Quilters, Put Down That Extra Project! How a Not-To-Do List Makes Room for What Really Matters

The Power of the Not To-Do List in Creative Entrepreneurship

In season five of Measure Twice, Cut Once, the focus shifts to the behind-the-scenes world of quilting and creative business building. I'll share personal experiences and strategies for turning a passion into a profession, emphasizing the importance of a 'not to-do list.' This approach prioritizes conscious decisions on what to avoid to maintain focus and achieve goals efficiently, without sacrificing joy. The episode covers practical methods for managing time, reducing overcommitment, and maintaining creativity, providing valuable insights for aspiring and established creative entrepreneurs.

00:00 Introduction to Season Five
01:40 The Power of the Not-To-Do List
02:57 Real-Life Examples of Not-To-Do Lists
07:58 Daily Habits and Boundaries
10:57 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Want to try free motion quilting but don't know where to start? Here's 3 simple steps to get going.

Transcript

0:49

Welcome to season five of Measure Twice, Cut Once. This whole season is an exploration into behind the scenes of not just quilting, but building a creative business that truly lights you up. As someone who's navigated the exciting, sometimes bumpy world of turning a passion into a profession, I'm excited to pull back the curtain and share my own experiences. Some episodes will be just me. Diving deep into my personal journey, while others will feature guests who are also navigating the world of creative entrepreneurship, we'll explore the nitty gritty of building a creative business, the lessons learned and the unexpected challenges that come with transforming your craft into a thriving enterprise. Into a thriving enterprise. And don't worry, I'm not leaving storytelling behind. Instead, I'll be weaving them into the conversations about what it takes to grow a business while staying true to your creative spirit. So whether you're dreaming of starting your own business, or you just love hearing about creative entrepreneurship, this season is for you. As we embark on a brand new year, I can't help but wonder, have you ever felt, as I have, the highs of setting a resolution, really good intentions, only to experience the lows of abandoning it or having it fizzle out a few weeks later? You're not alone. Very, very few of those infamous New Year's resolutions actually last beyond the end of January, if even then. And a frequent solution or answer that's offered is to avoid the all or nothing mindset or to think in terms of progress and motion, not perfection or arrival. But I have an even more powerful tool to offer. Let's jiffy and set the stage. I began thinking about and writing down a few specific goals for 2025. In the last quarter of 2024, and this isn't a podcast about goal setting, but very simply put, I just decided what the rocks are in my upcoming year, the main things I want to accomplish. And that sets me up for this powerful tool. I read about this way of thinking several years back and I immediately adopted it and it served me well in the year since it is the magic of the not to do list. After all, it's not just about what you want to achieve, but also very much about what you consciously decide to avoid in order to focus on those achievements. Let me repeat that. It's not just about what you want to achieve, but also very much about what you consciously decide to avoid in order to focus on those achievements. In fact, when you concentrate your efforts on fewer tasks, you're much more likely to complete them efficiently and with higher quality because trying to do all the things brings frustration and overwhelm. And frankly, it lessens our joy. And who wants that? So here's how I've approached it. Throughout the year, as they occur, I like to jot down the things that I want to learn to do, the bright ideas, the things that capture my attention. It might be something I see on Pinterest, it might be something I'm watching on YouTube. For example, one of the things last year that caught my eye, I was watching a multi episode tutorial by Tula Pink on English paper piecing, and it's so gorgeous. She makes such beautiful quilts. And she's talking about what thread she uses and matching the stripes when you've got two pieces, butting up against each other and all these wonderful practical ideas. And I think to myself, I could do that. And of course I absolutely could. And I want to. But I also had to be real with myself and say, but I'm doing other things X, Y, and Z already. And it would take time away from them to really invest in learning how to do English paper piecing. So it became one of the things on my not to do list. Here's some others that made my list for 2025. Learning to make sourdough bread, teaching at quilt shows across the country, and hosting a quilt along. These are all things that to me are super appealing. My family would really, really love if I took up the sourdough bread, but it's just not to be at least not this year. You know, I love quilting and I love the quilting community. So when I get invitations to teach at quilt shows, I could get all excited about that. The idea of traveling and meeting fellow quilters and sharing the things I love about quilting. That's so tempting. But the truth of the matter is, extensive travel and teaching would take so much time away from my core focus, and I'm one person. I can only do so many things well, and I'd rather do a few things well than many things barely average. So for me, the answer really has been to choose which things I'm not going to do, at least for now, whether it's for this year or this month or whatever this season is. And today I'm talking largely about my business, but you can relate this, I bet, to your life as well. And the seasons of your life and the not to do list might have a place in your life too. This just really helps me to measure the shiny, appealing things that I see. against my not to do list. So the next time I receive an invitation to teach at a big show, I'll think, Oh