HSP friendly systems: How do we organise our time (and ourselves) in ways that work for us?

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Hello Reader!
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I'm nearly 38 years old, and I'm still working on earning my Organising Badge.

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And it has been a journey of many different approaches.

I've tried multiple tidying systems, schedules, wall calendars and I have a pile of specialist planners that I never used past March.

The truth is, while I don't want to live in complete and total choas (I have concluded it's not the most beneficial state for creativity to be in utter panic as you skate across the room on a plastic wallet) I also find too rigid a system stressful. I feel trapped by it, and I find myself constantly anxious that I've fallen behind or let the system go within a week of hard graft setting it up.

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For a long time I had a deep shame about my messiness.

In many cultures being messy has all sorts of negative connotations – lazy, unreliable, immature, selfish. Even as awareness and understanding of neurodiversity is growing, there is still the message that we should just try harder, and for those of us who struggle to organise ourselves that usually leads to internalising that we are the problem.

So, I invested a LOT of time, energy and money in to trying to find the answer – the right planner, the right calendar, the right person who could come along and 'fix' me. And while I did learn many useful things, none of these ever worked as I had hoped, and I ended up feeling that yet again it was me who had failed.

And I know I'm not alone in this. HSP creatives are often very intuitive and love to respond in the moment.

But as people who tend to want to think about things carefully before we act, we can get a bit stuck between these two ways of being!

For those of us who are 'high sensory seeking’ HSPs or neurodivergent in other ways, strict structures can make us feel demotivated and trapped. But having no structure can send us down the energy rabbit hole, leaving us drained without having got what we really wanted to do…actually done.

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As I began to learn about and accept my own neurodivergence, I began to see that there is no magic answer.

Like everything, a system that works for me has to be bespoke to me, and the only way to find that was through self-awareness and experimentation.

Personally the approach that works has been to create a ‘container’ for my Goldilocks brain (not to structured, not too loose, but juuuuust right as a flexible container!).

I brought together a few different systems I learned from other people, jettisoned the bits that bored me even to consider them, and tweaked them until they began to work.

Admittedly my 'system' works in a slightly clunky, homemade robot kind of way.

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But for me this system – that enables me to keep on top of my work, to manage correspondence, and to no longer spend hours looking for my bank cards – has made a huge difference to the time and energy I have available. And that's time and energy I can spend making something that brings me joy.

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And of course, I want you to find that too!

So at the request of the lovely attendees of the March Sensitive Creatives Meetup, this month our topic will be:

HSP friendly systems: How do we organise our time (and ourselves) in ways that work for us?

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In this free session we’ll:

💫 Briefly look at some of the common approaches recommended to neurodivergent people to support them in organising their work.

💫 I’ll share my journey in trying to create some sort of ‘container’ for my Goldilocks brain so I could keep on top of my creative business and not be in constant overwhelm.

💫 You are also invited to bring along your own organisational systems or share your learnings with the group, offering us all lots of approaches that have been tried and tested by people with similar personalities and brains to help you find what works for you.

💫 We’ll have time for open conversation to share your challenges and find support in this area so you can find what works for you, and make what really matters!

The event is tomorrow (Tuesday 11th April), 7pm - 8pm BST and it's free ☺️

As always, feel free to come along and participate in whatever way feels comfortable for you. This month, let’s explore different approaches to help us keep working towards our intentions!

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If you'd like to come along then you can sign up using the link below (and if you are already on the list to be automatically invited you'll get your invite tomorrow!).

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✨ Save your space ✨

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In the meantime I'm going to make my own bespoke Organising Badge – because at the end of the day all these systems should really be are a contributing factor to us feeling more empowered and being more creative!

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Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.

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Sending you kind wishes and creative magic,