This is the last episode in our 4 part series on productivity styles where we introduce… drum roll, please! The Creator. If you’d like to learn about the previous productivity styles, then you can always find them here: the Commander (part 1), the Contemplator (part 2), the Conductor (part 3).Introducing the Creator:“Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.” ~ Franz KafkaGifts & Challenges:The Creator adores people – as long as you are the center of attention. You tend to prioritize time with people over tasks and you dislike paying attention to details, hoping they will magically disappear or someone else will attend to them.As a creative, you are the most productive of the four types, starting numerous projects and overflowing with brilliant ideas for what to make next. You seem to effortlessly flow in and out of many creative projects at the same time.You tend to live outside of time or anyone else’s schedule. You are intuitive and happy to go with the flow when it comes to work. You value variety and easily become bored if asked to do repetitive or mundane tasks.You are always up for a challenge and look at productivity as a game to play. As long as you know the facts and the rules but don’t feel pressured by deadlines, you thrive at getting things done. You will work your tail off to complete a painting or a manuscript if it means the chance to enter a competition you think you can win.You can easily lose track of time and tend to expend too much energy or over-indulge. Netflix binges are your fave way to procrastinate and avoid boring tasks. Preferably with buttered popcorn and M&Ms at hand.You tend to ignore timelines, whether they are self-imposed or set by others in positions of authority. You want the freedom to choose how you spend your time and how you express yourself. You resist meeting anyone else’s expectations other than your own.Take the Unique Productivity Style QuizOnce You Know Your Productivity Style You Can Learn The Best Way To Become More Productive In Your Creative Business.Take the Quiz today and get your results!Your opportunities for growthWhen it comes to increasing your productivity, look at your need for freedom and variety. Are you willing to focus for the short term in order to reach your long term goals? Deciding what you want most and knowing exactly what it will take to get there will support you in growing and scaling your business.Create a flexible plan for growing and scaling your business that you can stick to that involves both structure and flow.Set deadlines which make sense to your creative need for freedom so that you can create more consistency in your business. Try theming your days to ensure you make time for your most important work.Build a team that includes people who love to do what you don’t like to do, like accounting and administration.Get technical support with finishing or implementing some of your best ideas so you can stay focused on people.Schedule plenty of time off for adventure, travel and play. Time off will inspire your creativity and keep you from going stir-crazy at the office. Pay attention to your energy and when you do your best workIN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN:the unique gifts that a Creator has for productivity (hint … overflowing with brilliant ideas for what to make next)the specific challenges that Creators encounter (hint … easily lose track of time)LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman and Mark C. WintersThe Unique Productivity Style quizhttps://youtu.be/nk-uyhqwsmcYou can also subscribe to this podcast on our Youtube channel.  TranscriptShow Transcript (4,206 More Words)Minette Riordan: We actually love that opportunity to be very intuitive and to lean-in in a more creative way into what needs to get done, so we don’t tend to love structure or being told I have to do this. Like, I have to write a blog post at Minette Riordan: If you ever said to yourself, I don’t have enough time.Brad Dobson: I am so overwhelmed.Minette Riordan: I need more clarity.Brad Dobson: I don’t know how to do this.Minette Riordan: My to-do list is miles long.Brad Dobson: I’m exhausted.Minette Riordan: There’s got to be a better way.Brad Dobson: Hi there. I’m Brad.Minette Riordan: And I’m Minette. Not only have we said all these things ourselves, but we’ve heard our community of creative entrepreneurs say them over and over again.Brad Dobson: That’s why we created the Structure and Flow podcast. I’m Structure.Minette Riordan: And I’m Flow and this is the Productivity Podcast for Creative Entrepreneurs.Brad Dobson: We believe that doing more and working harder are not the solution to your productivity challenges.Minette Riordan: We believe in more play, more fun, and more profit. Join us as we explore the interplay between Structure and Flow, so that we can bring more grace and ease to your creative business.Minette Riordan: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to episode 98 of Structure and Flow: The Productivity Podcast for Creative Entrepreneurs and we did it, Honey. I’m blowing all the papers over with my heavy sigh, so this is episode number four of our part four series on Discover Your Unique Productivity Style. Woohoo.Brad Dobson: I love it. Today we’re talking about the creator.Minette Riordan: People may think that because