no, I put extensive travel teaching on my not to do list this year. So, I can simply and kindly decline and save that opportunity for another time. But can you see how it's freeing, really, to have this intentional decision that you're not going to do certain things? And this might take different forms. It might have to do with your social life and how many card games you go to with your friends or how many lunch dates you have in a month. It might have to do with game apps on your device. And I'm preaching to myself here because that's a thing for me that I love. I could fritter away. A ton of time on those games. I love them. I love Sudoku. I love Wordle and various puzzles. But when I purposely decide I'm not going to do some of these specific things, or not going to do them for certain time frames, then it helps me to make wise choices in the moment. This is how the freeing takes place. When you've already made a decision, now you know how to measure what you're spending your time on against that decision. So one area that was critical for me to face up to was how I wanted to grow my business within the quilting industry. There are many paths I could take, and I've tried different things, honestly, and thought, maybe this is an answer, or, Maybe that is. One of them, for me, was pattern publishing. And the truth is, it's something that I could do. I have ideas for quilts. I'm an accomplished sewist of quilts, so I have the know how for doing the quilting math and figuring out the pattern. But what I learned through doing just a couple of them is that pattern writing is far more complex than it seems. It takes a tremendous amount of work to produce all the graphics and the technical writing that goes with a pattern idea. And I realized, I don't love that side of it, and that is the majority of the work. It's not the bright idea, the creative idea, that's the big thing. It's the carrying out of it that's time consuming and what I was in fact committing to. So if you don't love that as I didn't, that was not a good fit. So that was an easy one for me to decide. Publishing patterns is not going to be my future. That's one of the things that's on my not to do list, and I'll choose something that's a better fit. This does not stop me from having creative ideas. When I see a quilt, Hanging at a show or in a magazine that sparks an idea. I might go home and make that quilt because I love making it. But I don't have to follow that progression of, Oh, if I'm going to make a new idea, I need to also publish it. I don't need to. That's something that is definitely on my not to do list. Let's talk for a second about some smaller daily things too, because they matter just as much. Some of the daily things that we habitually For me, it means being intentional about when I engage with social media and emails. For example, I don't open social media apps during my morning coffee and devotions. They wait until I've completed a couple of key tasks from my planner, my important things for the morning. With emails, I've actually set specific times. There's a period in the morning and another in the late afternoon when I handle correspondence outside those windows of time. And when I need to get a thing done, I will actually turn off notifications entirely so that I stay focused and present for the work that matters most. And it kind of works in two ways. It keeps me from being distracted all day, those not to do things. And it also means when I've put boundaries around how much time I spend on the emails, I can quickly turn them out because it's not an open ended period of time. Um, side tip there. Here's another one, and I'm really preaching to myself here. It's also crucial to think about commitments, overall, and guard against overcommitment. For instance, in my quilting studio, I do quite a few comfort quilts for gifting. They might be quilts of valor or for foster kids or for cancer care patients, something like that. But instead of saying yes to everyone randomly, I now commit to quilting two of them each month. Once I've accepted those two, any additional requests have a kind, no, until next month they go on the not to do list. Similarly, Teaching online has become a priority for me, and so I've had to be intentional about how many client quilts I accept. Setting these limits gives me the time I need to be responsive to students and to work on new course material. I want to be altogether 100 percent there when I'm in Zoom sessions with my students. I don't want to feel rushed. So the way I do that is I do not have too many quilts on my work in progress list. As creatives too, I think we really need to leave some margin between the things that we're doing intentionally. As I'm listening to myself talk, I'm realizing I sound like I block out every day and I fit in everything. I do try to block out the things that are important to me to do, but I leave. A good deal of time and openness between things or days that are free. It is just essential that we do not fill every hour and every minute with expectations of ourselves. We need space for unexpected things. We certainly need space for relationships. And as creatives, we need some space just for our Creativity that cannot be rushed and generally cannot be scheduled either. So as I close, remember that you're not to do list is a living document. It is not another thing you've got to do. Gosh knows. I don't want to give you that, but it's living It's constantly changing with your seasons and your priorities and it's not cast in stone, but a tool for helping us to stay focused and intentional about the way we spend our time. There will come a time, I'm pretty sure, when making that crusty sourdough loaf will be the way I want to spend a whole afternoon, but that time is not today. Your not to do list is your secret weapon for maintaining focus, for preserving energy, and creating the space you need for the projects and relationships that truly bring you joy and bring you closer to your goals or ideals. So here's to intentional living. Until next time, may your sorrows be patched and your joys be quilted.