Keys to Consistency for Content Creation
You are what you repeatedly do, and as a creative who was overworking himself as a nurse, I struggled to identify as a creative looking at the lack of current creative projects. I want to be a content creator. This requires that I would be able to show up to my creative space and let expression and fulfillment come into my life but as we know life also has other plans evident by the obstacles that get in the way.
I decided to look for solutions to this struggle by looking at my workplace. As much as a we would like for everything to be perfect in the healthcare field, that is not the case, yet so much gets done, especially the routine things. Progress is made and growth is even established. One day I was new dialysis nurse orientee and five years later I’m a more experienced dialysis nurse orienting others.
Here are some things that helped me grow in nursing that can also be applied to helping us grow as a content creatives, or whatever endeavor that you have.
Schedule time and protect it. “What isn’t planned, isn’t [going to get] done,” as said by Heather Torres. Nursing is very routine with it’s patient assessments, medications and of course, documentation. No matter what, we make time to get this done no matter how things get busy, even if we have to stay longer. For content creation, I slack in following my scheduled time and I hardly hold myself accountable to finish some kind of regular work like writing or editing. Guilt and shame built up and I associated myself as a failure, thus further putting me in a spiral that avoided content creation.
To help with this, I’ve continued to refine my schedule, make a checklist of daily must do’s, and essential things to do for the week. Even when we miss our goals, we still learn, and what we measure, gets improved. What I learned was how long it took for me to accomplish my tasks and identify my poor habits (checking my phone and irregular long breaks) that kept me from accomplishing my real goals.
Develop Your System and leverage it to be ahead. What works best for you? Do you like checklists? Do you need a whiteboard? Do you work better with music? Do you work best at a certain part of the day? Double down on your strengths. As a nurse, you anticipate things to get busy, even on a calm day, you set yourself to be ahead. I don’t know about you but I prefer to be ahead and wait for the day to finish rather than be bombarded last minute getting home late because I couldn’t get my work done on time with the things happening around me.
As a part-time content creator (still not earning money at this point), it’s hard to enjoy your day off when you working on your side hustle. You friends want to go out with you, you may have forgotten to do your laundry, do your grocery shopping, or even worse, cook rice! Working from home is difficult already, but figuring out your schedule alongside your system of operation through trial and error can’t be avoided. So be the boss not of your company, but your time and method of making progress.
You’re not a failure. Show up like you belong here! Although life happens and things get in the way of our productivity hours and publish schedules, it doesn’t mean that we start from zero. A nurse in their first year is still new, but he or she is not relearning everything all over again. He or she is only building upon their foundation as he or she continues to show up to work. Once you established your regular routine whether it’s weekly or bi-weekly, you’ve started to gain momentum. Keep it up! It’s true that one of the hardest parts to anything is actually starting the thing! If you miss your weekly routine, it’s ok. You can do it a day or even two days later. Just show up! You’ve made so much progress now that you can’t afford to make excuses to quit. If content creation is something that you want and something you are impressed that is a calling to you, then show up! You already know what it’s like to hide. It’s time to rise and shine!
“I don’t have time for it.” Are we saying this only because we don’t want to sacrifice our Netflix time? Video game time? Social time? If this is something that is important to us, we will find the time, but not only that, we will prioritize that time. If there is any key to consistency, it’s time leveraged. Regret won’t create an opportunity that time was able to make. You have everything you need to begin. See you on the other side of the publish button.
