What It’s Been Like To Plan And Create In Tune With The Seasons This Year
Two years ago, I had an idea.
I have always loved the turn of the seasons. While people close to me have their clear favourites, I’ve always struggled to choose mine because I love them all. I love the anticipation, the gentle and familiar cycle of change, the constant movement in nature from bloom to hibernation. The seasons deeply affect my mood, energy levels, inspiration and lifestyle.
So why not my creativity?
Two years ago, I had the idea to explore how the seasons affect our creativity, and to use that knowledge to embrace the turn of the seasons in our creative work, rather than seeing the natural shifts as something to smooth over.
During the following year, I surveyed creatives every season about how they felt about their work, if it was a productive season, what their inspiration was pointing toward and so on. Patterns emerged and from those patterns, I started to shape a way to plan your creative year in tune with the seasons.
This year, I’ve tried that process and this is what it’s been like.
It helped connect my yearly visions with my day to day
At the beginning of this year, I set two big goals. I don’t know about you, but some years in the past I’ve quickly become detached from those yearly goals. I’ve set them and life has gone in another direction and the goals have become forgotten and unhelpful.
When I shaped my seasonal planning process, I knew I wanted to tie it together with our bigger dreams, visions and goals. Because if we don’t take a bigger direction in account when we plan, how do we know we’re moving in the direction we really want?
So each season, I began by sitting down with my yearly goals. To reflect on whether they still felt right and what they meant in the season ahead. I made sure my seasonal plans were rooted in those yearly goals, so even in my small day to day creative work, I knew that they were moving forward towards my bigger visions for my creative life.
It gave me focus to not try to do everything at once
I’m an easily inspired person. I often get ideas and like the variety of pursuing different things. This year I’ve started my creative business, finished my first novel, started a Youtube channel and done many other little things.
But I can also get very overwhelmed when I pile on too much. I crave focus and calm in my creative life, and so I always have to balance the multitude of ideas and interests with my need for a peaceful way of working.
When I set my goals for the year, I created focus areas to move me forward towards those goals. The focus areas then became the basis for what I focused on in the different seasons. I didn’t try to do everything at once, but divided up my work between the seasons, taking into consideration what kind of work was best suited for each season.
It really helped me see that not everything has to happen right now, but that I can direct my focus to different things throughout the year.
It allowed me to accept and embrace how my creativity changes throughout the year
It’s very clear to me that my inspiration and creativity changes throughout the year. While spring and autumn tend to be productive seasons for me, I crave more freedom in summer and more introspection in winter.
I think society has trained us to try to keep an even, predictably high pace with the exception of some holidays. When our energy fluctuates during the year, it can make us feel like we’re doing something wrong.
But I truly believe each season has its own magic, and if we embrace what they have to bring they all play an important part in our creative lives. The calmer, slower seasons nourish us for the ones where we are ready to dig in.
Really leaning into the seasonal energies this year has helped me see and embrace the shifts and changes in my creativity, and see that they all matter.
It made planning joyful
I’m a natural planner. I’m motivated by goals and like to think ahead. And still, planning hasn’t always worked well for me. Too optimistic goals have made me feel like a failure. Too strict plans have made me feel trapped.
But sitting down to plan the seasons ahead have been true highlights this year. Each shift to a new season fills me with a happy anticipation. I think of the things I’m going to do when the new season has arrived, I shift around the clothes in my wardrobe and buy books that feel right for the season.
To tie together planning with that joyful anticipation of a new season has worked out so well for me. It brought a new level of energy and inspiration to my planning. Planning seasonally has felt utterly and completely natural.
If you’re feeling inspired to try out planning seasonally, I’ve created a guide called Four Seasons of Creative Work that consists of the yearly and seasonal planning process that I have used and enjoyed so much this year. It’s designed to guide you along in planning and creating in tune with the seasons. Check it out if you think planning seasonally might be for you.
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