As a creative business owner, a well-structured life for me is one that’s full of meaning and purpose – not just consistency, deadlines, and goals. All are useful and valuable, but only within the context of doing work that you love and that’s on purpose for you.If some of these foundational structures aren’t in place, the progress is going to be slow. It’s going to impact productivity.And you can’t be creative when you’re in a place of overwhelm, scrambling, chaos, or working at the last second on deadlines. Flow works when it’s calm, when there’s downtime, when there’s breathing space, when there’s gentle movement.“Habits are sacred because they give deliberate structure to our lives. Structure gives us a sense of security. And that sense of security is the ground of meaning.” – Robert Fulghum3 Benefits of Living a Well-Structured LifeOne benefit is that you don’t feel overwhelmed, chaotic, or out of control. You actually feel safe inside the boundaries of your structure and inside those boundaries, you have a lot of freedom and flow.There’s a myth that creatives need a massive amount of flow. Yet remember, we’ve talked about the principal of creative constraints before. We’re actually more creative when we have constraints. For example, many books and articles have been written on the routines of CEOs or of the rich and famous. Having a morning routine is essential to starting your day off right.My own morning routine begins with some coffee. I do some reading or studying, give myself five or ten minutes while I wake up to surf social media, but no more than that. By the time I’m done with my coffee and a little reading, I get a walk in, and maybe do some journaling or some art, so there’s a whole lot that happens for me before I sit down to my desk to go to work.The biggest impact that I see is in my mindset for the day.The second benefit to living a well-structured life is having more security and spaciousness. Many of you will remember how much your children craved structure. Typically, they want to eat on a schedule, go to bed on a schedule, and nap on a schedule. In addition to the time structure, they also want the structure of love and support from their parents and from their friends.We’ll dig more into this and also reveal the third benefit in the full podcast. See you on YouTube!IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN:How living a well-structured life can have a profound impact on creative productivityWhat happens when you don’t have clear systems in placeHow to begin designing your well-structured life  LINKS:The Importance of Having a Structured LifestyleThe Structured Life: Rigid or Creative?10 Ways To Know You Need Structure In Your Life! 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! https://youtu.be/pnp6r6L7m8QYou can also subscribe to this podcast on our Youtube channel.TranscriptShow Transcript (5,238 More Words)Minette Riordan: Have 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.Hello, and welcome to Structure and Flow. I’m Doctor Minette Riordan here with the fabulous Brad Dobson. We are the co-founders are the Path to Profit Academy and the host of the Structure and Flow podcast, where we bring you great details, information, and a lot of ramblings and musings about topics related to structure and flow.Brad Dobson: But we’re productive doing it. It’s about productivity.Minette Riordan: It is about productivity and it’s about productivity, and creativity, and it’s about the tension between the two of them and why there seems to be this myth that creatives aren’t productive. I think we just do productivity a little bit differently than other people.Brad Dobson: And we’re really going to dive into that deeply today, talking about a structured life, and just what it means to live a structured life and how that can … how that might make you feel really bad as a creative, or make you think that it sounds terrible, and how it can have a profound impact on your productivity. So this is episode 114, three benefits of living a well structured life.Minette Riordan: And I’m kind of obsessed with this topic right now, of the well structured life, the intentional life, the well built, well designed. We’ve talked in other episodes a little bit about this. This may be a little more of a philosophical episode than a practical how to episode, but I think at the end, you’ll be able to determine, do you need more structure in your life or not, which leads right into our quote for the day which is from Robert Fulghum. He writes, habits are sacred because they give deliberate structure to our lives. Structure gives us a sense of security, and that sense of security is the ground of meaning.”Brad Dobson: Yeah, absolutely. I get that. And I think it’s funny that you’re talking about how you’re obsessed right now, and I think in my own way, I am as well. I’m looking at things like a personal maintenance schedule for maintaining things, everything, whether it’s in the business, on my person, or-Minette Riordan: Around the house, yeah.Brad