Being Your Own Creative Project Manager
I love the sense of freedom in creative projects. It’s just me and my imagination, I can take it wherever I want to, and nobody will tell me what I should do or how I should work.
But that freedom can also be a bit tricky. Nobody will look in on your progress, there’s no clear step by step path to follow, no curriculum to develop your skills and style. No one to tell you when it’s good enough, and you need to stop tinkering and overthinking.
In this freedom, we have to do all of that for ourselves. Keep an eye on what the project needs, as well as what you need, and build good foundations for a sustainable creative life. In other words: you need to be your own kind, helpful and encouraging creative project manager.
Project management for a healthy creative process
Isn’t managing your creative project a part of the creative process? Well, not quite. The creative process is that wonderful, challenging unfolding of an idea, from imagining it to creating it.
Creative project management is everything that allows the creative process to work smoothly. It’s your planning, it’s the habits you form, it’s putting your vision into words and saving it in a document to go back to when you feel lost. It’s looking up resources to improve a skill, and it’s practicing to let go of perfectionism. Managing your projects well allows for a calm creative process where you can simply focus on doing your best creating.
As someone who’s overly fond of meta discussions, I quickly developed a special love for wearing the creative project manager hat. That’s how this blog started - I wore the hat when I decided to spend a year facing my creative fears. I can honestly say that it has transformed my creative process from something unsustainable and unhealthy, to a mostly calm, inspired and focused process. And now, helping people figure out their own project management is a big part my work as a creative coach.
To care not just for what you create, but how you create, is important if you want to create well and happily for a long time to come. So let’s dive into what it looks like to be your own creative project manager.
Keeping a birds eye view on projects
When you’re in the creative process, you’re IN it. You’re focused on the work itself, the details, what you’re creating in the moment. Magic happens here, as well as frustrations and doubt.
Stepping into your project manager role, you look at the project with other eyes. You explore the purpose of it, you try to note down your vision, you look at what you’ve created and consider if it’s going in the right direction.
You think about if you want a time frame for the project, and if so, how it’s going and if it needs adjusting. You schedule time to work on it, decide when it’s time to begin, and when the project is over, you reflect and review it.
This means your project will move along more smoothly, and you’ll catch if things start going awry earlier.
Recognising challenges, needs and opportunities
The creative process is filled with tricky bits, mindset challenges and interesting possibilities. As the project manager, you keep an eye on these things. Does the lack of a certain skill keep getting in the way? Is perfectionism keeping you from moving forward? Are you pushing yourself too hard and forgetting to take breaks? Could you use an infusion of new inspiration?
Just like you take a step back from your project as the manager, you step back and look at yourself. You do this with kindness and care, looking at what you can do to make things better for yourself.
As the project manager, you get to use your creativity to come up with strategies to fulfill needs, tackle challenges and seek out opportunities.
Developing a good foundation for creativity
For all projects to happen, you need some kind of foundation for creativity in your life. This looks like having time, space and energy to create. It looks like making time for exploring ideas, and building skills. And it looks like good, joyful creative habits that you want to come back to again and again.
Without this foundation, it’s likely the work on your project will be scattered and inconsistent. So as the project manager, you need to look at creating the environment for good work to happen.
Do you need to block off a couple of hours in the week for project work? Do you need to take time for rest, away from other commitments, to have the mindspace needed for good ideas? Do you need to shift something in your life to make space for creativity? Good. Put on your project manager hat, and make it happen.
When project management hides procrastination
Sometimes, the creative process feels uncomfortable. Maybe it’s a project you very badly want to work out, and you fear making the wrong move. Maybe you’re facing a step that will challenge you. Or maybe you simply haven’t created for a while, and you’re wondering if you can still do it.
In times like these, we can go too far into project management. You plan and think, you write descriptions and explore every possible angle of the work you’re about to do. You try to figure everything out, and when you’ve gotten some way, you change your mind and start over again.
Project management can be a safe shore. I’ve done this too at different points of my journey, trying to protect myself from the unknowns, fears and challenges of the creative process.
If managing your project takes up so much time that you’re not working in the project, it’s likely a sign of procrastination. At that point, you need to release the reigns, and allow the creative process to find some answers on its own. And if you do some management, focus on dealing with fears and procrastination.
Developing your own project management style
For this to work, you need to have a good relationship between your artist self and your manager self. Just as with two people, it has to be built on mutual respect. Think about what you would want from a good project manager (maybe kindness, trustworthiness and flexibility?), and aim to be that kind of manager to yourself.
Too often, we’ve been modelled unhealthy management styles, where it’s all about control, micro management, punishment, stress, external success and fear of failure. When we’ve been exposed to too much of this, you might adopt that style in managing your own projects. This can lead to pushing yourself too hard, being overly critical of your work, or rebelling and wanting complete freedom.
But that’s not the only way. You can learn what you respond best to, what makes you a happy, balanced creative, what makes your project tick along nicely, and become the best project manager you could ever imagine. Because your style is designed just for you.
Do want to get better at being your own creative project manager? This is a big part of the work I do together with my coaching clients. Explore my coaching packages to see if creative coaching might be for you.
You might also be interested in my membership community, Companions In Creativity, where our structure is designed for gentle accountability, planning, motivation and focus, as well as regular deep dives into managing our projects.
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