Several weeks ago Pam Slim, coach and author of Escape from Cubicle Nation–the blog and recent book, swung through Atlanta on her world tour and I hung out with her for the day at her workshop, contributing my graphic facilitation magic. Fun-O-Matic!

I found Pam’s blog several years ago. We’ve been internet friends for a long time and this was the first time we spent time in person. And just as I expected—she rocks!

And because Pam attracts some incredibly interesting and gifted people, I made a couple of wonderful new friends. Yay for new friends!

Her workshop was full of great ideas to help brainstorm a business into being. At several points in the day, I captured the conversations in visual maps.

Hi, I’m Julie and I’m in Stage 3

Introductions were done using Martha Beck’s Change Cycle which has four stages: Death and Rebirth, Dreaming and Scheming, The Promised Land, and The Hero’s Saga.

We gave a brief description and identified where we were on the Change Cycle with our businesses. It was no surprise that most were in stages one and two: Death and Rebirth or Dreaming and Scheming as there were a lot of people in the brainstorming or formative stage of starting up a business.

You have an idea, then what?

A lot of the participants already had an idea, or a kernel of an idea, so the next step was to figure out “Who are my people?” We did this with two business ideas. One was for a business that helps other businesses start wikis and get engaged with social media. The second was for the Curvy Yogini, a yoga business focused on curvier people.

“I’ll never be successful”

After lunch one of the areas Pam had us focus on was negative thinking—all those thoughts that come from the reptilian brain telling us we’ll never be successful, and we’ll end up living in a van down by the river.

One person volunteered to explore her fears around her coaching practice; specifically that she doesn’t provide enough value. Pam broke down her fear thoughts and asked her questions from Byron Katie’s The Work to see whether her fear was true.

Toward the end of the day I mindmapped while we brainstormed an idea for a travel-based business that gives innovative entrepreneurs the time and space they need to be creative. We thought of all the different aspects and questions to sort out when thinking about how this business could work.

Mindmapping + brainstorming=powerful results

I loved doing this work with Pam at her workshop. In fact, it’s one of my favorite ways to use graphic facilitation: to help you see your big dream clearly, in focus, so you know what to do next.

There’s always that moment (often more than one) during a personal mapping session when you can see all the moving parts and how they fit together and suddenly it starts to make sense. There’s an “a-ha!” And more importantly, the steps ahead become much easier to accomplish. That moment is magical.

Many thanks to Pam for such a fabulous day!!

Time and how I use it, or how it uses me is occupying my thoughts. I’m noticing that my life revolves around my work life which revolves around my To-Do list which means I’m reduced to finding part of my joy in checking off a series of tasks from a list. That’s so not how I want to live my life.

And in terms of the kinds of meetings I design and facilitate, a meeting whose sole purpose is to check some things off a To-Do list? So not the kind of meeting I’d like to be at.

I’m ready for a total reorganization of the concept of how I spend my time. Luckily I got a chance to explore these thoughts the other week with super-genius Charlie Gilkey of Productive Flourishing during a Kitchen Table class. Charlie is all about helping creative people be more productive, except we’re not going to use the P-word again. It’s been replaced with Meaningful Action.

Things that are missing when you have a To-Do list

Is your life run by a To-Do list? Mine is. It’s helpful in many ways. My list makes the perfectionist in me very happy when I put big checks in the cute little boxes I’ve drawn. It keeps me on task and moving forward. But if too many days go by and I’m not checking things off I feel frustrated that nothing seems to be getting done.

My To-Do list is also almost exclusively work centric as in the things that I really want to do and bring into my life — like having an afternoon for painting or taking a hike on the weekend — never show up on the list. Why is that?

How to bring those things I want into my daily schedule

In thinking about how I spend my time in terms of qualities I want more of in my life, I’m trying to shift my actions from specific tasks to cultivating expanses of time in which I can do several kinds of things that will deliver the kind of experience I want to feel.

That’s a bit esoteric I know, so let me explain. I’ve been doing yoga and meditation for many years and reiki for the past several, both of which have helped me develop my intuition. I would like to spend more time than I do now exploring my intuition. So instead of thinking: I have to do yoga, I have to meditate, what about saying, I want to spend time with my intuition — Intuition Time — and that expanse of Time could include some yoga poses, some meditation, some daydreaming, some journaling, etc.

Same thing goes for the art I want to do. Creating Time could be getting out my watercolors and splashing them around. It could be thinking up new ideas for my business. It could be practicing my graphic facilitation skills.

Charlie assured me that my new awareness was “dead-on” and referred me to a post he wrote about how to readjust your life, taking it from To-Do-list-driven to something that works better for creatives (or really anybody) called Create, Connect & Consume. The premise is that if you are doing any one of those three things on a given day, it’s a win.

Mindmapping while getting my oil changed

While I was looking over the notes from my conversation with Charlie, I suddenly wanted to see this new concept of arranging my day, my week, my month in a Mindmap because I’m visual that way.

I happened to be at my mechanic’s getting my oil changed and only had a couple of pens handy — not as many fun colors as I like to play with — but I whipped out this Mindmap in about five minutes. Organizing the qualities and experiences I want to bring into my life that don’t have much room right now.

The titles I came up with for the containers of time I want to have are: Creating Time. Trying New Things Time. Developing Intuition Time. Reading Time. Connecting With Friends Time. Restorative Time. Adventure Time.

Around the bubbles I wrote the activities I could do within each one of those categories that would bring that quality into my life. For Restorative Time I listed: taking walks, massage, music and daydreaming.

How this relates to meetings

This has me thinking that meetings need different kinds of Time too, many of which are the same that I need: Creating Time. Trying New Things Time. Connecting Time. Adventure Time. Restorative Time.

And wouldn’t it be interesting to have container of qualities to design your meeting around, kind of like an underlying energetic guidance system, instead of being completely wedded to a To-Do list? Actually a combination of both would be pretty powerful.

What are the kinds of Time you’d like to have more of in your life?