June 11, 2025 • 12 mins
Storyteller's Society Sneak Peek: This Creative Silos method can make you way more efficient in your writing practice.
Creativity coach Cindy Cisneros reveals why traditional productivity advice fails creative writers, her game-changing "Silos" method that stops the destructive cycle of switching between writing and querying, and the "cross-modality" technique that breaks through even the most stubborn creative blocks.
What You'll Learn:
- The "Creative Silos" strategy that lets you batch writing and other tasks for maximum flow
- Why waiting for natural motivation beats forcing daily word counts every time
- The real reason creative people need "incubation time" and how to use it strategically
Click here to learn more about Cindy
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Cindy Cisneros (00:00):
So let's talk about some strategies.
One of the ones, and this is atough one, For us as creative
people is when we don't feellike doing something.
So we're feelers.
If you don't feel like doingsomething and the cursor's
blinking and you're not in thatzone, this is one of the biggest
things.
Or maybe it's logistics and youneed to be submitting lots of
(00:24):
query letters or maybe you needto be making lots of phone calls
or whatever it is and if youdon't feel like doing it, this
is one of the biggest blocks.
that we can have as creativepeople because you've got to
feel like doing it.
If you feel like doing it,you're going to be the most
productive person, the mostproductive person, but you got
to feel like it.
So here's a strategy I recommendto people a lot.
(00:45):
I recommend, I call it silos,but let me kind of give you an
overview of what that lookslike.
I recommend that you startmaking these kind of buckets of
things.
So if you have let's say.
Writing, or if you have phonecalls, or if you have business
planning, or if you have justkind of make categories and
(01:06):
chunk stuff off into thosecategories, and then, Decide if
you're going to put these intodays or half days or however
you're going to assign them andthen put your little tasks in
the buckets of here's the thingsthat I know I need to do in my
financial.
Here's the things that I'mworking on in my writing plot or
(01:26):
chapters or whatever.
Here's the things I'm working onwith my CRM on my phone calls or
whatever they are.
And then when you get to theparticular day, like for me, all
of my networking is on Friday.
every week.
But I am not beholden to 9 a.
m.
I am meeting so and so at coffeeshop, because as a creative
person, I can't, I can't do it.
(01:49):
But I know that there's going tobe a time on Friday when I feel
like networking.
And when that happens, I'm goingto get all the networking done.
So my recommendation to you is,if you kind of have things
loosely organized, by task, inlists, assigned to a certain
block of time, wait for thatmoment of eagerness to hit.
(02:12):
Because it will.
And when it does, do everything.
And when it's not there, don'tforce yourself.
Because when you force yourself,you will hate it more.
And know that when thatinspiration or that eagerness or
that moment strikes you, you're,even if it's a half hour or an
hour, you're gonna knock out somuch of it because that's who
you are.
(02:32):
And, the time that you're notdoing it, as creative people, we
use a lot of RAM at once, thattime you may need to really be
resting.
It is hard for us as creativepeople to be doing nothing.
For us, time is precious.
That pressure to use all thetime is real for creative
(02:53):
people, but sometimes doingnothing is important.
I call it for creative people,incubation time.
Sometimes it's when you'recoming up with your best ideas.
Sometimes it's when all of yourcells are aligning and you're
sitting there doing nothing andthen You figured out the thing,
but it's really important ascreative people, every single
second doing something is notnecessarily in your best
(03:14):
interest.
As an aside while we're on thistopic, I want to talk about
getting unstuck.
So if you're in a space where,yeah, yeah, I hear you, like
when I feel like I'm ready to dosomething, I'll do it, but I've
been stuck on this one thingforever.
I hear it.
That's real.
So, here's a couple of thingsthat I recommend.
One that I like for gettingunstuck is called cross
(03:37):
modality.
Sometimes we get stuck becausewe put too much pressure on the
product.
So cross modality is picksomething that is not writing.
And it doesn't matter if you'regood at it or if you ever intend
to.
It's probably better if youdon't intend to ever be good at
it.
So if you're not a painter, putsome finger paints out.
(03:57):
If you're not a musician, get aukulele.
Just get something that has zeropressure for anything except for
playfulness.
And you're trying to get thatkind of childlike playfulness
and playfulness.
Back, and to get your wheels tostop turning on the same thing
and grinding and grinding away.
