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Submitted by innowen on Thu, 2006-07-13 07:11.

Many of us meander through life wondering if we can do more, be more and what we can do to leave our mark. We question our place in this hectic world of corporations and consumerism. We seek ways to refine and redefine our true selves. I know I do. I go through phases where I wonder if the path I live makes me happy. If the company I work for helps me to become the person I want to be tomorrow. If the answers of who I am and whether my creative projects align with the mark I desire to leave upon this world. My personal “I was HERE” stamp. My life consists deeply of weaving my career, home and spiritual path into a cohesive whole. Creating a personal mission statement can help ensure who you are and what you do continues to blend harmoniously together.

Personal mission statements reflect an individual’s sense of purpose and meaning in life. It defines who you are, what you want to focus on, and how you can mold yourself over time. It’s a tool that can help focus your energy, actions and decisions towards the things you think are most important. Your mission statement should touch upon what you want to focus on and who you want to become as a person in this part of your life. It can become a roadmap to achieving yor goals and dreams.

There are two things to remember before you can work on making a statement that speaks the truth of your purpose in life. First, there is no one single formula for creating a personal mission statement. I’ve read a lot on the subject and what works for one person may or may not work for you. You’re welcome to try out my methods and tips and see what works for you. Be honest with yourself. This is your life we’re talking about and you’re the only one who can write your own path.

Secondly, it takes time to develop and perfect a mission statement. You’ll write a lot. If you’re not sure you enjoy writing, I suggest you skip this section and move onto the part about creating a personal mission collage. You’ll also be evaluating and examining yourself. I know that I started my mission statement a few years ago and I’m still uncovering and working on it. Your first stab at a mission statement may take up 5 pages in your planner but gets the job done and even outlines how you want to accomplish those missions. Or it may be as short as 2-3 sentences. It all depends on who you are and how much you want to accomplish in life. Each person is unique and it takes time to create a truly unique statement, just as it took time for you to become who you are today. Okay, enough of the disclaimers, let’s get down to making a statement.

Writing your personal mission statement
I recommend you plan for some alone time when you decide to work on your mission statement. Turn off your cell phone, unplug your internet access and go some place where family and friends won’t distract you. Better yet, go to a coffeehouse or a bookstore with your planner and spend some quality time with yourself. Solitude helps you get in touch with your soul and the things that matter most to you. Interruptions distract us from uncovering the truth of what matters to us most and what we really want out of life.

Step 1: Define your values.
Values, like our DNA, make us unique. They determine what we like, where we live, what our passions are and can even determine the decisions we make. That’s why the first step of the process makes you take a look at your core values. List all the values and attributes you think help to define who you are and what’s important to you. If you get stuck, then you can call friends or surf the internet for ideas. Your list can long or short. Once you have this list, try and create a top 5 or a top 3 list. Then weed this list down to your number one value… that one thing that you’d give your life for. This is the most important thing to you. In my case, it’s creativity. And everything I do in my life has to follow that value.

Here’s a short list of values you can include in your list:
Honesty
Creativity
Problem-Solving
Productivity
Passionate
Contemplative
Security
Wealth
Loving relationship
Recognition
Respect to others
Happiness
Family
Spiritual fulfillment
Friendships
Good health
Truth
Freedom
Learning/knowledge

Step 2: Identify goals and contributions.
Now it’s time to set some goals, since you’ve found those qualities of what separate you from others. What will your legacy to the world and people close to you be? Grab a sheet of paper and start listing all the activities you’d like to accomplish in your life. Write down anything and everything you can think of that you want to do in life.

Your mission statement can contain two types of goals, short-term or long-term. The short-term goals relate to 1-5 year tasks or activities that you want to accomplish in your life. If you have a goal of writing one article for your favorite magazine, write that down. You’ll want to capture this in your mission statement. Long-term goals go beyond 5 years and can extend throughout your life. Raising children or starting your own company may be long term goals. Defining contributions helps you understand what you like to do and what adventures your life may lead. They give your mission statement direction and guide you towards leaving your legacy.

