Podcast Interview: Risa Williams 09/14/2022 - Navigating Creative Roadblocks & Procrastination: The Ultimate Time Management Toolkit

Carla King interviews Risa Williams: Navigating Creating Roadblocks & Procrastination: The Ultimate Time Management Toolkit

Nonfiction Authors Association Podcast | September 14, 2022

“This task is making me feel uncomfortable right now. But if I just keep going a little bit at a time, I’m gonna figure it out,” are the kinds of words we want to use with ourselves… These are more gentle, soothing words that I try to teach clients to say to themselves. Because if you can hear more of that, you’ll find that roadblocks kind of fall faster.”

– Risa Williams

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Risa Williams is a book author, a wellness writer, a licensed therapist, a time management coach, and a university professor in Los Angeles. She’s the award-winning author of three self-help books:

The Ultimate Anxiety Toolkit (JKP Books, June 2021)

The Ultimate Time Management Toolkit (JKP Books, Aug. 2022)

The Ultimate Self-Esteem Toolkit (JKP Books, March 2023)

Her books have been translated into two languages and are available in stores worldwide. She’s been featured as an expert in Business Insider, Parade Magazine, Real Simple, Wired Magazine, and HuffPost, and she writes articles for Breathe Magazine and LA Parent Magazine. Follow her at @risawilliamstherapy or visit www.risawilliams.com and theultimatetoolkitbooks.com.

Live on September 14, 2022 at 10:00 am PT

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Show Notes

Links

In this episode…

Productivity tips for writers.
Mental roadblocks that authors may face when writing.
How to use a word selector tool to retrain negative thoughts and ideas.
How to find and enlist a goal sponsor for your writing goals.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the interview series for the Nonfiction Authors Association. Today’s session is with Risa Williams and we will be talking about navigating creative roadblocks and procrastination: the ultimate time management toolkit. I’m Carla King, your host, and I’m happy to have you with us today. This interview will last only 30 minutes and you can find recordings on our Nonfiction Authors Association website and social media platforms including YouTube.

And now I’d like to introduce our guest.

Risa Williams is a book author, a wellness writer, a licensed therapist, a time management coach, and a university professor in Los Angeles. She’s the award-winning author of three self-help books:

The Ultimate Anxiety Toolkit (JKP Books, June 2021)

The Ultimate Time Management Toolkit (JKP Books, Aug. 2022)

The Ultimate Self-Esteem Toolkit (JKP Books, March 2023)

Hi, Risa. Welcome to the podcast.

Risa Williams 2:31

Hey, Carla, thanks for having me. So happy to be here today.

Carla King 2:35

Well, you juggle a lot. You’re a licensed therapist, you’re a book author. I do want to get into your specific tips to help authors with productivity. But can you just summarize your author journey, and how it works with your professional therapist journey as well?

Risa Williams 2:54

Yeah, so my journey as a writer was not linear at all. I started as a playwright in college, and I went into screenwriting. And then after that, I dabbled in writing books–young adult books, a nonfiction book about movies. And eventually I hit a rut, where I wanted to learn more about psychology, just to help my writing. So I got really interested in psychology, which eventually led me to go back to graduate school to get a degree in psychology. And then it eventually led me to become a therapist, which all kind of led me back to writing books again. Now I’m writing self help books. And what sparked The Ultimate Anxiety Toolkit–which was my first one in a while–was the pandemic, really. The pandemic broke out while I was finishing the book, and trying to sell it. And suddenly, I was seeing just an uptick in how many people had anxiety. It literally doubled, to the point where the statistics were saying that it was, you know, 65% of all Americans, right when the pandemic came out, were having extreme anxiety and stress. So I just thought, ‘There’s a huge need for these practical tools and I’m seeing it.’ And that really fueled my motivation to get that published. And then after that, I was sort of on a roll. And I wrote two more books, all during the pandemic–which it’s still continuing. So I guess it was fueled by my practical ideas to help people navigate what they were going through, and what I was seeing as a whole, kind of exploding in terms of mental health, you know. People were feeling unmotivated, people were feeling stressed out. A lot of anxiety, a lot of burnout.

Carla King 4:46

Wow. Yeah. And I think a lot of us do that. We write about our interests and like to share the love, and you’ve really done a lot of books that help people. And one of them–you just got it published–do you have it in front of you? Can you show us?