we talk about creatives and that our business is about creative entrepreneurs that everyone who listens to the show is a creator, but I want to make a clear distinction here between being creative and having a creator as your unique productivity style because there is a difference. Right? The way that you approach time as a creator is unique and we have many creatives in our community who show up as commanders, contemplators, and conductors as well.Brad Dobson: Yeah, everybody’s bringing that creativity to the table. This kind of tends to close things in a little bit closer in terms of a productivity style. There’s definitely some attributes that are relevant just to this person.Minette Riordan: I also think that we are all a beautiful blend of all four productivity styles and one of the secrets to really creating a productivity system or a time management system that works for you is to use these productivity styles like building blocks and to take some of the gifts and challenges that really speak to you and build a model that is just for you. The truth is, you could read David Allen’s, Get Things Done. You could read Brian Tracy’s, Eat That Frog, you could try the Pomodoro method, you could try Brad’s Focus Blocks, which we’re going to talk about in the next episode, in episode number 99. There’s so many different approaches and you may be feeling really frustrated.Minette Riordan: Maybe you’re like me and you’re a planner addict, that would be a creative thing, and you have bought every planner out there, but once you get them you find they’re completely overwhelming. This is because as the creator, the productivity has to be a match for your unique style, so quit trying to do it like everyone else and use your creativity to define a productivity style that works for you. I realize I dove right in there and we didn’t share the quote. You want to share the quote?Brad Dobson: That’s alright. She’s got a surrealist in here for the quote today. It’s a Franz Kafka quote, “Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.”Minette Riordan: I love that. “Productivity is being able to do things you were never able to do before.” I am a Kafka fan. I remember reading Kafka in university and just being really intrigued by that avant-garde, surrealist style of writing.Brad Dobson: I haven’t read any. I’m not sure, maybe my brain would explode.Minette Riordan: I don’t know. For me, it was a line with all the magical realism that I was reading in all of my Latin American studies as well.Brad Dobson: It was something my dad was into I think.Minette Riordan: Yeah, well your dad and I tend to like similar books.Brad Dobson: This is true. This is true.Minette Riordan: That is the truth. Anyway, but the way [crosstalk Brad Dobson: On to the creator.Minette Riordan: There’s a great example of the creator, squirrel, …Brad Dobson: Yeah, exactly.Minette Riordan: … being easily distracted. If you listen to episode number 97 where we talked about the conductor, we shared that the conductor is brilliant at serving and giving time to others. They truly are people people. Well, guess what? The creator is a people person often as well in terms of productivity, but your motivations are completely different. The creator, and this is so me, actually loves to be the center of attention. Right? They want to speak so that others will listen to them and be inspired by them, so you really get fed from processing verbally, from talking through your ideas with other people. Writing things down or being locked in a room by yourself to be creative is not your favorite way to make stuff or get stuff done.Brad Dobson: Yeah, it’s a funny note that Minette has here for creators. You tend to prioritize time with people over tasks and you dislike paying attention to details hoping they will magically disappear or someone else will attend to them.Minette Riordan: I’m pretty lucky to have a contemplator on my team because he’s way better at paying attention to those details that I wish would disappear.Brad Dobson: Yes, I remember all the tasks.Minette Riordan: He does remember all the tasks and it overwhelms him as the contemplator, whereas the creator, I find them easy to ignore …Brad Dobson: Mm-hmm (affirmative).Minette Riordan: … or avoid and this is a great example. If you listen to the first in this four-part series about the commander, I’m equal parts commander and creator, which is probably pretty crazing making for my business partner and spouse, …Brad Dobson: No, not at all.Minette Riordan: … the contemplator.Brad Dobson: Speaking of surrealism, …Minette Riordan: Yeah.Brad Dobson: … as a creative, you’re the most … Minette’s got to hear it … you’re the most productive of the four types.Minette Riordan: Yeah, absolutely.Brad Dobson: I really want you to sort of un …Minette Riordan: Acknowledge that, right?Brad Dobson: No, I want you to unravel that for us …Minette Riordan: Oh, you want me to unravel it.Brad Dobson: … because we’re talking about productivity, we’re on a productivity podcast and you said the most productive person, are you talking about just the sheer amount of work …Minette Riordan: Yeah.Brad Dobson: … that gets [crosstalk Minette Riordan: That’s a great question. The creator has a huge capacity for starting things. They have a pretty sucky capacity for finishing