Books
Big Magic
This book helps lighten up the creative process and to illustrate a different path to creating that doesn’t have to be all torturous and painful. 🙂
Link to Big Magic book – Amazon.com »
Refuse to Choose!
If you struggle with seemingly wayyy too many interests that are clogging your brain and making it hard to focus and get any of them started or going – this is a great book for you! Barbara Sher reminds me of my late grandmother, Honey. When I stumbled across this TEDx talk below, it was like listening to Honey after all these years. xoxo
Link to Refuse to Choose book – Amazon.com »
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
Speaking of unclogging the brain – this book is also great for off-loading ideas and tasks you’re storing in your brain and helps you create a trusty system so you can use your brain for what it’s good for and let your system do the rest.
“Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them” – David Allen
Link to Getting Things Done book – Amazon.com »
Both Getting Things Done and Refuse to Choose have really helped me have less stress because I know that I have places to put my ideas when they pop into my mind while I’m in the middle of other things. And I practice going back to my systems so I know my ideas/reminders/tasks won’t get lost and my mind and body can relax knowing I’ll get back to it.
Print on Demand
I really enjoy using Printful, and I think you might too! They’re an on-demand printing company offering 328 products you can personalize as you wish.
I’m creating mugs, totes and framed posters of my illustrations. One of them is for sale right now.
If you sign up using my referral link http://www.printful.com/give-5-get-5/T6GF98, you’ll get $5 off your first order.
Don’t forget to show me what you’ve created!
Reminders When Stuck
When I’m getting really frustrated by something that’s not working, my anger starts to boil. When I’ve reached the point that I’m starting to lose executive functioning I swear out loud.
And at that point I’m breathing heavily, frustrated and can’t think straight. Wouldn’t it be helpful if at that moment, someone would come in and remind me how to calm down?
So I used Dictation and Automator on my Mac to listen for my frustrated exclamation. When heard it launches a web page of my choice. So far it’s working well! It started to make me laugh when the page automatically launched and that definitely broke the tension! The page that automatically launches is my personal-help-line that has reminders to myself. It’s pretty rough right now, but that’s ok. I’ll create nice graphics for it one day. Right now it’s a start.
UPDATE: I started taking Lexapro in November 2019. It’s been a life saver with my temper. These days I don’t have outbursts very often and I am able to catch myself and belly breathe to calm myself down.
CRISPIN BIXLER 