Avoiding a Crayon Crisis

Dear Erin,

So I was talking to Chris… He was telling me about training the junior prep cooks to use downtime today to get ahead on the little things that are going to help them tomorrow.  Turns out it’s harder than he thought. You and I were just talking about something similar the other night: avoiding a “crayon crisis” by staying ahead on the small stuff.

A Crayon Crisis happens when you wait until the last minute to do something routine that easily could have been done far in advance, like purchasing crayons for a previously-scheduled event. The law of the universe says that you are more likely to encounter all sorts of peripheral problems when you wait until the last minute - problems that somehow don’t seem to happen when you’re ahead of the game.  Weather. Issues with the credit card. Retailer is inexplicably out of crayons.

First of all, a Crayon Crisis should never be a thing. Crayons are widely available, easily attainable, inexpensive and a staple in youth programming. You know you need them, you should have them on hand, and whenever you run low, you should order more immediately before running out.  In fact, order from that you-know-which website that delivers packages to us, seemingly every day, for free. Save yourself a trip.

Second, and this this is the more important issue: when you set yourself up for a possible Crayon Crisis, you have eliminated space for a real emergency that needs your full attention and unique expertise.

When you are running a start-up, a small business or a nonprofit, anything can happen, any day. These brave business endeavors by definition are filling a need that the capitalist system hasn’t figured out yet, which means you are working things out as you go.  You cannot predict what crisis is going to happen. Unforeseen messiness is part of the gig. Your mission is to work through the messiness.

I don’t have to tell you that. As a performance artist, you have already faced any number of “OMG well that happened” moments.  How about that time when you set a trio on three dancers that was ready to go on Sunday yet by Friday night you, the choreographer, had to perform it yourself as a solo after the dancers went down with COVID?! (You were magnificent, by the way.)

You need to make time for messiness - it’s a guaranteed part of the business model. The difference between success and mayhem is how you accommodate messiness. Successful people expect messes and allow enough flexibility in their schedules to deal with them as they arise. Important messes. Messes that could completely upend your business. Mayhem is when you have a real, unforeseeable crisis but are too distracted by a Crayon Crisis to give it your undivided attention. You lose mission focus because you are knee-deep cleaning up minor, avoidable messes.

In my business, we work with youth carrying the residue of trauma and managing a whole host of issues they shouldn’t have to deal with until adulthood. We need to be ready to welcome them, meet them where they are and create the community they deserve. We have to be ready for whatever messiness they bring. We are never quite ready, TBH, but at least we have to make space for it.

We do not create space for our young people when we leave errands until the last minute. You cannot scramble to reset the lighting cues for a trio-turned-solo because you had to run to Staples to pick up the programs on the day of the performance. Chris and his team cannot ignore a last-minute menu change from Chef during service because they left the task of taking inventory until an hour before the vendor’s order deadline. Crayons, programs, inventory… these can be done in advance.

When I was telling you about Crayon Crisis on the phone, you suggested that people struggle with procrastination. I hear that. Chris’s opinion focused more on people’s tendency to just check off whatever’s on that day’s list without wanting the responsibility of thinking creatively about what else they could be doing. Dad thought it was more about planning ahead. Yes, yes and yes?

Love those differing perspectives, BTW. You seem to suggest that people know what they have to do, but put it off. Chris’s experience is that people prefer to be told what to do rather than take initiative. Dad leans into the possibility that people don’t know what they have to do (or forgot) until it’s right in front of them. Said another way: you know you need crayons, but put off ordering them. Chris’s team doesn’t know / doesn’t care that we’re out of crayons because it’s not on their list.  In Dad’s world, the person who needs the crayons is as surprised as anyone when all of sudden all hell breaks loose because there are no crayons. Three Crayon Crisis theories - all possible!

Look, we all have a Crayon Crisis from time to time. No one is perfect nor is any business perfect. You can’t anticipate everything and we’re all busy. But if this kind of thing happens regularly, you need a system.  You just can’t live like that.

I embrace all three hypotheses for why this happens (procrastination, not on the list, didn’t think ahead), and regardless of which theory, I have to return to my old stand-by remedy. Planner. I know, I know. Mom and the planner thing again.

Don’t take that literally!  Doesn’t have to be a paper planner with markers and stickers. It’s a schedule. Template. Project Plan. Paper, app, calendar, post-it notes, write it on your arm.  You do you. You have to write (type) stuff down, make lists, return to the lists, and schedule time to get things done in advance. Create a routine for yourself to regularly review what you need to do and when you can get it done.  There really is no substitute in my experience for spending a good hour a week reviewing your goals, projects, tasks and lists - and making a short term plan for tackling them.

You’ll need space in your “planner” system to act as a catch-all for things that come up, where you record random to-do’s that pop into your head. (I write them down in my planner; Dad sends himself emails; Mike puts them in Asana; Adrienne uses an app called List.) You also should have project plans that lay out the repeatable tasks that need to be done each time you do a project of that sort. E.g., “Youth Workshop” includes “check art supplies” as a task. Make a high-level list of everything you need to do each time you have a show. Yes, I know you know what to do for a performance without a list.  But write it down now so that when you hire someone, all your business processes and checklists aren’t trapped in your head. Write it down the way you would want it done.

Going into every Monday, or whatever day is your first-day-of-the-week, you should have a pretty clear sense of the coming events, meetings, big projects, and crayon tasks. Go for broke and peek at the whole month. Where do you have to be, where’s your stuff and what do you need to do to prepare? Make your daily lists. Put the easy stuff like ordering crayons up front, early in the timeline.

That last suggestion is controversial. You’ll often encounter business coaches debating whether you should do the easy stuff first to give you a sense of accomplishment or do the hard stuff first so you don’t put it off. I find that debate a false choice. You know as well as anyone that you can’t blithely write in your calendar “choreograph new work all day” and expect to be so 100% focused on movement art for ten straight hours that you never once take a break or look at your phone.  That’s mentally exhausting.

I’m a believer in giving yourself a handful of small tasks and one or two big projects every day.  It’s up to you whether you want to lean into block scheduling, which means you schedule an hour to do the small tasks and then two three hour blocks to do two projects, or just let the day unfold and do the little things whenever you need a break from the big things. Or, in the case of Chris’s prep cooks, you do the little things when you have some downtime. Frankly, if you really want to, you can also set aside one whole day for just the little tasks each week, leaving the other days in the week for the major projects. That can be equally productive, as long as you have a really thorough list of what you need to do on “crayon task day” and a line of sight into the upcoming projects.  Personal preference.

However you decide to move forward, the lesson is similar to what we discussed last week regarding hard drive management and information organization.  Pick a system, stick with it. The sticking with it is more important than the system itself. Let it permeate your culture, your routine, your habits. Know what you need to do for all your projects, get ahead of whatever you can, make lists and schedule tasks large and small so you don’t forget/ignore/procrastinate.

Your well-functioning system will make space for mission messes by avoiding crayon crises.

Love, Mom

Disclaimer: I am not an accountant or a lawyer! If you are reading this an you aren’t Erin, consult a professional or ask you own mom!