Maintaining A Work / Life Balance With Braid

During my exploration of the inter webs this week I stumbled upon the amazing creative work from Braid Creative, creative branding and visioning consultants for creative entrepreneurs.  If you need any help with your branding these girls are amazing.  But on top of that they just happened to write a really amazing article on how they balance their creative work with their lives. Kismet?  I think so… To read the original article click here.

How Daylight Savings Jacked Up Our Work Life Balance

Tara and I have always been proud of the fact that we’re not total workaholics. Even coming from an advertising agency background we’ve always believed that if you can’t get it done in 40 hours a week then you’re doing something wrong. 

As creative entrepreneurs it can be hard to it shut down. The lines between work and life are blurred when you’re passionate about growing your business. And as of two weeks ago daylight savings has sprung us forward an hour - completely jacking with our internal circadian rhythm that tells us when to wake up, begin work, and more importantly shut down the computer, eat dinner and go to bed. 

Here is how we try to maintain that work / life balance and clues for when we’re overextending ourselves. 

We’ll start with me. 

I know I’m maintaining a pretty good work / life balance when:

1. I can fit in my daily work out - I use this time to decompress and transition from working out of my house to just being at home.


2. When I watch my favorite shows in real time - there’s nothing like watching The Walking Dead or Mad Men when it airs.

3. When I have time to indulge in a Netflix marathon - on the flip side of watching shows as they air there is something special about watching three seasons of Breaking Bad in a span of two weeks.

4. When my schedule is in synch with my 9-to-5 husband - that means we’re going to sleep, waking up and eating meals together. 

5. When I have time to enjoy a happy hour cocktail - sometimes a work out is not enough to decompress from a long week. I like to enjoy a nice glass of wine or local microbrewed beer after a productive day of work.



It’s a little trickier for Tara because she’s got two kiddos in the mix - but here’s how she knows she’s doing a good job of juggling it all with grace: 

1. She manages to pack school lunches at a reasonable hour - without going “mommy dearest” crazy and throwing ziploc sandwich baggies everywhere.

2. She’s not up all night with work-induced insomnia - Tara also has this habit of sleep walking (more of a freak out really) when she’s particularly stressed. Read more of that hilarious story here. 

3. She gets to go to “guilty pleasure” movies at the actual theatre complete with popcorn and syrupy soda - this means psychotic grossout movies that I cannot fathom how she gets so much glee out of, like Hostel or The Hills Have Eyes.

4. She can hole up in her room with a novel for at least a two-hour stretch - when we were kids she’d lock us all out of her room to read Little Women for the twentieth time while we pounded on the door or tried to slip notes under the crack “play with us pleasssseee.”

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Sometimes we don’t recognize when the scales are being tipped. It’s easy to get caught up in the stress that comes with being a creative entrepreneur so here are some warning signs or clues that you’re on the brink of a work / life meltdown:

1. You forget to eat - I always thought this was something celebrities said to mask an eating disorder. So when I realized I had forgotten to eat lunch one day I was shocked that paparazzi wasn’t chasing me around at the same time.

2. You have nothing to blog about - I find that when I’m out of ideas for things to blog about on my personal lifestyle blog that I’ve probably been working (or thinking about work) too much.

3. You have no sense of humor - Our designer Kristin finds that she has zero capacity to process jokes when she’s feeling stressed.

4. Your kids get your attention by talking to you about work - Tara’s kid Charlie will say things like “Now, Super Mario is kind of like Braid because …” or will replicate our logo in colored markers for praise instead of drawing normal kid things like cars and dinosaurs. 

 If you want to learn more about Braid Creative & Consulting check out their Website, Facebook , Vimeo , or Twitter accounts!

Challenge #6: Something Completely Different

Remember back a few weeks when we talked about needing to get it on with other creative buddies so our ideas could have sex?  The whole point of that exercise was making new and varied connections in our brains; which in turn inspires us and get our creative juices flowing.  

Most of the time we stick to our own areas of expertise because that is just what we know.  It's safe, it's comfortable... it's like a hug from a giant teddy bear. Getting together with a creative buddy to talk shop can help unlock new ideas and vantage points we might never have seen on our own without something they said having helped put two and two together for us in our brains.

So yeah, ideas having sex for the win.

However, there is actually a way we can do this on our own, without necessarily needing to get together with anybody else. (Oh the places we could go with that statement and this train of thought...  I'll just let your imagination run with that while I continue on... don't mind me...)

The reason getting together with a creative buddy to talk shop works so well is because it lets you see the world from a different perspective.  If we want to accomplish this on our own we can't just keep doing what we've always done because most likely we'll just see what we've already seen.  If we want to see the world from a different perspective, we have to take a cue from Monty Python and do something completely different.  Or simply put, if you want to see the world, you've got to leave your hometown.

Staying where it's safe and warm and comfortable is awesome, but it doesn't always let us grow or help us build our creative arsenal.  To do that we have to mix things up.

Pretty sure this is our best challenge badge yet...
Don't forget to snag it off the blog and share it!

So, your challenge this week is simple: Do something completely different.  It's that easy.  Drive home a way you have never gone before. Bake a random recipe you've never tried. If you're a photographer try painting, if you're a painter try sculpture, if you're a musician try dancing.  It doesn't matter what it is as long as it gets you out of your normal routine and is expanding your wealth of creative experiences.

Have an idea for what you are going to try out this week as part of your challenge? Drop us a line in the comment section and let us know!

Neil Gaiman: Make Good Art

Despite all our talk about buckling down to business, there is such a thing as taking yourself too seriously and losing track of what truly matters in the creative life. In honor of all the young enthusiastic artists about to be released from their universities this weekend, here's a commencement speech really worth paying attention to:

This entire speech is so amazing, I'd like to print the entire transcript out and read it before going to bed at night, and then again when I wake up in the morning -- but just for you, dear reader, I've paraphrased his ten main points.

1. When you start out on a career in the arts, you have no idea what you're doing. This is great.


2. If you have an idea of what you want to make, what you were put here to do, then just go and do that.


3. Do the work that excites you. If you do work you're proud of, then you have the work, even if you don't get the money.


4. If you make mistakes, it means you're out there doing something.


5. Having the ability to make art is a lifesaver.


6. Make the art that only you can make. Expose your true self. Take risks. After all, where would be the fun in doing something that you knew was going to work?


7. People get hired because, somehow, they get hired. But people keep working because the work is good, they're easy to get along with, and they deliver the work on time. And you don't even need all three.


8. Enjoy your success. Stop worrying. Let go, and enjoy the ride.


9. The harder you work, and the more wisely you work, the more lucky you will get - but there is luck and it helps. We are in a transitional world, and the traditional avenues for distribution are changing. The old rules are crumbling, and nobody knows what the new rules are - so make up your own.

But most importantly,

  10. MAKE GOOD ART.

Congratulations Graduates, and congratulations to the rest of us too -- today is a fresh new chance for us to launch out into the world, and make it better resemble the kind of place in which we want to live.