I decided to make bookmarks and use urban sketching style to draw pictures as I have a lot of board paper off-cuts here.

When Kr and I met last Friday, I gave her the 400 pcs of business cards I ordered for her, the Baguio City pines painting I promised her, and a print out of the yellow bell I painted for my mom. She was surprised that the print was not a real painting and she said I can make Christmas gifts out of such prints. I said I will try making book marks and the original ones I will give to special bookworm friends and the prints will be given to other bookworms. I will have them plastic laminated.

I was inspired by this urban sketcher last night so I went back to drawing again today, even if these are just quick drawings.

I’m not proud to say that I again procrastinated today and was just busy emailing and chatting with people online. Well, it’s still work, right? There are days when creative juices just don’t flow and I needed to seek it elsewhere, hence, the drawings today. Besides it’s a holiday today here in Manila (and the rest of Southeast Asia) so my brain knows I really don’t have to work that hard today.

I read somewhere (I don’t remember if I already blogged about this) that executives and creatives have different workflows. Executives function well if they divide their day according to chunks on a per hour basis. They can easily finish daily tasks like that. Creatives, however, cannot block time like executives do. So when visual artists or writers block their days, they do it by how many hours it takes them to finish because you cannot just cut thought or creative drive like executives cut their calls per hour. That’s why a lot of writers tend to skip meals because it’s hard to cut their train of thought when they’re deep into writing.

It’s the same with starting a creative process like writing. I need to be in the zone to write so there are days that I really procrastinate—which is bad since I’m a manager too. So my days now are filled with executive work that involves talking to a lot of people and emailing, fixing admin stuff, etc. So the more I procrastinate doing executive tasks, the more the creative process gets delayed.

I have to fix my workflow better. This blog entry gives good tips on how to manage your daily tasks. Since I was a semi-manager in the past, winging it was ok. But now I have my entire ass on the line, I cannot just wing it like I did before.

To complicate matters, I must still manage my household like a chief executive, including weekends. Single mom manager and super journo—I don’t know how but I will get through this.