Productivity: Producing before consuming

Good afternoon everyone!
Today I woke up with lots of things on my to-do list,
mostly creative endeavors,
yet when I got out of bed,
I immediately reached for my computer.

“What’s with that?” I asked myself.
Did I want to revise a manuscript, because that’s great!
Did I want to write? Also great.
Nope.

Turns out I wanted to go online.
Why?
to check Twitter, email,
and read up on some articles on Feedly.

I didn’t let myself though.
I thought about it for a minute.

If I’m a CREATIVE person, I should pride myself on creating, right?
So why do I insist on consuming first thing in the morning?

I didn’t let myself do it.
I also kept my phone away since Instagram was calling.

I thought about my to-do list.
I had thank you notes to write and at least sketch up.
I should get working on that before I go online.

Now, don’t get me wrong.
Consuming is great!
Reading blog articles, interacting with friends, and discovering new books/people/art
is super important, and often inspires me.
I’m not saying no consuming whatsoever;
I’m saying I think I’ve been doing too much of it.

How did the “produce before consume” thing go?

I created a thank you note and wrote the entire thing,
then finished the sketch of another.

For both I had to go online to look up reference pictures,
and I was very careful to ONLY look at reference pictures.

After I finished,
I took a break and read some blog posts.
Next up was creating this (see, PRODUCING!)
and I’ll paint the thank you post card.

Producing before consuming,
or creating before all else
has really made me feel productive today.

How about you?
Do you have any hard and fast rules about when you create,
or when you do social media/internet/blog reading?
I’d love to hear them 🙂

Until next time,
KE