I’m trying to do too much she won’t hesitate to tell me to slow down a bit either. I know that I work better to a deadline than I do when I just have a list of stuff to do. And even though I still set my deadlines for myself, just knowing that there’s someone else who knows that deadline is enough for me.

The fact that it’s MY choice to share my goals and deadlines and to ask for support and encouragement is what makes the difference. In recognizing that I have issues with procrastination and focus and asking for help to deal with those, I would classify an accountability partnership the same as I would classify a relationship with a coach or trainer — as someone who is there at my request to encourage me to meet my goals and to get better at what I do, not to usurp my power and impose their own opinions and deadlines on me.

I love the relationship I have with my accountability partner. We keep each other focused, and I think we’re both more productive for it. Maybe in light of that, a better term for it would be a productivity partnership. What do you think?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Please feel free to leave them in the comments or share them with me on twitter.

It occurred to me as I was sitting here trying to decide what to write today, that if I’m having a problem thinking about it on day two, it’s only going to get worse by day 31. And I’m determined to make it to the end of the month and really cement this habit of writing something fresh and unique every day. So I’m spending some time today doing my favorite thing in the whole world… planning and writing lists! (she says with tongue firmly in cheek whilst staring at the mass of notebooks and project folders on her desk.)

I was cleaning off my desk this afternoon and I came across a folder I haven’t looked at in awhile. It’s full of lists of ideas and projects and plans for websites. I’m so great at writing out the lists and making the plans, and absolutely dismal at the follow through. I actually have an accountability partner now, and this is the first week we’ve worked together. I’ve tried to be accountable to people before, but I’m so dang independent that I really resent being called out on my lack of productivity and my amazing superpowers of procrastination — two subjects which you will no doubt be hearing a lot more about if you stick around long enough. What’s really cool about it this time is that I know we’re only into the second day of the week, but even so I’m finding that I am more productive and able to focus a little better just for knowing that come Sunday I will have to stand up and say what I got done this week. And if it’s not what I said I was going to get done, then my partner has promised to announce on Twitter that little ol’ me didn’t do what I said I would this week.

The point of what I wanted to write here is that for me to succeed at blogging every day for a month, I need to have a list of topics to write about and so this afternoon I’m making up a list of twenty-nine possible posts so that if I end up having trouble thinking of something to write on any given day I can use these to jump-start my writing engine. I don’t think I’m going to have too many problems though. I found a great half-constructed plan that I was going to work on last December that involves a series of articles on… drum roll please… making plans for the new year! Between that and my new list of topics, I’m sure that the rest of my posts this month will be a lot more structured and less scatter-brained than this one.

Oh yeah, and just so that I stay on theme today, just let me mention how thankful I am to have an accountability partner that supports, encourages, and actually understands me, especially in my more flaky moments.