things.Brad Dobson: Gotcha. It’s not necessarily productivity.Minette Riordan: I’m not being judgy here of anyone else other than myself when I say that, but one of the things that makes us unique as creators is our ability to come up with amazing, brilliant ideas, but we need support in bringing those ideas to completion. I would invite you to look around your office or look in your computer and see how many projects you’ve started and never finished.Brad Dobson: These are the bright, shiny ideas that you jump into because it’s really fun to start something and then the luster wears off. That’s not necessarily productivity.Minette Riordan: Well, but they’re getting a lot done and the problem is that for the creator is that you’re not getting enough of the right things done, so a big reason why we started the Structure and Flow podcast and have completely rebranded From Path to Profit is because we’re seeing this happen over and over again that so many people are great starters, not great finishers and I’m learning to be a good finisher. At the same time, as a creator, we tend to have the capacity to pretty effortlessly move in and out of multiple projects at the same time. Like, I can switch between creative products pretty effortlessly. On a weekend, you might find me writing articles or content for one of our online courses, painting, and I’m in a creative depth coaching program right now and I’m making lots of collage and doing deep interpersonal work, which has been just a crazy thing.Brad Dobson: That’s interesting because I think I struggle to … I want to get up a head of steam with a creative project and really get into it and not let go of it. I’m not really tempted to bounce around as much.Minette Riordan: When you look at the two approaches to how … Well, actually the four approaches to how these styles manage time as well as manage projects, it can really give you deep insights into what’s going to work for you. What I notice is I can get super excited and get three quarters of the way down a path and then get distracted by another idea and not complete an idea, so where Brad is my biggest gift is helping me to bring ideas to completion or before I go down the path of a new project, to ask is this really going to serve our business, is it in alignment with our quarterly projects and with our annual goals? Learning to ask myself some better questions about why I want to go down that path and what I think I will get from it.Brad Dobson: How are creators with time management?Minette Riordan: We tend to be pretty much outside of time and I wouldn’t say this is actually really true of me. I’m very conscious of time and in part that was how I was raised to be very respectful and conscious of other people’s time, but we can tend to completely forget about time, especially when we have the opportunity to be in creative flow. We actually love that opportunity to be very intuitive and to lean-in in a more creative way into what need to get done, so we don’t tend to love structure or being told I have to do this. Like, I have to write a blog post at Brad Dobson: I [crosstalk Minette Riordan: … the creator than any other productivity style.Brad Dobson: Let’s dive in this a little more deeply. A typical creator, how are they going to do in a small team, as a business owner, maybe a solopreneur? How are they going to be able to tackle all of the let’s say non-creative things that have to happen in a business on a schedule when all they really want to do is jump into that next bright, shiny idea or have fun developing their newest, coolest thing?Minette Riordan: We talked before, another one of our favorite books, I know someone that listens to our podcast recently said, “Wow, you guys read a lot of books and mention a lot of great resources,” and it’s because one of our shared core values is continuous improvement and we are constantly learning and looking for ways that we can grow ourselves and our business. One of the ones we read three or four years ago that had a big impact for us was Rocket Fuel. I can’t remember the authors right now. Mark Winters, I believe. We’ll put it in the show notes for you, but Rocket Fuel is about visionaries and integrators. Commanders and creators often tend to fall on the visionary side. We need integrators, meaning we need a team of people around us to help set us up for success. It’s not our natural gift to use time blocking or to use focus blocks, you know, some of the strategies that we talk a lot about with our clients and that we’ll be sharing more about here on the podcast, so I would say to answer that question, get support like the conductor. You don’t have to do this all by yourself. Find accountability partners, but also trust your …Brad Dobson: That aren’t like you.Minette Riordan: … intuition. Yeah, find accountability partners that aren’t like you. Get four creatives together, and nothing gets done except a lot of happy sharing of ideas. I’ve been in a few masterminds like that and it’s not very productive. Also, be conscious of time and use technology as your best friends and gift as opposed to a distraction. So many of us love Netflix binges. Actually, this week Brad and I totally binged on Amazon Prime, on the new Harry Bosch series, which we love.Brad Dobson: Favorite.Minette Riordan: We’re big Michael Connelly