Step 3. Write.
Take your list of values and your list of goals and contributions and a clean sheet of paper and begin with the words “My purpose in life is to…” and then start writing out statements that represent your values and goals. That’s all there is to it. The hardest part of writing a mission statement is the act of sitting down and putting pen to page. Your mission statement could look like this:

My life’s purpose is to create and share my visions and dreams with the world through writing and art. I am a creative spirit who loves to write and create new worlds. I am a dreamer. Someone who dares to think differently and to use multiple perceptions to help and guide others. I am majickal. I see beyond what is here and now and look inwards to the energy that connects me to others and the universe. I seek knowledge, through my friends, tarot and Nature. They help me become what I want to be and all I want to achieve. I live in harmony and in balance with myself and in my home and surroundings. I am timeless. I feel young and playful; able to dance the night away. I feel old and wise; I apply all I have learned to help benefit my society and change the world around me into something I am proud of. I am ME. There will never be someone like me again.

You may want to keep the following tips in mind while you write:
Be clear and concise. Write concrete sentences. Clearly define your objectives. Many coaches say to keep your statement between 3-5 sentences. I say make it as long or short as it takes to get your mission out. I’ve seen personal mission statements that last pages, while others were only a statement or two.

Write positively. Focus on the good things you do and the person you want to be. Many times we get bogged down on what we don’t do or cannot do when we should be focusing on celebrating our strengths and selves more.

Make it usable. I tend to have very lofty and sometimes irrational and unachievable goals. While lofty goals look great on paper, having goals and dreams that are unachievable may also make you unhappy and unfulfilled. The best mission statements are the ones you can use in your day to day lives. Allow it to speak your truth and help guide you into making the right decisions for your life.

Include the whole picture. We all have many different hats and masks to wear. You are a combination of your family, career and hobbies. All of these work together with your values and goals to define you as a whole. Your mission statement should also contain as many aspects of your life as it can. Include things that not only help guide your career but also your home and spiritual lives. Make sure each area of your life works in sync with one another and not against your core values.

Show your passions. Use your language, your writing style and your words. Don’t try to copy off of others or do what they want to do. The more your statement reflects the true you, the more inspiring and empowering it becomes.

Writing a mission statement involves answering questions about yourself. These two links contain lots of good questions to help you define a complete picture of yourself. Use them if you feel stuck or aren’t sure of what you want your legacy to be:
http://www.quintcareers.com/mission_statement_exercises.html This page gives a few good starter questions on uncovering your lifestyle and what your core values are.

http://www.quintcareers.com/mission_statement_development.html This page goes even deeper to give you a more rounded picture of who you are, what motivates and drives your passions.

Crafting a Personal Mission Collage
If you’re more of a visual person than a writer, you can create a personal mission collage. There’s no reason why you cannot draw, paint or collage your mission, legacy and goals onto a poster. A collage can even become a companion to your written statement. The process of putting one of these together may even be easier to craft than writing your statement. You don’t need much to create one of these either. Grab a posterboard, grab some paints or crayons and drag out all those old magazines. Paint, color or glue images that represent you and your mission statement onto the posterboard. When you’re done, put the collage in a frame and place it somewhere that you can look at it often and allow it to inspire you. When you’re finished, you’ll have both a visual representation of your mission statement as well as a meaningful and unique piece of artwork to hang in your house.

Your mission statement is like the outline to a novel you have yet to write. It helps guide you through each scene of your life. Not only does it give your life meaning and focus, but it helps to clarify what you think is important. It may take awhile to create a permanent mission statement. When you have a good working draft, post it some place where you can view it. Or attempt to memorize it and commit it to your life. Live your statement and become it. By living our mission statement, and being truly committed to its meaning, we are more likely to choose behavior that serves our values and reject behavior that opposes them.

Remember that your mission statement is not cast in stone. It is a living document that will grow and expand or shorten as you age. The more you learn about yourself and what you want to do at various stages in your life, the more your statement can help you attain those things. Periodic review of your statement is key to making sure you’re on the right track. Some people visit their statements every year on their birthday and revise them, taking out what is no longer in alignment with their core values and adding in what they have learned over the year.

. Make - the amount produced, especially the output of a factory. This is pretty cool a Well Balanced Pie

Submitted by innowen on Thu, 2006-07-06 09:00.

Sometimes I feel like there’s never enough time in a day to get everything done. I get up, go to work, come home and do housework and D*I*Y Planner duties and then play World of Warcraft (when there’s time). I always feel like my To Do list gets fatter and fuller and longer and it never shrinks. I’m finding it hard to strike a balance in my life between all the roles and responsibilities I have. So, what does someone do when their overwhelmed? Well, in my case, I turned to pies.