So, if it's a couple of things,if it's one thing, but we're
(04:20):
doing something other thanwriting that is also creative,
and that's cross modality.
Also, you've probably done thisone, smaller chunks.
Smaller.
So if we're stuck on certaindialogue for a certain scene,
break it down smaller, turn itto something else, Okay, they're
not talking about this.
They're talking about doinglaundry.
(04:43):
Just break it down, somethingsmaller, and then your
breakthrough can happen.
And this is my favorite getunstuck, is go get inspired.
Go get inspired.
What inspires you?
Music inspires me.
Museums inspire me.
Nature inspires me.
What inspires you?
Walk away from what you're doingand go get inspired.
I'm going to completely changegears now for a different
(05:04):
strategy.
We talked about the importanceof balancing kind of focus and
rest and why that's important toyou.
But I want to talk about oneother thing, which is burnout,
which is very real for us ascreative people because of this
hyper focus.
But I also want to kind of talkabout the reality of creativity
(05:27):
in today's world few, if any ofus, get to do it full time,
solely.
And that can be heavy lift,right?
Because we're doing this formoney, we're doing this for
money.
If you, if you're doing creativethings for money, you're
probably also doing severalincome streams, right?
(05:48):
Like you're hosting workshops,and you're writing, and you're
doing podcasts, and you're, youknow, you're doing several
things.
And so all of the differentthings can be fatiguing.
So what is something that youcan do to help you manage
burnout?
And one of the things that Ilike is can, and this is going
to sound very therapist y, buthold on one second, is
(06:10):
connecting with your why.
So connecting with your why iswhy am I making art?
Why am I writing?
Well, because I don't know whatit's like not to.
I can't, I suffer if I don't.
Yes.
Yes.
All of those things.
But I coach clients in doingsomething called the creative
(06:32):
purpose statement, and this issomething that's in my courses
and in my content too, but thisis kind of walking you through
what does it mean on a largerscale for me?
to be making my work.
What does it mean on a largerscale for me to be writing?
What does it resolve for me as ahuman?
What am I contributing to theworld even?
(06:55):
What does it mean to my mentalemotional health?
What does it mean to mycommunity?
What does it mean to my legacy?
Kind of putting that alltogether into just like a little
statement that you can circleback to and connect with to
remind yourself what it's allfor.
And that feels like a lot but itcan be a powerful thing because
it's yours, you know?
(07:15):
It's yours.
So I want to say all of thosethings.
That was a real fast kind ofcrash course, to encourage you
that writing is an importantpart of who you are.
That Mother Nature has designedyour brain to be creative and
it's healthy for you.
Yes, it's hard out there.
(07:36):
There are pros and parts of yourbrain that can make it
difficult.
But overall, it will make you astronger, happier, healthier
version of yourself to continueto create.
David Gwyn (07:47):
One of the things I thought was so interesting that
you talked about was the, thesilos, and I think of the people
on this call and the people whoare in this community are people
who, generally speaking, are,you know, querying one book and
writing another, and I, I hearfrom people a lot that they get
stuck querying and then feellike they're not writing, and
then they get stuck drafting andwriting, And they feel like
(08:10):
they're behind on queries.
And I think that that idea ofsilos is really important.
Because these are kind of liketwo different parts of our brain
that we're, that we're using,you know, querying is very much
more like applying for a job andwriting is obviously this like
kind of creative piece.
Are these things that you wouldsuggest.
Doing like, in, back to back?
Or are these something you'dsay, like, Hey, I think you
(08:31):
should query on Mondays, andthen write on, the other days of
the week?
Have you found a kind of waythat works best for creative
people?
Cindy Cisneros (08:37):
Creative people tend to hyper focus, right?
So yes, generally speaking,we're going to want to pick one
task and immerse.
And distractions tend not to begreat.
So if you, let's say you havecreativity planned for today.
Today is a writing day.
Your brain might naturally lookfor some way to escape.
(09:00):
that difficult task because thecreative task is generally the
more difficult task and say,well, I'm going to check my
emails.
I'm going to check my databaseto see if any of my queries have
been looked at.
I'm going to this, I'm going tothat, I'm going to this.
So if you put boundaries aroundthat, no, today is a writing
day.
Query day is tomorrow.