fans as well and so the Bosch series, it’s season four, it was amazing. It was every night we couldn’t wait to finish dinner, get the kitchen cleaned, …Brad Dobson: Yeah, it was a treat.Minette Riordan: … and go watch Bosch. Pay attention to how you’re spending time. One of the things I highly, highly recommend for any productivity style, but in particular for the creator, is to do a time audit. Take a week and track your time for a whole week. Like, every 30 minutes, pay attention, so that’s one thing. There’s a great app called ATracker that it makes it so easy to do this on your smartphone or on your desktop. Another one is Toggle, T-O-G-G-L dot com is another one and really pay attention to how you’re spending your time. I also highly encourage creators to use timers, so to use timers to remind you …Brad Dobson: Like and egg timer?Minette Riordan: Like an egg timer or we love the Insight timer on our phone …Brad Dobson: Mm-hmm (affirmative).Minette Riordan: … is a great one. It has beautiful sounds as opposed to annoying, beeping sounds, but set yourself up to switch gears, to use focus blocks. Like I said, we’re going to talk about that in the next show, but set yourself up to pay more attention and be mindful of time. This is just a practice. I also think creators do kind of a deep dive into the whole mindset around while I’m creative I don’t need to manage my time and BS, right? I’m going to call you on that.Brad Dobson: Sure.Minette Riordan: We shared an awesome quote in the last show, which was by Peter Drucker that “Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing.” Stop telling yourself that you can’t manage your time. It truly is a choice. I don’t usually get harsh on these calls, but as speaking to myself as someone who is very creative and loves to go with the flow and follow the energy, that doesn’t work when it comes to building a profitable business. It requires structure and systems that then allow you to really enjoy the uninterrupted creative time, but you have to schedule your uninterrupted creative time. Another mindset shift for creators is we think we have to have eight hours. That we have to have a whole day set aside to be creative. I can’t write my book in five minutes here or 15 minutes there. I can’t do a painting, I can’t do this.Brad Dobson: Oh, I agree with that. I don’t like working that way.Minette Riordan: You learn, right? I learned this really early on being a mom and running a business, of two little bitty ones. I started my first business when my kids were three and one and I had to learn how to work in small spurts. I didn’t have long days where I could dive in. When I wrote my dissertation, I did. I would write for eight or 10 hours a day.Brad Dobson: Sure.Minette Riordan: Do research eight or 10 hours a day. I had the luxury of time. Most of us don’t have the luxury of lengths of time unless you set your schedule up that way. If you want to whole day to write, then go put it in your calendar and commit to yourself you’re going to show up and write for eight hours. If that’s the way you work, great, but don’t use the excuse that you don’t have time. You have all the time you need and you have as much time as everyone else.Brad Dobson: How can creators get off the starting a whole bunch of things and not finishing them train? I know for certain that part of that is just not starting all of the things that you think are cool ideas. I mean, you need to find some balance, so that you feel like you’re getting your creativity in, but I think it’s important that we delve into that a little bit in terms of so that we can help creators be people that finish things. It’s okay to have lots of unfinished projects, but more often than not, we want to come up with projects that are really effective for your business, help your creativity, that you get done. What can we do to help people with that?Minette Riordan: That’s such a great question. A couple of things come to mind. First, I would always keep an idea book or a brain dump book, some kind of a journal or a Google Keep file. We love Google Keep or Evernote, whatever your favorite way of capturing ideas, keep all of your ideas. As the creator, this is your gift to the world. You are a brilliant problem solver. You see connections where other people don’t, so it’s so important to capture all of your ideas. The trick is to only focus on one idea at once in terms of building, implementing, and delivering. What I have found is that if you just love on and honor those ideas and say, “I see you, I receive you,” and capture it in whatever way feels [prayful Minette Riordan: The second thing is you need a business plan. Creators more than any other types, although I would say every business owner needs a business plan. You need a roadmap that shows exactly what it is that you want to build, why you’re building it, and where you’re going.Brad Dobson: Wait, you mean you don’t get to just be free and easy and keep doing neat things?Minette Riordan: Yeah, I tried that. Right? My company made a lot of money, but I didn’t. Right?Brad Dobson: Sure.Minette Riordan: I learned the hard way about how important it is to really have that plan in place and that plan should be flexible. For the creator especially, you need flexibility more than anything else. For me, plans are more