I wish I could tell you how yummy these pies are, with a soft, moist, and warm apple center and light, flakey crust. But I can’t. You see… I’d be lying (and gaining an unhealthy amount of weight) if it were to those pies I turned to every time I felt swamped and overwhelmed in life. No, I’m talking about cooking up and comparing a few pie charts to help you get a bigger and better picture of where you spend your time and how you envision the perfectly balanced life. I’ll even make it easier by giving you the recipe and detailed instructions. All you need to do is add your dreams, time, and patience.

innowen’s Pie Chart Surprise

Ingredients:
1 copy of innowen’s Pie Chart Template (2 sheets)
1 box of crayons, watercolors or colored pencils for spice
1 pencil or pen
Some time for goal setting, imagination to create a better life and patience as you put this into practice.

Set aside 30 minutes (more or less, depending on how detailed you make the pies) of your time. Take out your goals and imagination and dream about what life you want to lead and how to get there from you are now. Dump into 2 pie templates. Apply crayons or color pencils liberally. Let sit and stew in your mind for a few minutes then compare 2 pies. Adjust life accordingly and smile.

See? Simple, just like I promised. Now, go download the Pie Chart Templates I’ve made for this article. Don’t be surprised, they’re not your standard D*I*Y Planner format. You’ll need all the space around this chart. If you decide not to print out the templates or you’re in a place where you cannot print them out, feel free to take out your planner or journal and sketch a template or two. Title the first piece of paper, Current; and the second one, Ideal. Draw a big circle in the middle of each piece of paper. You’ve just made yourself a few pie pans. Soon it will hold all the various ingredients that make up each slice of pie. Now, draw 12, lines equally through the pie pan. This divides your pan up into 24 slices, or a whole day’s worth of eating. When you’ve finished creating two pie holders, set aside the Idea pie for a second. We’ll come back to it in a few minutes.

Grab the Current pie and a pencil and those optional crayons or watercolors. Write down all the activities or hobbies you see taking up time in your days in the space surrounding the pie crust. You can summarize the big things like your job in one word: day job and all those activities can become work or use home for house cleaning and family duties. Doing so contains and gives you some space to dream. For me, my day looks a bit like this: work, writing, wow (World of Warcraft), art, housework, exercise, reading, sleeping, music, studies, and sleep. When you’re done, draw a few boxes next to each word that can be used later to color coordinate the slices of these pie pieces.

Now back to the circle. Pretend this circle and all the space inside it, represents your life. Everything you do and like to do, all the responsibilities, family and friends, and hobbies go into this pie. Each thing you have written down outside of the circle are the slices you need to fit somewhere inside that circle every day. Look at all the things outside the circle and assign time-sizes to them. If you spend 6 hours of your day working at a job, write down “work” in 6 slices. You can also choose a color for “work” and then color 6 slices of your pie in. Don’t forget to also color in the box you made next to word, work on the outside of your sheet. Continue doing this with all the other things you do in a typical day until all 24 pie slices are filled up. Set aside this pie to cool, you still have one more to make.

Grab the Ideal pie now. Using the same thing we did with the Current pie, start listing all the things you see yourself wanting to do in a day. You can add to this list if you want or keep it the same as the Current pie like I did. When you’re done, start filling in each hour of the day as you’d LIKE to see your day happening. Of course, your six hours at work isn’t going to grow any smaller, but the five hours you spend on average playing World of Warcraft every night, can. Cut back a few hours on that time and designate it for other things, like reading or making art. Once again, fill each hour of how you would WANT to spend your time up with the things you want to do.

When both charts are done, put them together, side by side. Take a minute to let them cool down. Now, look closely. Do you see any patterns? Did both your charts match? If so, you’re lucky. If not, how close do your charts match? Did you run out of space to put all the ingredients you wanted into your pies? I know I did and it’s okay to if you’ve run out of slices. For me, I typically have to give up the art and studies portions as I spend more time in World of Warcraft and housework. Give your completed pie a good look. If yours is similar to mine, it’s probably not how you want it to look like. In fact, you’re probably disappointed that not everything fits into that pie. I know I was. This is where you can have a chance to make things fit.