Dobson: -around the house. There’s a lot of things that without structure, maybe I just realized late in the game, oh, that really needs to get done as opposed to having the structure that says, yeah, you really should maybe clean the air filters at this point.Minette Riordan: You know and like your car makes it really easy, ’cause you get something that pops up and says, hey, it’s time for that oil change or they put the little sticker up in the corner in the window, where you’re constantly reminded that you’re getting closer and closer to the moment when you need to take it into the shop. We have a Toyota and so we get an email that says it’s time for maintenance. So there’s external things in place that hold us accountable to getting these things done. For most of us who are business owners, we don’t have that external accountability. One of the reasons so many of us love working for ourselves, is actually the lack of accountability and having more freedom and flexibility.Brad Dobson: Yeah, let’s go to Starbucks right now, maybe in the middle of a podcast.Minette Riordan: Yes, yeah. Starbucks, don’t get me started. Oh, yes.Brad Dobson: Or the beach.Minette Riordan: Or the beach, yes, we could do both.Brad Dobson: Exactly.Minette Riordan: Get our Starbucks and go to the beach. So we have the flexibility and luxury to do that, and on occasion we do do that, and it’s usually intentional. Even that is intentional and it usually follows on a day where we have some creative work that we know we could do, whether we were sitting at Starbucks or at the beach. But the reason why I think I’m feeling so obsessed with this idea of the well structured life, is that when you have a well structured life, it’s the one that supports your best self and allows you to really optimize your time so that you’re doing your best work.Brad Dobson: Right.Minette Riordan: And I think this is what we want to get to in regards to productivity and creativity. Productivity is not about doing more, just more, and more, and more for the sake of doing more. Productivity is having the intention of doing your best work and it requires focus, and it requires structure. And yet in all honesty, it’s easy for me to resist a structure that someone else places on me.Brad Dobson: It’s funny too and I’m thinking about something you had in the notes, and something I saw in the articles that we’ll have links to from this episode, for those of you who are parents-Minette Riordan: Yes.Brad Dobson: -many of you will remember how much your children craved structure. That might not be just time structure, but typically they want to eat on a schedule, they want to go to bed on a schedule, they want to have their nap time on a schedule, they want to … but they also want the structure of love and support from their parents, so the structure of friends, and those types of things.Minette Riordan: Boundaries, it’s clear boundaries of what’s normal, acceptable-Brad Dobson: Right.Minette Riordan: And that if they push the boundaries and you bounce back that the boundaries aren’t flexible-Brad Dobson: Yeah, we always found that any major change, for instance, going on vacation, or the end of school, or whatever it was, it was a two week horror period.Minette Riordan: Yeah, readjusting.Brad Dobson: Right, until they got back onto a schedule. But everything flowed so smoothly when they were on a schedule. Now of course, everybody’s kids have their ups and downs, but without that schedule they were a mess.Minette Riordan: Yeah, and imagine what it’s like every day when you have no boundaries, no structure, no schedule, your life may be a mess as well. I find that I am happier when I have a cadence and a rhythm to my days. So if we think of structure as a loose container rather than as a forced structure of time, but more, this is what really matters to get done today. It doesn’t matter the order that it gets done, but these are the things I commit to do today that are going to help me feel awesome and amazing. So when I think about structure, I don’t want to think about it being restrictive. I think this is where we get caught up in this tension.Brad Dobson: Right, it doesn’t have to happen at Minette Riordan: That’s right, and so this is … the whole point of this show is to help you understand how structure supports flow. It doesn’t contain flow or reduce or restrict flow, but it actually creates opportunity for more flow. I want to talk about what can possibly happen, or some of the signs that you might seeing when you’re not living a structured life.Brad Dobson: Yeah, one that was interesting, when I went through those articles, was a messy house or a messy room.Minette Riordan: Been there, done that.Brad Dobson: A lot of times, that’s an indication of perhaps an unstructured life flowing out of you. I don’t know if I said that right, but it was an interesting comment.Minette Riordan: Yeah, well one of the articles had 10 ways to know if you need more structure in your life, and they were things like, you talk a