Then you're kind of protectingthat and creating the space to
(09:21):
let yourself write.
And not kind of let your brainhave the out to do some more of
the like, and I don't, I don'tmean mindless, like it doesn't
take brain power, but it's justa different, like you said, part
of your brain that is lookingfor, oh, well, I don't, I can do
this instead, you know, and thenprogress doesn't move in the
same kind of way.
So yeah, I think the, theboundary between them is, is
(09:41):
helpful.
David Gwyn (09:43):
No, that, that makes a lot of sense.
Cindy Cisneros (09:44):
And I want to leave you with some resources to
make it easier.
I want to give you just a littleblurb as to what those are.
David Gwyn (09:53):
Yeah.
If you want to give an overview,that'd be great.
Cindy Cisneros (09:55):
Okay, so I have something called the creativity
courses that I wanted to leaveyou guys with, and so I came to
this point, this is another oneof my little soap boxes when I
got out of art school and when Igot out of counseling and
everything because it's the samethere, there are no courses on
business.
There is nothing to helpartists, to help writers, to
(10:15):
help therapists know how to runa business.
And that didn't sit right.
That did not sit right becausewhat there is a ton of is scams,
and bad information, andgreediness, and ways for us to
lose our money.
So, writer beware is kind of ourbest, like, you know, saving
grace out there.
So, what I, what I've puttogether is a free, suite of
(10:39):
courses for creative people tohelp you understand planning,
marketing, and selling, not justfor an entrepreneur, but for a
creative entrepreneur.
Because even if you do decide,let's say, to publish with a
publisher and not self publish,you are going to likely end up
doing your own marketing, a lotof your own promoting.
(11:01):
And so it's important to kind ofbe savvy and know what these
basics are.
And so, All of this is out therewith video content, worksheets,
downloadables, written coursesto kind of help you get those
basic sea legs of how to dobusiness as a creative person.
There's a little community foryou guys that are connected to
(11:21):
it to help you connect with eachother, ask each other questions,
and if it's scary, if it'soverwhelming, it doesn't have to
be, and I've really tried tobreak it down in a manageable,
supportive, safe yeah, Kind ofspace.
David Gwyn (11:35):
Cindy, thank you so much.
I'll link to that stuff.
So everyone has, has quickaccess.
This was really great.
Thank you.
I really can't thank you enough.
I feel like I, I feel like Iknow myself better.
Cindy Cisneros (11:44):
Good.
Thanks so much for having me.
Yeah, of course.
So let's talk about some strategies.
One of the ones, and this is atough one, For us as creative
people is when we don't feellike doing something.
So we're feelers.
If you don't feel like doingsomething and the cursor's
blinking and you're not in thatzone, this is one of the biggest
things.
Or maybe it's logistics and youneed to be submitting lots of
(00:24):
query letters or maybe you needto be making lots of phone calls
or whatever it is and if youdon't feel like doing it, this
is one of the biggest blocks.
that we can have as creativepeople because you've got to
feel like doing it.
If you feel like doing it,you're going to be the most
productive person, the mostproductive person, but you got
to feel like it.
So here's a strategy I recommendto people a lot.
(00:45):
I recommend, I call it silos,but let me kind of give you an
overview of what that lookslike.
I recommend that you startmaking these kind of buckets of
things.
So if you have let's say.
Writing, or if you have phonecalls, or if you have business
planning, or if you have justkind of make categories and
(01:06):
chunk stuff off into thosecategories, and then, Decide if
you're going to put these intodays or half days or however
you're going to assign them andthen put your little tasks in
the buckets of here's the thingsthat I know I need to do in my
financial.
Here's the things that I'mworking on in my writing plot or
(01:26):
chapters or whatever.
Here's the things I'm working onwith my CRM on my phone calls or
whatever they are.
And then when you get to theparticular day, like for me, all
of my networking is on Friday.
every week.
But I am not beholden to 9 a.
m.
I am meeting so and so at coffeeshop, because as a creative
person, I can't, I can't do it.
(01:49):
But I know that there's going tobe a time on Friday when I feel
like networking.
And when that happens, I'm goingto get all the networking done.
So my recommendation to you is,if you kind of have things
loosely organized, by task, inlists, assigned to a certain
block of time, wait for thatmoment of eagerness to hit.