Risa Williams 5:03

Yeah, it’s called The Ultimate Time Management Toolkit. And it’s 25 productivity tools for adults with ADHD, but also for chronically busy people, as I call them. So even if you don’t have ADHD, but you find you’re always on this hamster wheel of stress with tasks and feeling crushed by time–that’s a lot of the people I work with. So I developed 25 really easy-to-apply tools that you can use in everyday life, to manage your schedule, stay focused, find your motivation again to complete things.

Carla King 5:39

Do you have any time management tools that are specifically for writers that you’ve tested, perhaps while writing your three books?

Risa Williams 5:45

Yeah, so I use these tools, definitely while I’m writing. The main tool in the book–the first tool–is called the ‘task intensity meter’. And a lot of my clients are artists, and writers, and creative professionals. And this one came about because I wanted a way to discuss with people how stressful certain tasks were for them to complete. So in other words, it’s teaching you to look at time through an emotional lens, which is sometimes why we procrastinate. So the way you use this tool is, you rate things by how intense they feel to you to do. So let’s talk about writing, for instance. Perhaps writing an article or a blog feels more like low intensity to you, because it’s a short number of words. It depends on the person, all of this has to be custom tailored depending on who you are, and what you’re writing about, or what your project is. A mid-level intensity task might be something like completing a chapter that you’re stuck on. And then a high intensity task would be something like a larger project probably for most of us, where there’s a pressing deadline, or a really hard chapter that you’re just stuck on, or doing research. It could literally be anything depending on you. And there’s a worksheet in the book where you write down what you have to do, and you kind of rate the intensity levels.

The idea behind this is to really get honest with yourself about how stressful certain tasks are for you to complete, so that you can start to arrange your day in a way that you’re not stacking super high intensity things back to back. Because I find that’s what often causes people to feel burnt out, stressed out, and overwhelmed. So for instance, if I have to tackle some heavy duty research that I’ve been avoiding, and I’ve rated that in my mind, like, high intensity–and I can tell it’s high intensity for me because of the overwhelming feeling, or I’m avoiding it, like, “Oh, I’ll do that on Tuesday.” And then Tuesday comes and I’m, “Eh, I’ll do it on Friday”– these are some warning signs that it is a stressful task for you, and you’re maybe not being completely honest with yourself about how stressed out you are. So what I would do is, I’d plan that, but then I’d not stack other high intensity things on top of it. So the other things in your life are affecting your writing as well, right? So, you know, household things you have to do. Errands, maybe. If you’re a parent, like me, picking up your kids or driving them places. All those need to be taken into account, too. Some of those stress us out more than others. Sometimes artists I work with will tell me that just doing daily household things like vacuuming, cleaning–all that is actually really high intensity for them, they avoid it. Or sometimes, for other people, it’s low intensity–they like to do it after they write a chapter of a book.

So it’s looking at things through a lens of how stressful it feels, and then structuring your day so you’re not overdoing it with the stress. And one way to do that is to schedule breaks. So if I do a high intensity task, I know I need to schedule a break afterwards. And a break would be getting up away from the computer, doing something different with my brain–actively letting the cortisol kind of come down a little bit. And acknowledging to myself, ‘That was a lot I just did with my brain–that was a lot of mental energy I just expended. I need to refresh, and refuel, and reset myself afterwards.’ So part of what I’m teaching people is that gauge. Learning that internal gauge of, ‘What do I feel energy wise? Where is my mental energy? How clear am I mentally?’ And, ‘How stressed out is the task ahead of me?’

Carla King 9:36

Right, and I suppose you work one on one with people, because we all have our different rhythms, or you’re a morning person, you’re a night person. There’s a saying that many writers on deadlines have the cleanest houses.

Risa Williams 9:52

Yeah. Exactly. That’s a common thing–to want to clean your house as a way to procrastinate. You’re stuck on a chapter, and you suddenly think, ‘Now is a good time for a deep cleaning of the bathroom or the kitchen.’ I work with so many writers who–that’s what they decide to do when they’re avoiding a task.

Carla King 10:13

Hmm. And memoirists, too–we are tasked, too, with digging super deep, right? And so, you know, if you get in any interruptions at all, you come out of that trance that is allowing you to dig deep, and write the truth about what happened, and what is the universal truth in your memoir. Versus, you know, doing the work of researching and writing historical fiction, or nonfiction, or prescriptive. The calendaring interests me. How much does calendaring figure in your practice?

