An Artistic Mother's Lament: Too Many Ideas are Swirling

Does this happen to you - you have no inspiration, you are desperate for something to just "click" and then, suddenly, just when you thought all hope was lost, ideas come swirling in, less like the swirl of a soft serve cone and more like a tornado, with ideas coming so fast, you're afraid you'll miss something? 

Yes, it's a blessing to have lots of things I want to do, but then I have to press pause until I have enough time to make them "happen". Then I worry that I'll forget to do something I thought I wanted to do.

When I have projects at home that I need to complete, I make a list of to-do's, but it seems less "creative" to make a simple list. I stumbled upon some right brain ways to make lists back when I was teaching a freshman college course called Success Strategies. Since half my students were entering logical fields and the other half were going into creative fields, I did some research to find different ways to approach the dreaded to-do list. That's how I found Mind Mapping!

Now it's my turn to put my own words into action. Here's a Mind Map. It's all about color and interest for this to-do list....

(This is just the start of my map....there are many other things that I could have added, like my projects for The Artistic Mother group and Leslie's 31 days of creativity, but, you get the idea.)

And here's my typical list:

Which one would I much rather do? We'll the fun one of course....but how about my other list? It has to get done. Couldn't I make that one FUN too?

Here's Ana's right brain version of my list:

It's oodles more fun than my list! 

Ana's been, shall we say, less than organized in her school career. We were thinking of maybe making her a master list of her classes this year, scanning and copying her blank list (rather than buying an assignment book) and she can fill in her assignments for each class.  The design will be hers and she can do it in a way that works for her. She starts high school this year (gasp!) and she can use a little help making sure she gets all her assignments down.

So, that's what we are working on today. I still need some extra hours in the day, but now I have a plan!

Have a wonderful day, and please share what you do to make sure you don't lose those brilliant swirls of ideas!