(02:12):
Because it will.
And when it does, do everything.
And when it's not there, don'tforce yourself.
Because when you force yourself,you will hate it more.
And know that when thatinspiration or that eagerness or
that moment strikes you, you're,even if it's a half hour or an
hour, you're gonna knock out somuch of it because that's who
you are.
(02:32):
And, the time that you're notdoing it, as creative people, we
use a lot of RAM at once, thattime you may need to really be
resting.
It is hard for us as creativepeople to be doing nothing.
For us, time is precious.
That pressure to use all thetime is real for creative
(02:53):
people, but sometimes doingnothing is important.
I call it for creative people,incubation time.
Sometimes it's when you'recoming up with your best ideas.
Sometimes it's when all of yourcells are aligning and you're
sitting there doing nothing andthen You figured out the thing,
but it's really important ascreative people, every single
second doing something is notnecessarily in your best
(03:14):
interest.
As an aside while we're on thistopic, I want to talk about
getting unstuck.
So if you're in a space where,yeah, yeah, I hear you, like
when I feel like I'm ready to dosomething, I'll do it, but I've
been stuck on this one thingforever.
I hear it.
That's real.
So, here's a couple of thingsthat I recommend.
One that I like for gettingunstuck is called cross
(03:37):
modality.
Sometimes we get stuck becausewe put too much pressure on the
product.
So cross modality is picksomething that is not writing.
And it doesn't matter if you'regood at it or if you ever intend
to.
It's probably better if youdon't intend to ever be good at
it.
So if you're not a painter, putsome finger paints out.
(03:57):
If you're not a musician, get aukulele.
Just get something that has zeropressure for anything except for
playfulness.
And you're trying to get thatkind of childlike playfulness
and playfulness.
Back, and to get your wheels tostop turning on the same thing
and grinding and grinding away.
So, if it's a couple of things,if it's one thing, but we're
(04:20):
doing something other thanwriting that is also creative,
and that's cross modality.
Also, you've probably done thisone, smaller chunks.
Smaller.
So if we're stuck on certaindialogue for a certain scene,
break it down smaller, turn itto something else, Okay, they're
not talking about this.
They're talking about doinglaundry.
(04:43):
Just break it down, somethingsmaller, and then your
breakthrough can happen.
And this is my favorite getunstuck, is go get inspired.
Go get inspired.
What inspires you?
Music inspires me.
Museums inspire me.
Nature inspires me.
What inspires you?
Walk away from what you're doingand go get inspired.
I'm going to completely changegears now for a different
(05:04):
strategy.
We talked about the importanceof balancing kind of focus and
rest and why that's important toyou.
But I want to talk about oneother thing, which is burnout,
which is very real for us ascreative people because of this
hyper focus.
But I also want to kind of talkabout the reality of creativity
(05:27):
in today's world few, if any ofus, get to do it full time,
solely.
And that can be heavy lift,right?
Because we're doing this formoney, we're doing this for
money.
If you, if you're doing creativethings for money, you're
probably also doing severalincome streams, right?
(05:48):
Like you're hosting workshops,and you're writing, and you're
doing podcasts, and you're, youknow, you're doing several
things.
And so all of the differentthings can be fatiguing.
So what is something that youcan do to help you manage
burnout?
And one of the things that Ilike is can, and this is going
to sound very therapist y, buthold on one second, is
(06:10):
connecting with your why.
So connecting with your why iswhy am I making art?
Why am I writing?
Well, because I don't know whatit's like not to.
I can't, I suffer if I don't.
Yes.
Yes.
All of those things.
But I coach clients in doingsomething called the creative
(06:32):
purpose statement, and this issomething that's in my courses
and in my content too, but thisis kind of walking you through
what does it mean on a largerscale for me?
to be making my work.
What does it mean on a largerscale for me to be writing?
What does it resolve for me as ahuman?
What am I contributing to theworld even?
(06:55):
What does it mean to my mentalemotional health?
What does it mean to mycommunity?
What does it mean to my legacy?
Kind of putting that alltogether into just like a little
statement that you can circleback to and connect with to
remind yourself what it's allfor.
And that feels like a lot but itcan be a powerful thing because
it's yours, you know?
(07:15):
It's yours.
So I want to say all of thosethings.