Risa Williams 11:02

So I like to use time blocking, which I find is very effective. There’s a chapter in my book called ‘time containers’, which kind of explains the concept in a visual way of compartmentalizing your time. So I ask people to visualize these containers like Tupperware containers. And each one is a set of things you need to do that you can label. Like, ‘writing’ would go in one container, or ‘self care’ would go in another container, or ‘household tasks,’ or maybe your day job. And what you’re doing, is you’re seeing these as compartments with parameters that you’re plugging into your calendar for certain blocks of time. Now, what you don’t want to do is stack blocks right on top of each other. You want to leave some padding of these things called time buffer breaks, that I encourage people to do. Because we all have trouble transitioning from being in deep, like you were talking about with a writing project, where you’re so hyper focused on what you’re doing. And then switching gears to a completely different set of tasks–household tasks, family tests, your other job tasks, right. That’s not usually very easy for us to navigate emotionally. It’s very jarring, sometimes, to transition out of those states.

So by compartmentalizing your time, what you’re doing is–you’re establishing parameters for your brain. ‘I am going to write between this time and this time.’ And hopefully it’s a big enough block, where you feel like you can actually get something done. A common mistake a lot of people make is–they expect themselves to be able to sit down and just write like, in that hyper intense focus state. And we all know that for many writers, it takes some ramping up and prep time, and you’re wandering around thinking about things. Or you’re staring at the page for quite some time before you can actually put stuff down. And like I said, it kind of changes day by day. There are some mornings you might be so clear headed, you just sit down and go there. And other days, you may take up half of your block a time to just ruminate, and even get started, because you’re having trouble focusing your attention. So time blocking allows us to see the start and end time. And they’ve done neuroscience studies where, if we know the parameters of how long a task is going to take, and how long we have to do the task, we’re actually more focused, more efficient. And we get more done in that timeframe, than if we just say, ‘I’m going to write all of Friday, and see what happens. I’m gonna leave all day Friday to write.’ As you know, and all the writers out there will know, often that day is just shot. You spent most of Friday thinking ‘Why am I not writing? I shouldn’t be writing. Why am I not writing?’ And this kind of shame cycle happens, where you’re beating yourself up. And then Friday is gone. And you haven’t accomplished as much as you thought.

Carla King 13:49

Oh my gosh, I know so many writers are going to resonate with that, for sure. Yeah, I’ve used the Pomodoro method a couple of times. And that really worked for me with the short tasks. Not for the long book-length tasks. But the articles, and the blog posts, and the projects like that.

Risa Williams 14:10

Yeah, so in a way, you’re establishing parameters. But the problem some people have with the Pomodoro method is that it’s these little chunks of a half hour. And like I said, when you’re writing, it’s a really unique experience, because it often takes our engine an hour or two to rev up till we’re in that–I call it a hyperfocus state–where you’re just fixated. And you know you’re in the flow at that point, because you’re writing, and time is passing. You don’t even realize you’ve been sitting there for an hour, because you’re just tuned in to what you’re doing. Which is all kind of where we’re trying to go as writers–to get into that flow state more. So the time containers can help.

I have a fun tool, which I use a lot. It’s called ‘the music motivator’. I really believe that we can create brain associations with colors, with music, with all sorts of fun things that inspire us as artists. So the way I use the music one was inspired by working with athletes and performers who usually create a pre-game ritual, where they listen to music to amp themselves up. I have worked with plenty of people who have this kind of ritual. Performers do this as well. Before they have to go in front of a big crowd, they will often have a favorite song they play.

So what I want you to think about as a writer is–what is a playlist or a song that you can play to cue your brain up to think, ‘Oh, it’s time to write now’? And the way I wrote my last book–because it was very hard to focus. I’m a mom, I have lots of different hats that I wear–lots of different jobs I’m juggling. Plus it was a pandemic, and I was seeing a lot of clients, and the level of stress was pretty high. And I had a pretty short deadline I needed to turn around for the book. So the way I did it was–I found I liked classical music a lot. They’ve done a lot of studies that classical music sharpens people’s attention and gets them to focus more. I listened to Brandenburg Concertos, the album, which is about an hour long. And I kind of train my brain that–when I put this music on my noise canceling headphones and sit down, it’s time to write. And no matter what happens, I’m just gonna listen to the music and write. And if you can do the same playlist, or the same song over and over again, so you train your brain that–‘Okay, when I hear this, it’s time to transition into writing mode.’ It’s just a fun trick I picked up, and it works for a lot of people in a lot of different ways. You want to pick something upbeat and fun, that your brain doesn’t struggle too much with lyrics or associations, right? Because as artists, it’s so easy. We’re so sensitive. You know, we hear a song, drift off into memories or other thoughts. So you want to find the right combination for your own brain. But that’s just a fun trick you might want to try as a way to motivate yourself to do the same thing every week.

Carla King 17:07

I’m kind of hearing the Rocky theme song in my brain.

Risa Williams 17:11

That would be a great one if it makes you feel good when you write. Do you have music that you like to write to?

Carla King 17:16

I do. I have a channel–I use focus@will. And it’s sort of an ambient channel. I never know what’s going to come on, but I know the style. It’s not really working for me, though. I have to say. So I love what you’re saying about having the same song–like maybe something positive from my past, or that makes me feel like I really can do it that I’m authorized to do. That I’m competent to do it. And I just wanted to move into your next–you wrote a book on self esteem, and a lot of authors, even very accomplished business people, therapists, or financial people, have trouble with self esteem. And is that part of the block? Is that part of that hour getting into it–is, ‘Who am I to write this book? Why am I authorized?’

Risa Williams 18:11

So in my Self Esteem Book, I talk a lot about our self talk–which is the words you’re saying to yourself all day long. They say it’s thousands of thoughts. And we’re thinking mostly negative ones. In some studies where they make people write down what they’re thinking, and it’s something like 90%, it’s all negative, really harsh stuff about ourselves. My belief is–your brain is always listening to the words you say. We think we get a pass, because most of the time, we’re very nice and encouraging to other people. And as artists, we tend to beat ourselves up a lot. Just as people, we tend to beat ourselves up a lot. But especially I find, you know, writers and artists sometimes have this internal critic that’s popping up a lot.

So you want to watch the way you’re talking to yourself. And are you saying motivating things? And how are you talking about the task you have to do? So in The Time Management Toolkit, there’s a word selector tool. Which is, ‘How do we describe the task in front of us?’ Is it like, ‘I have to write this chapter. And it’s the worst ever. This chapter is killing me. It’s a nightmare.’ When you start using words like that, you’re triggering a stress reaction in your brain. So the thing that is already hard–your brain is listening to what you’re saying. It doesn’t get like humor, the sarcasm, or that we’re intending this dramatic effect. It just hears, ‘that stressful, I’m stressed,’ and your stress goes up.

So if you can start to change the language you’re using about the stuff in front of you, and about your ability to do it–that’s not saying you necessarily have to be super positive, because I know sometimes people have resistance and they think, ‘Oh, I have to think I’m amazing. I’m great.’ You just have to quiet down the negative stream a little bit, and you start to feel a little better, and a little more motivated. So, for instance, instead of, ‘The task is killing me,’ you could say, ‘This task is making me feel uncomfortable right now. But if I just keep going a little bit at a time, I’m gonna figure it out.’ And those are the kinds of words we want to use with ourselves. ‘I’m figuring it out one step at a time. I don’t have to be perfect, this page doesn’t have to be perfect. I just have to move forward one tiny step at a time, and I’ll get to the end outcome.’ These are more gentle, soothing words that I try to teach clients to say to themselves. Because if you can hear more of that, you’ll find that those roadblocks kind of fall faster, you know. You can find workarounds faster, rather than getting really stuck and kind of spiraling into beating yourself up about, ‘Why am I not doing this faster? Why am I not doing this better?’ which halts our progress as writers.

Carla King 21:02

It occurs to me that we can use other writers to support us in that. There’s a lot of ‘shut up and write’ groups that we have. Many of us are in writing groups. Some writing groups are very critique oriented, ‘We need to get this published.’ But others are, ‘This group is to help each other feel good about our writing.’

