#57. It's Spring Time So Why Not Self Audit
Hello there ladies and gentlemen and welcome to another episode of Making Lemonade,
The podcast where we talk about how we take the lemons that life gives us and all of the different flavours of lemonade that we as creatives and as people make throughout our lives.
This week we are talking about spring cleaning and the importance of self-auditing and how it pertains to staying creative.
Not sure what that means?
Then let’s just get into it aye...
It’s springtime and its time for a self-audit.
A self-audit consist of a few things.
Its essentially a cleaning out of your life, just in the way you may be spring cleaning your household and re-evaluating your space and clothes draws and so on, this is just that but for you not so physical life.
Let me run you through how I do a self-audit then we can run through why this is important as a creative.
So the first thing I do is tidy up and spring clean all of my spaces.
I go through all of my draws and tidy them in my studio
I clean my car and give it a good polish
Try to hit the doctor and get a check-up and reevaluate where I could go better with my health.
I reevaluate my diet
I check my finances and see how I could do better, see if there is anything I can do to save more and maybe invest somewhere.
I then check with friends and family, I text and ask 3 of my closest friends and my fiancé how I am a good friend/ partner and how I could be better.
This final step is my favourite, this is where I evaluate my work from the past year and see how I have progressed and where my weaknesses still lie so I can work on them.
This where you finally put all that you have learnt into action and execute
Okay now let’s break these down a little.
1. I go through all of my draws and tidy them in the studio.
This part for me is the key, to begin with.
The re-evaluation of how your draws are organised and set up is so key to me as you can’t have a tidy mind if your space isn’t tidy.
The efficiency of your workspace is key to having an efficient workflow because if you’re spending hours trying to find things you will lose that flow state that we all so desperately need to be efficient.
I also like to do a council clean up to get rid of any junk laying around the house that I don’t need anymore.
2. I clean my car and give it a good polish
Your car gets you around all week and helps you get places much quicker than your feet can, and some of us spend hours in our cars a day, if the car is cluttered and unorganised and dirty, this indirectly affects our minds.
Give your car a good clean out and polish the poor bastard for god sake man, it deserves it.
3. Try to hit the doctor and get a check-up and reevaluate where I could go better with my health.
This one is important for your physical health. Maybe you have some dodgy-looking freckles or a not so positive pain indoor shoulder. This is why you should go see your doctor around this time and make sure your machine is working to the best of its ability and if it is ’t how can you help it to?
4. I re-evaluate my diet
This is part of number 3 but equally as important because your diet can definitely affect your health and well being. It has been shown in recent studies that your gut health can directly affect your mental health and all-round all well being. It's been linked to, depression, anxiety and just day to day emotional control.
I know when I eat unhealthily and just worry about that mouth pleasure, I feel horrible and get very short with people and start to feel quite anxious and judgemental of others in my head.
So go keto, go paleo hell go vegan if that’s what your body needs, get some probiotics and eat more fresh food. You’d be amazed at the condition of your life when you don’t allow junk food into your life.
5. I check my finances and see how I could do better, see if there is anything I can do to save more and maybe invest somewhere.
This is so important.
Its tax time too so maybe an accountant can help you with this?
I hate doing this but it must be done.
I like to fo through the past years worth of spending, if that too much I break it down into 3-6 month portions just to see what I have been spending, where I have overspent, where I could have not spent and what I can do about saving more and maybe even investing some somewhere for the sake of cash flow.
I know it sounds tedious but the best way to do it I find is to get yourself a ledger book and break each transaction down to credits and debits and follow the amount there every week so you don’t have to do it once every 12 months.
You can find the column set up that I use on my website, just go to www.jordanmorpethart.com/makinglemonade and find this weeks episode. I have put up a copy of the column as a pdf that you can download and print out for your ease.
6. I check with 3 of my closet friends and my fiancé what makes me a good person and friend/ partner and where I could improve.
This one's always fun for me because I love feedback.
Feedback is how we improve ourselves in all walks of life.
So this one’s fairly simple, I can’t remember whom I learnt this from but all you have to do is pick 3 people who you trust and ask them for some serious and constructive criticism on who you are and if they have any feedback on your flaws.
Obviously, people who love and care about you will be good at giving you this feedback as they spend most of their time with you and they can help you to be the best you are.
Especially your partner as they have invested and committed pretty much all of their time and life if you are married, into you and that person has the most to gain from your evolution, so that means they will give you the best possible feedback.
7. I re-evaluate my work form the past year and see how I have progressed and where my weaknesses still lie.
So this one is particularly for us as creatives. This is fun as we don’t often take time to pat ourselves on the back and say, hey this is great look how much my work has progressed and how much I have learnt creatively.
The next step is even funnier because you get to see where you can get better and what to dedicate the next year too.
So go back to last year on your Instagram or min your portfolio and see what you were working on last year and how much better your current work is.
8. This is where you put all of your audits into action and execute
So there is no point in doing this whole thing if you’re not going to put it into action.
So set goals, build a creative plant for the next year and evaluate what you are going to work on personally and creatively and set your self some targets to hit.
See how far though can get with your creativity an where you’d like to improve.
Are you going to start drawing once a day?
Are you going to draw one piece a week?
You make the rules but, don’t bother doing any of this unless you're going to execute on it.
No plan is worth making unless it has the power of execution behind it.