All it takes, to make them match, is one simple (but hard) step: Make a conscious effort to cut back on the areas in your Current Chart that don’t line up to those on your Ideal chart. Use your Ideal Pie Chart to watch how much you spend on every activity. If you find yourself spending more than the alloted time in World of Warcraft, think about what you could gain by reading or making art. Don’t guilt trip yourself into thinking games are bad. Instead, just use the game as a reward for spending time clearing out your library of unread books or learning a new chord progression on your guitar. This is a simple step in words but does take time and practice and determination to make it all work. Just like any system invented to help your life run smoother and get things done faster, you need to actively participate in the routine. But the reward of sticking to this new schedule is sweet and definitely worth it.

Instead of complaining to your friends about the lack of time you have, you now have all the time you need to spend doing whatever you want, when you can do it. Post your pies on your fridge to remind you of the life balance goal you’ve set for yourself. In a few weeks or months, revisit this article and create a new set of pies for yourself to track your progress. Maybe this time you’ll have a more balanced and ideal lifestyle.

Who says you can’t bake a pie and eat it too? The next time you’re feeling swamped and without time to do what matters, why not sit down and have a little pie or two. Making pie charts allow you to see the whole picture of your life and where you tend to spend those precious minutes of each day doing what activities. For the more digitally inclined, I highly recommend you review Life Balance, which is available for Mac, PC and Palm Pilots. This wonderful little life balancing/coaching software provides a dynamic to do list that helps you organize your life by what’s important to you, instead of what needs to get done. It incorporates pie charts and to do lists to take snapshots of your life and career and see how much or how little you spend doing activities you want to do. Just like the analog version above, Life Balance and pie charts can help you see the big picture in life and compare it to the image of how you want your life in to look in your head. If the two don’t match up, it’s time to make some adjustments.

. Also you should check this site out the Artist’s Planner

Submitted by innowen on Wed, 2006-07-05 17:02.

Today’s guest post is by Sara Schnelle. She’s very productive all week long as a data entry technician for a wage law firm. During the afternoons and weekends she keeps busy painting large canvases and small wooden boards with images about women’s work, spirituality and perceptions. Her art has displayed in and around Portland, Oregon. She has lectured about women’s art history at a local university. Sara’s studio is in Vancouver, WA and you can view her online gallery at: Schnelle Studios.

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Often an artist’s journal serves one purpose: sketching. However, it can do so much more. The artist’s journal can serve as a research notebook, idea log, and planner. Have you ever had a great idea for an artwork that you’ve never started on? Or had an idea and never wrote it down and when you went back to start on it, you found that you couldn’t remember what it was? It’s happened to all of us. What if…you had a place to store those notes and sketches and ideas so when you had the time and inspiration, you also had a place to remind yourself what you want to do, the steps to do it in, and with what materials and accompanying research ideas? Would having such a place help you to not only organize your art but help you create a finished product that matched up with your goals? How about having a place to store pictures of your artwork to keep and admire even long after the art has sold or displayed in a gallery? Well, you can. The artist’s planner tells a story. And it records each accomplishment from start to finish.

When I began my artist’s planner, my creative partner, April and I had nothing more than an idea and two questions: Has anyone ever painted this concept before? And if not, can we? The concept, fresh and new, was committed to a small quotation journal I had been using for a few weeks. And it soon changed into a full fledged artist’s planner. The day I started my Artist’s planner, we were standing around in the university library, where April worked. They had a small gallery attached to the main room. And they had an opening, one year from that date. So, we signed up for a spot and started brainstorming artwork that we could paint throughout the next year.

I jotted down our idea in the little journal and then we began dreaming of our invitation list. The journal captured the original idea, our goals and wishes for completing it, paintings and sculptures that we looked to for ideas, research to answer our first question “has it ever been done before? No,” and the promotional post card documenting our show in that gallery a year later.

Creative people are often not linearly organized, and though the planner tells a story, it certainly does not have to tell it in order. My artist’s planner contains all sorts of things from photographs, stickers, and ideas that I can use at any time for any painting; as well as all sorts of sketches and doodles scattered around on any page.