like guardrails. They’re kind of the things that you bounce between, back and forth, but you can also test your ideas and I think this was something you really helped me understand how to do more effectively by pulling me out of idea mode even though you’d get caught up in new ideas, too.Brad Dobson: Oh, sure.Minette Riordan: We both love that.Brad Dobson: Yeah.Minette Riordan: Helping us always ask the question, is this idea or project or book or whatever it is that you’re thinking about, going to move me closer to my goals or further away from my goals?Brad Dobson: Yeah, and sometimes it’s just a sanity check and you need another brain to bounce that off of. Why don’t we wrap up by summarizing the great parts about the creator, some of their challenges, and what bullets we can give them to take away?Minette Riordan: Awesome, great. The creator from a productivity style gets almost too much done without understanding how to focus in on the idea that’s most likely to make them money in their business. Learning to focus. The ideas are your gift, your ability to stand in front of people and inspire and motivate or to create products and services that are inspirational and motivational, whether that’s a picture on the wall or a wedding video, doesn’t matter. Right? It only matters that the work you do really connects deeply with people and your work is needed in the world. What the creator needs to focus on is the back-end side of running your business in a way that feels totally aligned. They can do that by managing their ideas a little bit more effectively, having a plan in place, building a team. We talked about that earlier. Having support. You do not have to build your business alone. Having your VA just one or two hours a week to take some of the details off your plate can bring you so much peace of mind and then you get to recapture those hours for doing your creative projects.Brad Dobson: Good stuff and I think you’ve got down here schedule lots of time for adventure and travel and play as well, which sounds like fun [crosstalk Minette Riordan: Yeah.Brad Dobson: … with the summer coming up.Minette Riordan: The creators need to have that play time. Right? It’s so important.Brad Dobson: Yeah, I think we all do, but especially the creators.Minette Riordan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I would say get technical support as well. I married my technical support.Brad Dobson: Well, I like [crosstalk Minette Riordan: I didn’t marry him because of the technical support.Brad Dobson: Yeah, I like think you married me for another reason than that.Minette Riordan: I did because I love you.Brad Dobson: It was probably my hair.Minette Riordan: Yeah, and we’re celebrating this week when this episode is coming out, we’re celebrating our 23rd wedding anniversary.Brad Dobson: Wow.Minette Riordan: Woohoo. Yay us.Brad Dobson: Incredible. My parents just sent me an email, said they celebrated their 55th.Minette Riordan: 55th, 55.Brad Dobson: Can you imagine?Minette Riordan: Yeah, I hope we get to 55.Brad Dobson: That’s a lot of podcast episodes.Minette Riordan: We started a little later. That is a lot of podcast episodes. Yeah, schedule plenty of time for play, adventure, and time off. Your love of making stuff and doing things can overwhelm you. I noticed, I was telling Brad this morning I was feeling a little tired. He’s like, “Maybe you’ve been working too much?” I’m like, “Oh, there’s my commander and my creator both coming to the foreground.”Brad Dobson: [crosstalk Minette Riordan: Managing your time is a choice. You can do it, we believe in you, and the world needs your creative ideas, so keep creating.Brad Dobson: Great stuff. You have now gone through all of our unique productivity styles.Minette Riordan: Yep.Brad Dobson: The commander, the contemplator, the conductor, and the creator. If you’re just new to this, hop on over to PathtoProfitAcademy.com/UPSQuiz, PathtoProfitAcademy.com/UPSQuiz. We’ll have that in the show notes. It’s a quick quiz you can take. You’ll get the results emailed to you in a nice PDF and we really feel like between these podcast episodes, some blog posts, and those results, you should be able to take your productivity to the next level by just understanding that much more about yourself.Minette Riordan: Yep. In the next episode, episode number 99, we’re going to be talking about Focus Blocks and how Brad, our awesome contemplator, is using these to increase his daily productivity. It’s going to be epic.Brad Dobson: I’m wondering, maybe I should copyright those or something.Minette Riordan: What? Your Focus Blocks?Brad Dobson: Yeah.Minette Riordan: Yeah.Brad Dobson: We’ll see.Minette Riordan: I don’t know. You need to start sharing out your little typed up things on the binder rings. He’s got all kinds of creative digital ways that he’s making the Focus Blocks work that we’ll share.Brad Dobson: You guys will, you’ll enjoy it.Minette Riordan: It’s going to be fun. See you next week.Brad Dobson: Bye. Thanks for listening to Structure and Flow: The Productivity Podcast for Creative Entrepreneurs. To find out more about this episode and others, go to PathtoProfitAcademy.com and click on the podcast link. The post Episode 98: Discover Your Unique Productivity Style Part 4 – The Creator appeared first on Path to Profit Academy.