Risa Williams 21:24

Yeah, so the more positive support you can get from outsiders, the better. I have a tool called the goal sponsor, which I really, really believe in. They’ve done studies that if you tell your goal–like any goal–to anyone, it’s a 65% chance you will complete the goal. But if you tell it to someone regularly, and they asked you about the goal, like, ‘How is that goal going?,’ on a weekly basis, it’s a 95% chance of completion. So I find I have to enlist goal sponsors. So when I wrote the last book, I had a writer friend who’s also a therapist, who I just was checking in with. And this isn’t heavy duty mentoring. You’re not asking the person to necessarily read all your chapters, and all this stuff. Because we know as writers, sometimes that can be a burden, too, to our friends, right? Like that’s a lot of reading, and people burn out, and their attention spans are limited these days. But sometimes all it is just sending them–say, ‘Hey, I’m gonna send you a text every week that I hit my marker of how many pages I want to do’–just involving a witness. First of all, it makes the process a lot less lonely. Second of all, it takes you out of that bumping into yourself, and your own internal resistance. Because now someone else is involved in the process by witnessing your progress.

If you don’t have this in your life, you can sign up for coaches or therapists who specifically work on goals, or groups, like you mentioned. But I would look specifically for a goal completion group, where people are all working towards goals and kind of being positive support systems. I like writers groups as well. I think they can serve different purposes. If you find a group that’s very much like, ‘We’re into finishing this thing.’ That’s kind of one type of writers group. But there are other types of writers groups where it’s more about brainstorming, or talking about ideas, or getting feedback, right? So you might want to separate out those two ideas. And if you’re working towards a goal deadline, you really want to find people, ‘Okay, I gotta stay on track with this, like, we got to make sure we’re meeting every week, or I’m talking to you every week.’ Because a lot of times with writers groups, people will get on track for a while, and then everyone gets busy, right? And now suddenly, you’re halfway done with your novel, and no one’s checking in, and you don’t know who to tell. So you can get into that midpoint block, that I call it–where things kind of fall apart halfway through.

Carla King 23:55

I like that, because every member does not have to be a writer, right? Just somebody who supports the goal.

Risa Williams 24:03

Yeah. And you can enlist friends who are working towards different goals. So you’re checking with each other, as well. And you don’t want to put too much on one particular friend. But I think if two people are working towards a goal with a similar deadline, it can be helpful. And if all you’re saying is, ‘Can I just tell you how many pieces I’m doing each week? And at a certain point, I have to send it to you.’ You would be surprised how fast you can accomplish things knowing that someone else is keeping track of what you have to do. As we know, being a writer can be very lonely and isolating. Especially when you’re working on a book, you’re kind of left alone for these months at a time with your own thoughts and your own insecurities. And it can be nice to have someone along to at least witness the progress.

Carla King 24:56

But that helps with all three things you write about–anxiety, time management, and self esteem. So that’s in 2023. Do you have any other books you’re thinking about writing now?

Risa Williams 25:08

My next book that I’m collecting tools for is navigating the creative process. Because as a creative, and working with so many creative types, I’ve definitely come up with some tools to help people with roadblocks. So for instance, just being able to map out your own creative process–like every time you write a book, you probably have this journey that you’re going on, that you may or may not be conscious of. But sometimes your partners or friends will tell you, ‘You always do this at this point of time in the book,’ you know. I don’t know if that’s true of you, Carla. Do you have a certain process where you always hit a block around the same time? I know, for me, it’s about halfway through a book, I have a block where I started avoiding writing. It’s like, my brain wants to take a break. But then part of me wants to move forward. And I kind of get locked in that for a couple of weeks.

Carla King 26:07

I have written a book in four days over a long weekend, you know, just turning off everything. And I’ve been working 10 years on a book. So I could really–I’m really sucking in your advice here. I want to get that one done, finally. You know, I blogged a book–my first memoir, I blogged it. So it was structured already. But it is difficult for me, as a busy professional, like many people–you have a job, you have a family–to carve out that structured time to write. And I am going to take your advice to heart, and try and carve out that time. Do you have any actionable previews or tips on your website that we can go to first? Where can we find more?

Risa Williams 26:56

I have a blog on my website. In September, I’ll be starting a new podcast called The Motivation Mindset podcast, which is full of time management tools. And it features busy, successful people telling their productivity tools and tricks that they’ve learned, and also where they get stuck. And we kind of talk about these roadblocks that people face. I’d love to have you come on, Carla, and talk to me about your own personal toolkit of how you write your books and memoirs.

