your process: methodical, or madness?

offcuts

the featherweight is getting a workout this week

ideas in progress

how many quilting or sewing or craft projects do you tend to work on at once? 

are you the type to do projects chronologically and in succession, carefully and methodically?

or do you get carried away and work at many things concurrently, little by little, a little here and there, getting one or another done eventually?

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i fall into the latter camp...i'm usually struggling under the crushing weight of an avalanche of ideas i want to pursue and projects want to start.  i have about 15-20+ ideas going at once, in a variety of media (quilts, clothing, knitted or crocheted things, jewelry, and on and on).  i manage to manage it all (barely?) by spitting my time amongst all the different projects, putting in intense effort on one project for a while (like, a matter of hours here, a few days there, etc.), then switching off to another project, perhaps in a different media, and so forth.  i tend to work on sewing projects like quilts in my studio during the daylight hours when P is at school or camp.  when she's tucked into bed and Peter is off at jiu jitsu for the evening and I'm exhausted from my efforts and travels during the day (gym, errands, childcare, tending to household chores), i camp out on the couch in front of the television and putter away at somewhat mindless handicrafts i can literally do by hand and half-consciously:  embroidery, english paper piecing, knitting, crocheting, sometimes drawing.

the system mostly works, i guess.   i *eventually* get projects done and i'd argue i am pretty productive...but it might take me a while to finish a quilt i started, for instance, but i almost always finish it.  it just might be months or even years after i first started it.

it's sort of a haphazard system but it seems to satisfy the inner desire to give into pursuing various ideas !!!RIGHT NOW!!!.  if an artistic endeavor is really satisfying, i'll give it first priority and lots of attention and effort for a while, and other projects will fall back in the queue; i'll circle back to them eventually.

sometimes i honestly wish there were extra hours in every day, and extra days in the week so i could get it all done...

alas...  :)

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so, again, how do you work?  what's your creative process like?

do you work methodically, serially?  

or find yourself jumping around from idea to idea, working on a multitude of projects at once (like yours truly)?

how's it working for you?  well?  if not, how could your process be better or be improved?

how do you keep track of ideas?  sketching?  hyper-organization?

anyone else suffering under the crushing weight of too many ideas?  how do you manage?