Les Watson’s passion for and expertise in self-management and productivity comes from over 30 years of experience as a trainer, speaker, facilitator, and coach in self-management, motivation, and communication. He is the author of Get Back An Hour In Every Day and facilitates the acclaimed Creating Success Program.

Les talks with me about identifying your tendency and how it can cause trouble as you manage your time; how parents can take care of themselves first even in a busy household to make sure they get to their creativity; why deadlines are magic, not a medieval torture device; the keys to getting an hour of your time back every day, and more. I hope this conversation gets your New Year’s creativity resolutions off to a great start.

Join us for Make Bad Art starting on January 20 and get 2025 off to a fresh creative start! Details at MakeBadArtCourse.com. 

Episode breakdown:

00:00 Les Watson discusses self-management, productivity, and creativity.

05:35 What do you want and commit to?

08:51 Keeping self-appointments is as important as others.

12:17 It's easier to prioritize others over yourself.

15:44 Prioritize self-care first, like oxygen masks.

18:13 Setting boundaries for personal time with kids.

22:55 Clarify priorities to focus efforts effectively.

25:57 Incompletions persist, haunting and overwhelming thoughts.

28:57 Organize goals efficiently with a single system.

31:16 Deadlines motivated MFA completion, ensured timely submissions.

34:03 Get accountability buddy for art exhibition preparation.

39:41 Maximize return on investment using minimal effort.

42:25 Start big picture, identify steps, take action.

46:31 What do you want? Sacrifice for creativity.

50:13 Planning creates personal time and builds self-trust.

51:22 Write goals down to stay focused and organized.

55:38 Capture fleeting ideas before they vanish forever.

Check out the full show notes (now including transcripts!!) at fycuriosity.com, and connect with me and fellow creatives on Substack.

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If you enjoyed our conversation, I hope you’ll share it with a friend.

None of us gets through the day without encountering anger somewhere, be it at work, at home, on the road, or even inside ourselves. Ryan Martin is a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay, and he specializes in anger. He’s written a book, Why We Get Mad: How to Use Your Anger for Positive Change, and given a TEDx talk, but a lot of people have encountered him through his @angerprofessor account on TikTok, where he shares interesting new research and offers advice on how to handle anger—and how not to. 

In our conversation, Ryan and I discussed how his fascination with anger began, the positive sides of anger, how anger can fuel creativity (and how we can unintentionally sap that fuel). Ryan also tells me how he came to be curious about curiosity, which inspired him to revamp the way he teaches.

Check out the show notes at fycuriosity.com, and join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok!

Urban fantasy author Sarah Fine, who writes psychological thrillers as SF Kosa, is a clinical psychologist as well as a novelist. As a result, she has a lot to say about the amateur psychology and observational skills writers tend to possess, as well as what she will and won’t do in portraying aspects of mental health in her books. In addition, we also talk about the psychology of the creative process, from artificial pressure to “write every day” to how the unconscious can do a lot of heavy lifting for us as we try to navigate a difficult question or creative block in our process…and even just why it is that characters often seem to escape the control of their authors.

Sarah’s latest book, The Night We Burned, comes out on August 10th.

Check out the show notes at fycuriosity.com, and join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!

Darcy Wade is an expressive arts therapist who knows what it's like to be derailed from her creative dream. As you’ll hear, one simple incident in high school destroyed her artistic identity, leaving her adrift through college. A chance interaction brought her back to herself and got her on the expressive arts path. If you’ve never heard of expressive arts, don’t worry—she has you covered as we talk about her early life as an artist, how she was thrown from that path and how she got back on it, and how wilderness and expressive arts therapy can bring us back to ourselves.

Check out Darcy's art and links in the show notes at fycuriosity.com, and join the conversation on Facebook and Instagram! You can rate and review the show here. Thanks!

Katy-Rose is a well-being teacher and reinvention mentor whose curiosity led her to earn degrees in psychology and neuroscience on her quest to understand everything she can about what makes people tick. She uses neuroscience, coaching and cognitive strategies to help her clients reinvent themselves without burning everything to the ground.

We talk about everything from how awareness and willpower work to the way your brain influences how you perceive how much you've eaten to how quantum mechanics may explain energy healing, and a whole lot more.

Check out the show notes at fycuriosity.com, and join the conversation on Facebook and Instagram! You can rate and review the show here. Thanks!

Kelly Flanagan, clinical psychologist and author of Loveable: Embracing What is Truest About You So You Can Truly Embrace Your Life, joins me to talk about why following our creative dreams is a vital part of being true to ourselves, and how uncovering and embracing those dreams makes us more human and more whole. 

Find show notes at fycuriosity.com and join the conversation on Facebook and Instagram. You can rate and review the show here. Thanks!

For the holidays, my gift to you is a replay of one of the inaugural episodes of this podcast: my conversation with Dr. Kelly Flanagan, which I hope will inspire your creative pursuits for 2020.

Kelly Flanagan, clinical psychologist and author of Loveable: Embracing What is Truest About You So You Can Truly Embrace Your Life, joins me to talk about why following our creative dreams is a vital part of being true to ourselves, and how uncovering and embracing those dreams makes us more human and more whole. 

Find show notes at fycuriosity.com, and join the conversation on Facebook and Instagram. You can rate and review the show here. Thanks!