creative day planning. visual journal. living outside the lines.

For almost three years, I have embraced the concept of not only planning {outside the lines} but also living — a gently ordering my private world — ever-so-splendidly outside the lines! While it was a wee bit disconcerting as first — I consider to be one of my very best life-changes.

Look at life through the windshield, not the rear-view mirror. ~Byrd Baggett

This feat was accomplished by making it my intention to focus on what {could be} instead of {what was}. Instead of all the times I “tried and stopped” …

I incorporated creAtive day-planning techniques in the way I organized my life {my work, my dreams, my miscellany and my eclectic, art-full moments!} and other miscellaneous tasks and actions in the direction of my dreams.

It began with stickers, color markers and highlighters in my {extremely} left-brain day-planner. (Read: FranklinCovey <= who have “loosened up” a bit with time! ) Complete with its lines and boxes to check, the linear record system … etc. etc. However, I began to add creAtive {addendums} to my planner — extra pages for pattern and color, collaged items or Post-it® notes for creAtivity, for thoughts, quotations and random ponderings.

From there I began to compile daily lists of regular activities using MS Word; then I would print a weekly list (or even an occasional Master To-Do list, etc.) — adding colorful design elements and eye-catching markings via markers, Post-it® notes, stickers and assorted labels, cut-outs, and even strips of torn paper from my junk mail and newspaper or magazine pages. I eventually “graduated” to collage-journal pages within my new eclectic, outside-the-lines {planners} … In the form of wired-bound journals or altered books [images].

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. ~Pablo Picasso

Why it is that we often lose the wonder of childhood coloring pages and “art projects” like doodling and such?

Remember? When purple or green was a fabulous choice for hair and coloring outside the lines was perfectly acceptable?

If we could perhaps recover just a bit of that freedom (and curiosity) — life would {feel} so much easier — or, at the very least, be more colorful! And we wouldn’t have to relearn how to play, to have fun and do what we want during the days of our lives. (Read: Attend seminars and workshops, pore of over countless books and hire pricey consultants …)

Because life is rather complicated and a bit of artist freedom, a scoop of vibrant color with a dash of imagination is like a spoon full of sugar (to help the medicine go down)!

Otherwise … Ugh! … exploring possibilities and the flight patterns for spur of the moment trips tends to blur from view. We establish impregnable boundaries, lock-boxes to keep everything in its place; structure eclipses spontaneity and deadlines stream in each day single (and double) file.

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