I consider the following list to be a good list of recommendations for an artist’s planner:

• Strong, thick paper. You’re going to want paper thick enough to paint, glue, and erase on.
• Removable pages. If you’re like me and you glue a lot of things down on them, eventually you’re notebook won’t close. Being able to remove pages not only helps it close but you can also remove the things you don’t want to be reminded of. Sometimes I don’t want the constant reminder that I am a not always as good at drawing as I want to be. Such evidence is less than inspiring. Your planner is a journal of accomplishments: those you’ve finished and those yet to be completed. You may want to tear out pages that are not useful to your art and sense of accomplishment.
• Study Cover and Closure. You may want to get a hard-bound journal, such as a Moleskine or some other journal that closes. The last thing you want your planner to do is fall apart in your bag or as you’re writing in it and having all the pages fly out and litter the ground. You may also want to keep a few envelopes handy in between the pages to save those precious mementos from being crushed. I doubt you want see the pretty autumn leaf you saved in your journal last year fall out and scatter itself to the wind in tiny, crumbling bits.
• Style and Substance. Find a journal or planner that not only fits your style but can be used. If you fear littering your journal with graffiti then you may want to buy something you feel you can write in. I have issues with writing in something when the cover of the journal is more beautiful than what I know will be created inside it. You want to be able to risk drawing, scribbling and jotting ideas in it. So find something you like but one you know you’ll use. Mine has a simple pattern with an inspirational saying on the cover. And if you can’t find something, make your own by using Innowen’s articles on bookbinding to make your own planner.

How to use an artist’s planner
Once you have picked out or made your planner, it’s time to start filling it up. Grab a photograph of a painting you admire and start copying it in your book. Or glue that scrap of origami paper you want to copy for a background pattern for a portrait. Start a contact list of all the local arts and craft show connections you found and jotted down on a napkin, along with that great sketch. Glue it all in your new planner and write down any dates you’ve made to contact people for booking tables to display your art.

• Capture your ideas. Anytime you have good ideas, immediately visualize what that project looks like at the end. Describe the idea and then start writing down each step you’ll do to make that project happen. You can use your planner to capture ideas and goals in the following format:
  

  Idea: paint my nephew’s portrait through the view of a hallow log.
  Goal: give it to my sister for her birthday in three months.

  Idea: a collage of independent soda pop labels.
  Goal: sell it to a store owner in my neighborhood next weekend.

  Idea: draw a picture of a Robin with a worm.
  Goal: have it framed for my bedroom by winter.

• Keep track of project materials. Use your planner to keep a list of what things you need to complete it. Keep a log of how much time you spent making the art or what you needed to keep your space clean and organized. Include swatches of color and what their brands are. Write down new art techniques (like how to remove wine labels off bottles), or keep sample pictures of point-of-views or models you’ll eventually use in making your art.
• Let your planner inspire you. Fill the pages of your journal with printouts of other’s art or designs. Glue or tape them to your journal. Find inspiring quotes and write them in colorful, flowery prose. Make sketches or layouts in your pages.
• Include pictures of your finished art in your planner. Once you have completed a project, tape or glue in a photograph of your finished project. Many times artists regret not take a picture of a painting before it was sold. If you’re keeping a complete history of your art accomplishments from conception to finish, then you’ll want to take a few pictures of it and stick them into your planner or scan them for your website. You’ll want to look back on these photos with pride and see how far you’ve grown in creating art.

My Planner, My Muse
My planner has become my muse and a great motivational tool. In keeping a planner, you can watch your own improvement. It also becomes a tool to share how you go about making art with others who share your passion for art. It is such a reward to be able to look through your own process. Imagine if someone asked you, “what sort of art do you make?” and you could pull out your planner and show your new fan exactly what artwork you make and how you went about getting the inspiration for it. You will also get to look at the pages privately and think, “I completed that project. I can complete another.”

Between my messes of sketches and colorful pictures, I also put quotes and sayings in my artist’s planner. My favorite is by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: “One must have chaos within to give rise to a dancing star.” This statement works for me because my planner is so chaotic, with its pictures, jokes, and sketches, photos and stickers pasted in on any old page with no thought to the consecutive order. Despite all its chaos, my planner is an effective tool for productivity, organization and success.

. Planner - a scheme, program, or method worked out beforehand for the accomplishment of an objective: a plan of attack. wow… this is such a great idea