If you asked most creative people to identify their biggest hurdle to increasing (and improving) their creative output, most would tell you “I just don’t have enough time.”

It’s the easiest excuse to make, because people will rarely argue with you about it.  We’re all too busy right now. We get it.

As if juggling your available time and energy between work and personal interests wasn’t challenging enough to start with, the “work” ball has probably picked up some additional weight in the last year or two, thanks to the economic downturn.

The answer is editing your life the same way you edit your creative work.

None of us know what our personal bandwidth limit is until we hit it. When you’ve hit yours, the struggle to create can become almost impossible to overcome.

It can be particularly difficult when your life is too full of stuff you actually like. Don’t you feel a little weird, when your biggest problems are that you have job security, abundant meaningful relationships and a variety of life-enriching hobbies and interests?

Still, when we hit our bandwidth limit, we have to cut things out.  In a previous post, I said the following about how editing contributes to your creative vision:

Editing is removing anything that doesn’t contribute to your creative intent and vision.

This applies to all your creative work, including your life (your ultimate creative oeuvre). Sometimes, it’s necessary to edit your life and remove what’s not contributing to your intent and vision for it.  Sometimes, that’s the only way to make room for something essential.

If you’re overloaded enough, the essential thing may simply be “not completely frying your mental/emotional circuitry.”

We often find that when we declare that we’re “cutting back,” everyone who cares about us is 100% supportive…

…As long as what they get from us is not one of the things that’s getting cut. Surely, we can surely cut something else?

Well, yes, we could.  But it’s up to us to decide if we should. The unpleasant fact is, there is likely someone else who is invested in what we’re proposing to cut out, no matter what that thing may be.  So editing your life is quite possibly going to earn you some criticism worthy of George Lucas after The Phantom Menace came out. Criticism is never fun, but it is an unavoidable part of a creative life.

You could choose to view their hostility as a reflection of how much they value that thing you do.  It’s lovely to be needed and appreciated. That’s a gift.  It’s okay to bask a little in that.

But remember that the person is mostly just squealing because she doesn’t want that thing you do for her to be something that ends up on the cutting room floor as you’re editing your life.  If your life has reached Dances with Wolves overblown, too-muchness, and what you really need is perhaps a nice 90 minute romantic comedy, then something’s going to have to go.

Regardless, no one is going to take being edited out well, or happily.  Be prepared for the external and internal resistance you’re going to face.

Then do what you need to do anyway.

Image by joi

First, let me preface this by saying that I am not a programmer.  I know just enough PHP and javascript to be a hazard to myself and others.

But there was a time when I thought that learning web programming would be my vocational path, so I did learn the basics of programming theory.  I once had a friend whose message board sig line read “I want the source code for life.”  I’d like to take that metaphor and use it to explore two different methodologies for “life programming.”

Really, that’s what time management is: developing a “source code” and a framework for your time, as Ben Franklin put it, “the stuff of which life is made.”

There are two major paradigms in web programming: object-oriented, and procedural code.  Of the two, object-oriented is the new kid on the block.

Top down life programming

Here’s a quick definition from Wikipedia:

Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm that uses “objects” – data structures consisting of datafields and methods together with their interactions – to design applications and computer programs. Programming techniques may include features such as data abstraction, encapsulation, modularity,polymorphism, and inheritance. It was not commonly used in mainstream software application development until the early 1990s.

As you can see, OOP is very structured. It’s what you’d consider a “top down” paradigm.  You start with the big ideas, the overarching principles and goals, and work your way down to individual actions.  In theory, everything then fits within the structures you’ve defined at the beginning.

In life programming, this methodology is best represented by Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and similar programs.  OOP and top down life programming styles are very orderly, very goal-oriented, and begin with the end in mind.   If you are doing “object oriented life programming,” you’d determine your major life goals and values first (this would equate to the “data structure”) and then define the objects, or methods and subgoals, you’d use to achieve those goals and promote those values.

The advantage of an OOP approach to life programming is that you remain very focused on your personal goals.  It avoids the “I’ve gotten tons of things done, but I haven’t gotten anywhere I wanted to go in life” problem.

Bottom up life programming

Procedural code, in comparison, is a lot more down and dirty–and it’s how programming was done up until OOP came into vogue in the 90s.

The focus of procedural programming is to break down a programming task into a collection of variables, data structures, and subroutines, whereas in object-oriented programming it is to break down a programming task into objects with each “object” encapsulating its own data and methods (subroutines). The most important distinction is whereas procedural programming uses procedures to operate on data structures, object-oriented programming bundles the two together so an “object” operates on its “own” data structure.

So procedural programming is more of a “bottom up” paradigm.  Whereas top-down methodology would be to start with the “Why” of life programming, bottom-up methodology starts with the “How.”

In life programming, this methodology is best represented by David Allen’s Getting Things Done program.  The idea here is to come up with procedures, which Allen calls a trusted system, and process all the various “stuff” in your life through that system of subroutines.

One of the advantages here is that a lot of the things in our lives aren’t necessarily there because we made a conscious choice.  We often have many tasks that come up in the general course of things, rather than flowing down from our major life goals and values.  A procedural life programming method gives a person a framework for managing the tasks that are his or her responsibility, but don’t necessarily contribute to his or her overarching life goals.

Can both methods apply?

Of course, there are lots of people who use a blended system for life programming.  They may use a top-down methodology as their primary approach, but have procedures in place to handle the “little stuff” of life.  Or they may use a bottom-up approach as their primary way of managing time, but frequently and intentionally work in moments to step back and look at the bigger picture.

To be fair, both Covey and Allen would argue that their approaches have suggestions to deal with both the little stuff and the bigger picture.  But each one chooses one of those things as the major focus and impetus for action.

So what do you think of my analogy (and be kind–remember, I’m not a programmer)?  What approach do you use in life programming?  What are the benefits and pitfalls of a top-down or a bottom-up approach (other than the basics I’ve outlined)?