Today is a Block Busting Day

30Jan2009 Filed under: Beat your creative block, Have a better day Author: John

A Block Busting day is something I created to solve two of the biggest problems of working on your own - having no boss to hold you accountable and feeling isolated (particularly if you work at home).

The result of these two issues is that some big ugly tasks stay on your To Do list forever. A great example is clearing clutter - which I know many Creative Mavericks struggle with. You know you need to take a day out to clear up your home office but you never get ’round to making the time. You could add to that clearing your email inbox, sorting your filing out, doing your tax return (you have done that right?) or generally making your workspace a nicer place to be.

The Block Busting Day is the best way to tackle these. It’s a real appointment in your diary when you commit to doing that thing you’ve avoided. And there’s a whole group of us making the same commitment on the same day. On top of that we connect with each other, firstly in a quick conference call at the start of the day and secondly by using a simple online chatroom throughout the day.

The Block Busting Day is something I created a couple of years ago. I built a site and wrote an eight page guide for it. I ran the day once and it worked really well. There were a lot of funny comments in the chatroom like “Right, I’m going under my desk to dust, I may be some time”.

And despite the fact that I proved it worked, like a typical Scanner I never ran it again! (Worse still, because I ran the first one for free, I never made any money out of it.)

The good news is that you can now take part in a Block Busting Day with me every month because we’ve made it one of the benefits of being a member of the Creative Entrepreneurs Club. And we’ve set the days to be the last Friday of every month so you can clear your To Do list before the new month starts.

(If you happen to read this before 11am today, you can actually still join us on this first Creative Entrepreneurs Block Busting Day for free by taking guest membership)

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One Response to “Today is a Block Busting Day”

Lynne Smith
February 17th, 2009 at 1:17 PM

I wasn’t able to join in the Block Busting day on Friday 30 January as I work a regular five-day week. But, on the Monday when the snow happened, I turned up to work only to be told that all the systems had collapsed, the weather seemingly kyboshing the power supply. So after a couple of hours of sitting around with no computers humming, no phones ringing and generally not being able to do anything, we were told we could go home.

It was 2.00pm and I commented to a colleague that I wasn’t sure what I’d do with myself - even thought I’d go home and have a nap under a warm duvet. But when I got home, I looked at the pile of papers on my floor that had “useful” information in them and needed categorising, the clothes that needed washing, the stuff that needed throwing out and the letters and forms that needed attending to or filing, I decided to get a big cup of tea and start to clear it all. This was the day to do the job I’d been avoiding for a couple of months.

The thing is, I have a kind of filing system which means that if I don’t deal with something straight away I leave it out on the floor (I’ve only got a small room and no desk space), so that I don’t forget about it. At first this is ok. But eventually, two or three or more projects will pile up and the papers will collect dust and with it my mind will fill with psychic dust and I’ll get more and more irritated with myself and feel more and more clogged up with the static energy locked up in the heap of “floor projects”.

So, I set to. Books that were read and no longer of use put into a bag to go to the charity shop, gifts that really don’t work for me went the same way too, freebies that are useless to me but could suit someone else also. Pay-slips were filed, newspapers with that essential lifestyle article binned (recycling of course), old clothes ditched (resisted the urge to keep them ALL to use as dusters), bits of shampoo and conditioner put in a place where I would use them to finish them off (I HATE waste), jumpers hand-washed, layers of dust peeled off the radio and chest of drawers, cupboards tidied and new categorisation of the admin. stuff I have to keep, floor vacuumed.

It took about four or five hours and I had plenty of red bush tea to keep me going.

At the end of it I had a room that looked, felt and smelled like a new place. And a mind that felt re-ordered, re-focused and refreshed. I had a clear list of things to do instead of a pulsating pile of “must-get-around-to-sorting-out-one-days”. I felt lighter and clearer - and most of all really pleased with myself!

So the snow did have a definite upside for me. And block-busting does work - it helps you get back on track.

about this blog

This is the personal blog of John Williams, author of "Screw work, let's play: How to do what you love & get paid for it" to be published by Pearson in June 2010.

Join my mission to play all day and get paid - to do whatever creative, fun stuff we feel like doing and make a good living out of it.