Context Switching: Confessions of an Over-Committed Creative

Thanks to a decision last year to stop thinking things to death and just do them, I have oodles of projects in the works. I'm juggling short and serial fiction, books, making music, and my first iPhone game of many. I'm squeezing this all into the nooks and crannies of my calendar amid family commits and after my very demanding day job takes its gigantic bite.

Before you subvocalize any "oooohs" or "ahhhhs," please understand that, while this new adventure has been personally rewarding, my campaign to Nike everything is messy and stressful and only sporadically effective. One of my biggest struggles, apart from that pesky "time" thing, is context switching.

I attack my projects in bursts of hyper-focus. Those bursts occur while spelunking specific rabbit holes (e.g., writing, music, development) for days or weeks at a time. When I'm immersed in a particular topic or craft, it's like my other projects in adjacent lapine caverns don't exist. I think of these subject-matter boundaries or blinders as contexts. Example in 3...2...

This week, my band got together to shoot a promotional video — something we can share with venues to highlight our vibe and chops in hopes of getting gigs. In the weeks leading up to the event, there was a lot of planning involved — song selection, logistics, testing live audio recording, working with the videographer to nail down the strategy, and more. Then came go time this Thursday night — setup, performance, and tear down. Since Thursday, we've been in the throes of post production, making the tracks sound as professional and freshy-fresh as possible.

I am operating in the Music context. I haven't spent any time writing my (overdue) serial installment or worked on the collection of short stories I'm publishing on Amazon or optimized my iPhone game to death or, or, or. It's music. Only music.

You might be thinking: "Uh, bro, you're writing a blog post write now." And you'd be right. This type of metadata writing is somehow independent of my contexts. I can blab endlessly without derailing my flow in a context or exerting any real creative energy. You might now be thinking: "Weirdo." And you would also be right.

Once I get this project to a stopping point, I'll climb out of the Music hole and descend again into Writing. This pattern repeats — week after week, month after month. It's automatic. I can force myself to shift from context to context, but I've found that doing so results in reduced volume and lower-quality output.

Recognizing this pattern has helped me avoid a lot of frustration. I've also come up with some techniques that are effective to shifting my focus — which I may detail in a future post.