lot and don’t actually take action, or you’re not doing your best work, you’re doing the bare minimum to get by, which was totally me in college. I was great at just kind of doing the bare minimum. The first time being out on my own, not having structure all of a sudden, I had three classes a week instead of my days being full of classes. So there’s a lot of things that can happen and also that you miss things and forget things because you’re trying to hold too much in your head, that’s another sign of needing structure. I’ve certainly been particularly guilty of that, of trying to hold too much in my mind and not keep track of it.But there’s a great quote from a guy named Dr. Olson and I love his definition of structure. He talks about structure as a way of gaining control over oneself and ones environment. He says that structure saves time and brings order. Like habit and routine, it frees the mind of clutter. When structures breaks down, we get easily overwhelmed and worry stands in the way of productive action.Brad Dobson: Right, so once again, we talked about this before where you’re forcing your brain to make all these little micro decisions about things that you really didn’t need to spend time worrying about. With just a little bit of structure in place, you could have avoided that and with that, then flowed into more creativity, and more productivity.Minette Riordan: So one of the three benefits of living a well structured life is you don’t feel overwhelmed, or chaotic, or out of control. You actually feel safe inside the boundaries of your structure and inside those boundaries, you have a lot of freedom, and a lot of flow. There’s actually a myth that creatives needs massive … a myth, myth … that creatives need a massive amount of flow, and we need reasonable amounts of flow. Yet remember, we’ve talked on this show before I think about the principal of creative constraints, that we’re actually more creative when we have constraints. So think about that on a day to day basis, and it makes me thing about those idea morning routines. There have been so many books and articles written on the routines of being a CEOs, or the routines of the rich and famous people. There’s all these things about how essential having a morning routine is to starting your day off right.A morning routine is a great example of the structure and inside that structure, there’s usually beautiful flow. I’m really happy with my morning routine most of the time. So right now, that morning routine looks like I get up, I make coffee, I sit down, I do some reading or studying, and forgot to turn my email off so it’s binging in the background while we’re recording the podcast. So morning routine, have some coffee, I do some reading or studying, I might give myself five or ten minutes while I wake up to surf social media a little bit, but no more than that. By the time I’m done with my coffee and a little reading, I get a walk in, and maybe do some journaling or some art, so there’s a whole lot that happens for me before I sit down to my desk to go to work. The biggest impact that I see is in my mindset for the day.So this morning in particular, we know we have a busy day, we need to get a couple podcast recorded, we’re getting ready to go on vacation, and there was this little bit of sense of chaos, because I hadn’t finished doing some of the prep work. The structures are in place to not have that chaos and I don’t like my days to start from a feeling of where I’m scrambling and I’m behind the eight ball instead of really in control.Brad Dobson: Yeah, and I think it’s interesting you went with the morning stuff. Obviously it’s crucial and it sets you up for performing-Minette Riordan: It’s crucial for me.Brad Dobson: -yeah, for performing better throughout the day. I think a lot of times I run into structure problems in the afternoons when … you know, in the mornings I can get up and go, but sometimes when there’s a loose structure about an afternoon, I tend to get off track and not get back on track. It’s easy to just kind of lose any impetus to do things because I don’t have some sort of structure around that. I think we … maybe we’re saying the word structure too much. We should come up with a different word for this.Minette Riordan: Well, I think it’s … for me, it is flow. It’s like, how do you want your day to flow, how … it’s what we talked about before with the time blocks, and the focus blocks, and it’s using the timer on your phone to remind you to stand up and take a break. That’s an example of creating systems throughout the day that support you in moving forward with your priorities. I want to shift for a minute and just talk about what happens in your business when you don’t have clear systems in place. I won’t use the structure word. But when you don’t have clear containers and priorities in place, is that you feel again, super overwhelmed, you don’t make progress towards your goals, you don’t make as much money as you want to make because you’re not completing projects or