That was a real fast kind ofcrash course, to encourage you
that writing is an importantpart of who you are.
That Mother Nature has designedyour brain to be creative and
it's healthy for you.
Yes, it's hard out there.
(07:36):
There are pros and parts of yourbrain that can make it
difficult.
But overall, it will make you astronger, happier, healthier
version of yourself to continueto create.
David Gwyn (07:47):
One of the things I thought was so interesting that
you talked about was the, thesilos, and I think of the people
on this call and the people whoare in this community are people
who, generally speaking, are,you know, querying one book and
writing another, and I, I hearfrom people a lot that they get
stuck querying and then feellike they're not writing, and
then they get stuck drafting andwriting, And they feel like
(08:10):
they're behind on queries.
And I think that that idea ofsilos is really important.
Because these are kind of liketwo different parts of our brain
that we're, that we're using,you know, querying is very much
more like applying for a job andwriting is obviously this like
kind of creative piece.
Are these things that you wouldsuggest.
Doing like, in, back to back?
Or are these something you'dsay, like, Hey, I think you
(08:31):
should query on Mondays, andthen write on, the other days of
the week?
Have you found a kind of waythat works best for creative
people?
Cindy Cisneros (08:37):
Creative people tend to hyper focus, right?
So yes, generally speaking,we're going to want to pick one
task and immerse.
And distractions tend not to begreat.
So if you, let's say you havecreativity planned for today.
Today is a writing day.
Your brain might naturally lookfor some way to escape.
(09:00):
that difficult task because thecreative task is generally the
more difficult task and say,well, I'm going to check my
emails.
I'm going to check my databaseto see if any of my queries have
been looked at.
I'm going to this, I'm going tothat, I'm going to this.
So if you put boundaries aroundthat, no, today is a writing
day.
Query day is tomorrow.
Then you're kind of protectingthat and creating the space to
(09:21):
let yourself write.
And not kind of let your brainhave the out to do some more of
the like, and I don't, I don'tmean mindless, like it doesn't
take brain power, but it's justa different, like you said, part
of your brain that is lookingfor, oh, well, I don't, I can do
this instead, you know, and thenprogress doesn't move in the
same kind of way.
So yeah, I think the, theboundary between them is, is
(09:41):
helpful.
David Gwyn (09:43):
No, that, that makes a lot of sense.
Cindy Cisneros (09:44):
And I want to leave you with some resources to
make it easier.
I want to give you just a littleblurb as to what those are.
David Gwyn (09:53):
Yeah.
If you want to give an overview,that'd be great.
Cindy Cisneros (09:55):
Okay, so I have something called the creativity
courses that I wanted to leaveyou guys with, and so I came to
this point, this is another oneof my little soap boxes when I
got out of art school and when Igot out of counseling and
everything because it's the samethere, there are no courses on
business.
There is nothing to helpartists, to help writers, to
(10:15):
help therapists know how to runa business.
And that didn't sit right.
That did not sit right becausewhat there is a ton of is scams,
and bad information, andgreediness, and ways for us to
lose our money.
So, writer beware is kind of ourbest, like, you know, saving
grace out there.
So, what I, what I've puttogether is a free, suite of
(10:39):
courses for creative people tohelp you understand planning,
marketing, and selling, not justfor an entrepreneur, but for a
creative entrepreneur.
Because even if you do decide,let's say, to publish with a
publisher and not self publish,you are going to likely end up
doing your own marketing, a lotof your own promoting.
(11:01):
And so it's important to kind ofbe savvy and know what these
basics are.
And so, All of this is out therewith video content, worksheets,
downloadables, written coursesto kind of help you get those
basic sea legs of how to dobusiness as a creative person.
There's a little community foryou guys that are connected to
(11:21):
it to help you connect with eachother, ask each other questions,
and if it's scary, if it'soverwhelming, it doesn't have to
be, and I've really tried tobreak it down in a manageable,
supportive, safe yeah, Kind ofspace.
David Gwyn (11:35):
Cindy, thank you so much.
I'll link to that stuff.
So everyone has, has quickaccess.
This was really great.
Thank you.
I really can't thank you enough.
I feel like I, I feel like Iknow myself better.
Cindy Cisneros (11:44):
Good.
Thanks so much for having me.
Yeah, of course.
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