Scope Creep - The Creative Achilles Heel

Los Colores book progress - teaching colors in Spanish

I’ve set the intention for my work to do two things in my lifetime. One, fill children’s books that will inspire little ones and hopefully grown ups. Two, illustrate and design materials that will help my little one and others learn a second language, mainly Spanish because it’s the only other language I know well. Except there’s a pervasive problem.

It’s called Scope Creep. Isn’t that a wonderful word? S-c-o-p-e C-r-e-e-p. I love saying it. It scrapes the tongue as it tumbles out. Once I learned about Scope Creep it was like a fog lifted from my creative practice. It was like getting the medical diagnoses that finally explains, once and for all, why you have strange cracks and creeks, pains and pinches, highs and lows.

Essentially, Scope Creep is: any task, activity, and side project that is outside a preplanned objective, it’s outside-of-the-original-scope. Much like setting out to bake cupcakes and halfway through prepping the recipe deciding to also re-shingle the roof. It’s distracting and makes things take twice as long to finish or not finish anything at all. Isn’t that the artist’s peril?

We have honest and good intentions to doggonit finish that thing. You know the thing, that project from 10 years ago, the idea we had while making scrambled eggs. The brilliant world-changing hack, masterpiece, book, painting that we never seem to get to.

Don’t blame yourself.

Blame Scope Creep.

A captured image of a Scope Creep in action.

I believe a lack of awareness of this creepy crawly, sneaky little critter keeps us feeling inadequate at finishing what we start, it cracks our precious self-esteem, and discourages future attempts to express our ideas. It’s cute and tiny at first, whispering sweet nothings in our ear like, “you deserve a little break from this,” “You can get back to what you were doing later, just have a little fun,” “C’mon, just do it later.”

Have you been there too? Little by little we forget what we were doing in the first place and get side tracked for days, weeks, or even years! I’ve certainly been there and it’s a daily practice to keep in check.

Preventing the sneak attack of a Scope Creep:

1. Write down why you started the project or task you’re currently working on.

2. List all the physical items needed to consider the project/task fully completed, once and for all.

3. Decide and write down when you’d like to be done by, what month, day, week?

4. Only work on that singular project at a time by blocking out 20-minutes a day to one-hour. Whatever bit of time works for your busy life.

5. Most importantly of all, anytime you feel that ever present creative twitch to move onto something else because you’re bored, discouraged, feeling low, unmotivated and want to quit ask yourself, is this Scope Creep trying to pull me away from following through? Or do I just need a little vacation, a few days off?

Why this matters? Why listen to this gal?
I’ve struggled with focus, attention, Prioritization, and time management my whole life. That struggle has made me into a time management nerd not only to help myself reach my dreams of making inspiring artwork (by following through) but also by sharing what I’ve learned over a lifetime of studying this stuff.

gouache and acrylic on watercolor paper

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