getting a new piece of art, or a new play, or a new video up for your Patreon account. So when there’s no visible deadlines in place, or no containers for getting work completed, it has a huge impact on your productivity.When it impacts your productivity, the after effect of that is your mindset. Then all of a sudden, you either feel guilty or you go into shame and blame, and you start to look at, I suck at business, I’m not making any money, this isn’t going to work, I’m going to have to go back and get a job, when the truth is if you just take a deep breath and back up for a minute, and look at what are the goals that you set for yourself, and are you staying on track, and are you setting deadlines that are doable and achievable. So we’ll talk a little bit more about that in some of our strategies. I’m going to tell you how to create a well structured life here in a few minutes.Brad Dobson: You know, it’s interesting, along those lines or what’s coming out of this for me, is that some of the things we work with our clients on in terms of setting up a visual business plan, terms of going through a core values exercise, those really represent living a well structured life. So this isn’t all about how you respond to different times during the day. Structure or container as Minette said, can come in different forms. So having … being able to make decisions in the context of having well stated and well understood core values, is providing yourself with a well structure life or business. Similarly for a business plan that you have set up in front of you, or a project definition or anything like that. So it’s not just about time. It’s about having those structures and providing yourself with a context that you can make decisions about time with.Minette Riordan: Yeah, absolutely. I think it connects back to that idea of knowing your big why. When it comes to building your own business, we’re big fans of making sure that you understand what’s the impact that you want to have. That well structured life for me is one that’s full of meaning and purpose, so it’s not just the consistency, and the deadlines, and the goals. All those things are useful and valuable, but they’re only useful and valuable within the context of are you doing work that you love, are you doing work that’s on purpose. If you don’t have some of these foundational structures in place, the progress is going to be slow. It is going to impact productivity.You can’t be creative when you’re in a place of overwhelm, when you’re scrambling, or chaotic, or you’re always procrastinating and working at the last second on deadlines. This impacts productivity. Flow works when it’s calm, when there’s down time, when there’s breathing space, when there’s gentle movement, and when there’s not this feeling of rushing and having to get it done right now. So it’s super important that that well structured life, so I love that, that Brad said that. So we’ve looked at, there’s the emotional impact of not having a well structured life. When it is the physical structure and container, the calendar, the planner, it improves your mindset and improves your productivity.Strategically, it improves your profits and it helps you grow your business.Brad Dobson: Oh, sure.Minette Riordan: But then also the third benefit, I think is clarity. Is when you … A well structured life sort of rests on this space of I know who I am, I know what I value, I know what I’m doing, I know who I’m doing it for, and why I’m doing it-Brad Dobson: And where you’re going.Minette Riordan: -and where you’re going.Brad Dobson: In terms of the visualization, so we talked [crosstalk Minette Riordan: That’s that who, what … you know, the who, what, and why piece isn’t just about your clients, it’s about your family, and your friends, and your spouse, and your pets for those of you, I’m totally been obsessed with all the little baby, happy goats lately.Brad Dobson: Oh Lord.Minette Riordan: In our Productivity for Creative Entrepreneurs Facebook group, I posted one of one of these baby goats doing his happy dance. Oh my gosh, it’s the most hilarious thing, right? It’s just these noticing these moments of-Brad Dobson: But do you think that that goat had structure around him?Minette Riordan: He did.Brad Dobson: He was happier because he didn’t have structure.Minette Riordan: No, he was … well, he had a bottle right beside him, he was a tiny little goat, but he was in a pen.Brad Dobson: He felt safe.Minette Riordan: He felt totally safe inside his structure to be really happy. It’s just like kids. Another great example of that is the kid who goes down the slide at the playground and they fall off the end, bonk their head, and it happens and it’s so painful to watch. Then they stand up and they look around. If they see mom, or dad, they burst into tears because the safe place is there. But guess what? If they don’t see mom or dad, and they don’t see somebody going huuu, are you okay? Then guess what? They shake it off and they go back to play. So it’s noticing how