Why you might want a sailboat. Or a time-management plan.

Even if you’re prone to seasickness. Or, erm, emphatically structure-resistant like me.

Maybe I should back up, yes?

One of my prevalent life-sized patterns is to swing wildly from one end of a pendulum to another. Back when the main hitch in my giddyup was food and body-related, it looked like this:

Deprive self of favorite treat. White-knuckle it. Watch “helplessly” while grand mal gorge ensues.

And repeat. Ad nauseam. (Oh, and quite literally, add nausea.)

So when I left my corporate career, the one where I tracked my billable time in six minute increments, I abhorred the idea of enforcing a rigid structure to my work schedule.

In some wildly illogical diva moment, I decided I couldn’t be creative on demand. I needed boundless space and freedom to allow inspiration to strike. (Cue laughter. I know, Twyla, I know. I’ve seen the light. I’m getting to that part.)

Plus, I was still carrying some issues with the whole concept of productivity. Because when you’re doing work you don’t enjoy, ramping up your productivity just means doing more of it. Gag.

But then! When you start doing work that jazzes you up with energy and enthusiasm, there is so much you want to do! You wonder if maybe there’s something to this time-management brouhaha.

Because the lack of structure wasn’t really doing it for me. I had a swirling sense of time passing without anything concrete to show for it. Not to mention a swirling task list where Urgent, Trivial, and Important things got all tangled up until I couldn’t tell them apart. Recipe for dissatisfaction.

And that’s where having a sailboat is coming to my rescue. A wha?? A sailboat: A gentle, flexible structure to my day. Actually, Eileen’s time-management plan is a sailboat. My business is a bakery*.

(Cryptic much? Sorry. *Adds to list of eight jillion things to blog about in order to link to in order to blog about other stuff.*)

I’m happily discovering that creating structure is the exact thing that gives me freedom to create. Ah, darling paradox. And it’s not that I always follow the schedule perfectly. At all. But that’s okay.

Because while I’m immersed in some kind of flailing procrastination (check-check-checking perhaps) I know that I’m not doing something else. And, even better, I know what that something else is.

And, this is the important part, I know which activities I deemed essential back when I decided to craft this recipe for productivity in the first place. Ahhh, satisfaction.

Okay, more on this sailing, baking, producing stuff next time. Are you a structure lover or rebel?