I do periodic workshops–goal setting workshops–where lots of artists come, and we all work on goals together. And I give little tips on how to break your goals down, and weekly markers of how to track that. I would check out–all my books have a chapter on goals. And that’s really good for writing. Just learning how to track little steps along the way, give yourself credit. Not just wait till the book’s done and the book’s out, right? But it’s like, even just doing a page a week–how are you connecting with your successes? How are you praising yourself? How are you encouraging yourself? Are you giving yourself rewards? You know, all these little systems you can set up, when it’s just you trying to motivate yourself, really help. And one thing I’ll leave people with is just tracking your progress over time. Learning to write in a journal–‘Here are the steps I did today.’ Like, ‘today I went on a podcast and talked to Carla, you know.’ ‘I wrote an Instagram post about this.’ ‘I did this.’ I write three to five things every single day that are tiny little steps. Some days are a wash, too. Some days I don’t have much to say, other days I have a lot. But I’ve been doing this now for three years. And what I find is, you’re putting these positive little steps. And then when a big goal happens, you put the big thing that got accomplished. Like, ‘book came out,’ or you know, something like this.

What I find is, the longer you do this kind of tracking, the more it boosts your self esteem and confidence. Because you really see that, even on months where you felt like things weren’t moving at all, you really were. You were moving, you were doing things. You just don’t give yourself enough credit for all the little steps along the way. So tracking is like a huge part of the creative process–learning how to navigate it in a smoother way.

Carla King 29:27

That is some wonderful advice. Now I need to get yet another journal.

Risa Williams 29:35

You can’t have too many. You got to separate all the journals out, too.

Carla King 29:36

I know, I’ve got red, and black, and green already, so I’m gonna need another color.

Risa Williams 29:43

So in my book it’s called ‘the goal tracker’. If you read that chapter, I outline how to use bullet journaling, which is exactly what I’m talking about–where you’re just writing a couple lines a day of progress, and then you’re noting any bigger events. It’s a way to train your brain to see progress as something that’s always happening, and also connect with the happier moments that we tend to just ignore. Like all these little happy steps you took–you can connect with those more emotionally. And what that will do is, when something big happens in your life, you’ll be able to really feel it. Because often what happens to writers and artists is, something amazing happens, and they can’t connect with it emotionally. They’re sort of just like, ‘Yeah, yeah, onto the next thing,’ right? Like, ‘Yeah, the books out onto the next book.’ We’re not having that moment of like, ‘I did it. This is amazing. I’m so proud of myself.’ And that’s what turbo boosts your self esteem, is connecting with those things emotionally. Not just doing to do, but connecting with it for yourself, and for future projects that you might do.

Carla King 30:53

Well, thank you for that, Risa Williams. And I hope you are celebrating the publication of your book that just came out–The Ultimate Time Management Toolkit. And I’m really looking forward to The Ultimate Self Esteem Toolkit, and that fourth book about the journey. So I will be subscribing to your email list at risawilliams.com, and looking forward to all the great advice you have there, and tips.

Risa Williams 31:16

Thank you so much.

And thank you to our listeners for joining us today and every week. For a list of guests and topics just check our schedule on the site, use your favorite search engine, or better yet, sign up for our mailing list at NonfictionAuthorsAssociation.com.

Quotes from our guest…

“Instead of, ‘The task is killing me,’ you could say, ‘This task is making me feel uncomfortable right now. But if I just keep going a little bit at a time, I’m gonna figure it out.’ And those are the kinds of words we want to use with ourselves. ‘I’m figuring it out one step at a time. I don’t have to be perfect, this page doesn’t have to be perfect. I just have to move forward one tiny step at a time, and I’ll get to the end outcome.’ These are more gentle, soothing words that I try to teach clients to say to themselves. Because if you can hear more of that, you’ll find that those roadblocks kind of fall faster.”

“You would be surprised how fast you can accomplish things knowing that someone else is keeping track of what you have to do. As we know, being a writer can be very lonely and isolating. Especially when you’re working on a book, you’re kind of left alone for these months at a time with your own thoughts and your own insecurities. And it can be nice to have someone along to at least witness the progress.”

“What I find is, the longer you do this kind of [journal] tracking, the more it boosts your self esteem and confidence. Because you really see that, even on months where you felt like things weren’t moving at all, you really were. You were moving, you were doing things. You just don’t give yourself enough credit for all the little steps along the way. So tracking is like a huge part of the creative process–learning how to navigate it in a smoother way.”

“[Bullet journaling] is a way to train your brain to see progress as something that’s always happening, and also connect with the happier moments that we tend to just ignore. Like all these little happy steps you took–you can connect with those more emotionally. And what that will do is, when something big happens in your life, you’ll be able to really feel it.”