these containers create safe places for us to be more expressive, and more authentic, and to live that meaningful life.Brad Dobson: Interesting. So at some level, and I remember this also from the articles, at some level if you’re not living a well structured life, and perhaps there’s some chaos in your life, you’re not providing yourself, whoever defines you, with a safe place to do your best work. So it’s a safety thing to a certain extent.Minette Riordan: It is. Yeah, structure has a lot to do, and systems have a lot to do with freedom. Yet we think it’s about control, we think it’s about people telling us when to do something. Trust me, Brad and I have done a lot of our own emotional growth and personal development work around our inner rebel saying, don’t you tell me what to do.Brad Dobson: Yeah, right.Minette Riordan: It’s so easy and having both worked in jobs where you get told what to do, we’ve watched our son have this experience, and having his first summer job, and [chiefing Brad Dobson: Well, it means freedom from fear though, is kind of what we’re getting at.Minette Riordan: Well, I don’t know, being a business owner has lots of other fears.Brad Dobson: well, that’s true.Minette Riordan: But what it doesn’t have is someone else … it’s not the giant hand coming down on top of you saying, you know, you’re going to work this way or leave, and it’s freedom from some of the pressure of deadlines. But even when I owned a publishing company that was printing a magazine every single month, there was huge amount of pressure and deadlines, but they were pressure and deadlines of my own choosing. It was my company. So just noticing what is your relationship with structure, does this whole conversation piss you off and you’re like, I don’t need structure, does this whole conversation really connect with your inner rebel and you’re going, I don’t need structure, I can’t be creative when I have structure.The other myth about this whole concept of the need for creative time, if you read any of the great artists and especially so many of the great writers, they talk about how creativity is an intentional habit. Well, so is business, and so is structure, and so is building a well structured meaningful life. It’s putting habits into place, like Brad said, that minimize distractions and minimize that decision making power and create freedom. Right? Boundaries actually make us feel really safe. So I promise you this is going to be a little bit more of a philosophical conversation, but I think it’s something that we were missing a decade ago when we were both working full time, we were raising young kids-Brad Dobson: Well, to a certain extent, you’re the tail and not the tiger in that case, right?Minette Riordan: Yeah.Brad Dobson: You have a full time job and you’re told what to do in that, and you come home, and you have two kids and it’s clear what you need to do there. Then you got house maintenance, and it’s clear what you need to do there, and after that there’s no other time.Minette Riordan: Yeah, and it’s not the life that we personally would have chosen for ourselves, but we found ourself in that place and it’s been a decade journey to getting our life to where it really is, well structured. Yet even inside of this, there’s room for more, like Brad talked about the personal maintenance schedule for things, little small things around the house, having a regular schedule for checking the fire detectors-Brad Dobson: Exactly.Minette Riordan: -so that they don’t wake you up at Brad Dobson: Yeah.Minette Riordan: [crosstalk Brad Dobson: There’s always something like that. So how can we design a well structured life?Minette Riordan: I think you have to practice. I think that’s … we’ve been, for the last year, in a place where we’re practicing, so as creatives, we don’t like to be told what to do. As independent adults, we don’t like to be told what to do. So I’m not telling you at all what your routine should look like. I am suggesting you try some routines on and that you see what fits, and what’s a match, and what improves your flexibility. One of the things I was talking about with another one of my clients this week, is she’s like, “I’m paying attention to my energy throughout the day so that I make sure that I’m most effective in doing some of those harder tasks, or some of the more creative tasks when I have the most energy.” So it’s learning to match routines with energy, and it’s learning to prioritize what’s most important. So that’s part of it. I know you want to talk about the smart goals. You like the smart goals.Brad Dobson: Smart goals, sorry, my mind has just gone, it took a break.Minette Riordan: You mean I was just talking on, and on, and on, and you totally zoned me out?Brad Dobson: I don’t know. I had been somewhere else, clearly not a productive moment. Smart goals are just … you’ve probably heard of them, you heard us talk about them, it’s a classic statement in terms of things that are achievable, time specific-Minette Riordan: Specific, measurable, actionable, results oriented, and time oriented.Brad Dobson: Right. So clearly that’s a lot different than your New Year’s resolution, which is I’m going to lose 50 pounds and I’m going to go to the gym every day. So these are things more like a … for those of you who have done couch to 5K, you might have heard of that, where it’s a program that will take you from the couch to being able to finish a 5K, your neighborhood 5K race. That’s the way you should approach things, start small. A couch to 5K program will typically just get you out the door for half an hour of walking, and maybe one minute of running to start, and it will slowly progress you through a little bit more running each week, or each month. You can take it whatever progress you want.Minette Riordan: I love how many sports analogies are like exactly the same for business.Brad Dobson: Yeah, right.Minette Riordan: Right? I mean so many of the things that they teach you about training, about weight loss, right, they all apply.Brad Dobson: So something like that that’s achievable, right? Where you can actually … it’s not something that’s hard to do, you can do it, you can get used to doing it, and then you can level up a little bit.Minette Riordan: And the timelines are reasonable, that you’re … I think this is, you know, we talked in, I don’t know, the last episode or the one before that. I can’t remember now. But we just talked about timelines and how timelines can help you manage that sense of possibility.Brad Dobson: Yep, just another framework around things, to put things in context.Minette Riordan: Yeah, and every single aspect of your business deserves your time and attention, and every single aspect of your life does as well. So I could replace the word structure with intention. To say living an intentional life, and for me, an intentional life is when we’re in presence, where I’m paying attention, where I’m not just letting time pass by. There are some weeks that seem full, and busy, and kind of crazy, and all of a sudden you get to Friday and you’re like, where did the time go. For me, that’s not intentional living. I get off my routines, that’s not intentional living. If I’m not making time to be creative, I’m not living intentionally. If I’m not spending time with my daughter who’s coming home on Saturday after being gone all summer, we can’t wait to see her. So for me, being very intentional with how I am spending my time, and also where I’m putting my attention, right?Brad Dobson: Right.Minette Riordan: I think intentional living maybe is a different way of looking at structure.Brad Dobson: Yeah, that’s a great word and it’s also in opposition to living in chaos. Whether you’re living in … it’s hard to live in chaos intentionally. There are very few people that actually crave that. More power to you if you’re that person. I love that though, intention. A well intentioned life is a similar type of thing.Minette Riordan: Yeah, we could change the name of the whole podcast.Brad Dobson: No. No, I think we’re good. We don’t need to change again.Minette Riordan: So this is how our creative brains think here.Brad Dobson: Right.Minette Riordan: So just to kind of recap, why should you even consider living a well structured or well intentioned life? Because it eliminates overwhelm, it increases productivity, it actually allows for more flow, and it works best when it’s created on a foundation that is grounded in your core values, and in your vision, and in your mission. It’s really important to look at what it is that you want to accomplish and create a plan for getting there. Underneath all of that, just bringing this idea of intention and mindfulness to the act of building a creative business is a game changer from my perspective.Brad Dobson: I think the final thing I would say about that is consistency. That mindfulness practice of seeing what you’re doing, seeing your intention, and doing it over, and over, and over again, is where things are going to work, but you have to be prepared to commit and be consistent.Minette Riordan: Then tracking. When it’s not working, why not to be willing to have some of those difficult conversations with yourself about what’s not working, which leads me right into what we’re going to talk about on the next show, which I know is going to be a hot, juicy topic. We’re going to talk about procrastination.Brad Dobson: Oh boy.Minette Riordan: What are the causes, symptoms, and what’s the psychology behind why we procrastinate. Often times, creatives are accused of being procrastinators and that’s not always the case. So we’re going to dig into issues around procrastination.Brad Dobson: I’m not an amateur procrastinator, I’m a pro-crastinator.Minette Riordan: You’re a pro-fessional pro-crastinator.Brad Dobson: Cool. All righty, have fun and live that well intentioned, well structured life.Minette Riordan: Amen.Brad Dobson: 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 114: 3 Benefits of Living a Well-Structured Life appeared first on Path to Profit Academy.