230: What’s Your Ratio of Quantity to Quality for Ongoing Creative Work?

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” —Maya Angelou Earlier this summer, I arrived late one day to the podcast studio, laying on the floor in lieu of actually recording anything. Should I take that as a sign to reduce my creative output? Not necessarily. Aside from big one-off projects like writing a book, where I pour incredible time and attention to detail into (that I tackle every five years or so), I seem to do better with ongoing creative work by sticking to a stretch-worthy production schedule. These days I’m running a Delightfully Tiny media company that produces the following on a monthly basis: 14 podcast episodes across Pivot, Free Time, and BFF Bonuses ~14 essays or newsletters: 8 ‘Doh posts, 4 Time Well Spent newsletters, 2 PivotList round-ups, and 1-2 BFF mailers This does not include guest appearances on other people’s shows By stretching myself to show up in these ways, I have discovered that there’s not always an inverse relationship between consistency and quality—at least for me. 🌟 5 Key Takeaways Check your assumptions about causation vs. correlation. For example, more time doesn’t necessarily equal more money (or higher quality); maybe less time requires firmer boundaries, smarter systems, increasing delegation Keeping up with a stretchy level of creative output doesn’t mean caving into the downsides of quantity: throwing in the kitchen sink to keep up with shiny shoulds or client demands out of insecurity Nothing needs to be forever: Trust yourself to be creative and resourceful in the moment if/when you need to slow down or take a break. Align your production schedule with what you will be proud to produce, and look for secondary benefits of each creative output such as networking, catching up with friends, reading books Do beware of burnout: Look for alignments to make things easier (cross-posting bits of the same content across multiple places), and put a Delightfully Tiny Team in place who can help take the pressure off. 📝 Permission Aim for consistency even over quality (knowing that “babysitting the work” doesn’t always help anyway), and permission to keep publishing even through energetic highs and lows. ✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next Look back at your creative history: do you do better work with more constraints or fewer? What’s your sweet spot? There is no right answer. Bonus: Put a team and/or resources in place to help bolster accountability, take responsibility off your shoulders, and that raises the stakes (in a good way) of missing a deadline. 🔗 Resources Mentioned Articles: Emily McDowell’s Unqualified—Paid Subscribers: READ THIS! Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h: Mutually Assured Rejection Part One, Part Two; Morning Rush, Afternoon Crushed, The Business Yips & 51/49, Love That! For You 🙄 Video: Ira Glass—The Gap Between Taste and Talent Podcast Production: One Stone Creative Apps: Substack 📚 Books Mentioned Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Life After College 🎧 Related Episodes BFF Private Feed (with free preview): Substack Q&A with Linda Lebrun from the Writer Outreach Team Pivot: 123: Peeking Out From The Plateau — My Latest Pivots Free Time: 222: Why I migrated my three email lists to Substack (BFF Bonus Replay) 138: ⛵️Stop Sailing the Sea of Shiny Shoulds 060: Triangle of Tradeoffs 130: Day in the Life of a Podcast Episode ✍️ Check out Jenny’s personal business essays on Substack, Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h 📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/230 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices