Creating With Constraints: Designing When Time, Energy, or Tech Are Limited

What if your limitations were actually your creative superpower?

In this co-hosted episode, Kaylie and Delores dive deep into the realities of creating while juggling limited time, energy, or even outdated tech. 

Whether it’s motherhood, chronic pain, aging bodies, or software that won’t cooperate, the truth is: most of us aren’t creating in perfect conditions — and that’s okay.

You’ll hear real talk and practical strategies from both hosts, including:

🕒 How to create in micro-moments (and why 20 minutes counts)
 🧠 Why templates, batching, and repurposing are game-changers
 🛠️ What to do when your tech feels like a barrier
 📽️ The value of SOPs (standard operating procedures) for saving time
 🎨 How constraints can actually define — not diminish — your style
 🤖 Kaylie’s honest take on AI tools and where they do (and don’t) help

From baby nap schedules to eye strain to shifting platforms mid-launch, this is a heart-filled reminder that your creative work doesn’t need to be perfect to be powerful.

✨ PLUS: Kaylie shares her favorite tools for making progress in just 60 minutes (or less), even when life feels like chaos.

Links mentioned:

• Five Cards in Five Days Challenge

Sage Grayson's Start up in 60

Sage Grayson's Fix it Fast

Note: These are affiliate links from Kaylie. That means if you purchase, she may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.

Transcript

 [00:00:00] 

Kaylie Edwards: Hello, lovely creatives and welcome back to the Creative Juggle Joy podcast.

I'm Kaylie and I'm here with my wonderful co-host Delores. Today we're tackling a topic that I think every creative listening has wrestled with at some point, creating when your time, energy, or even your tech feels limited.

Delores Naskrent: Yes, because let's be honest, most of us are not sitting in a perfect studio with unlimited hours and endless energy. Life happens. Health happens. Tech fails us, and yet we still create, and sometimes those very constraints end up shaping our best work.

Kaylie Edwards: Exactly. I know for me, motherhood brought a whole new reality. I live with chronic pain conditions, fibromyalgia and joint hypermobility syndrome. So I already had to balance my energy and protect [00:01:00] my health, add a toddler into the mix now, and my working windows became tiny and unpredictable. If Aston's poorly or just being clingy, I have to take time off, or only work when he's in bed.

It's just as simple as that. And here's the thing, I used to try and push through. I still sometimes do when I'm really needed to, I stay up late, skip rest, work in the hours. I wasn't working full time. I'd always pay for it afterwards. Sometimes with days or even weeks of pain and sickness, now I've learned well.

I still relapse. Sometimes rest isn't optional. On good days, I work as much as I can, and on the hard days I have to try and give myself permission to pause.

Delores Naskrent: That is so important for me. Of course, it's a little bit different. It's things like eye strain or arm or wrist pain, sometimes [00:02:00] shoulder or family that pops in that I can't always stick to long working days either.

I dunno, I've just had to learn to create in smaller chunks and not beat myself up when life gets in the way.

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah,

and I think that's the heart of this episode. Constraints aren't the enemy. They force us to simplify, to focus, and sometimes to innovate or adapt.

Delores Naskrent: Yep. One of my biggest strategies especially in the last three years has been to start leaning more on templates and content repurposing. So for example, with surface pattern design, once you master creating a seamless repeat pattern, you can make multiple designs quickly by just swapping out colors or motifs.

And with the teaching I. Use my class structure over and over again so the bones stay the same, but the content [00:03:00] changes and I have found that it really saves me hours. I wasn't doing that at the beginning and it took me probably the full first year to fully have a grasp on exactly how the routine should go.

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah, I love that. Like that's something even I've learned from doing classes and courses this year that you. It's working into a rhythm and finding a routine and then I have to tweak it because maybe something doesn't quite go right or takes longer than it should. Like editing for a start, it takes up so much time.

Delores Naskrent: I know, I know.

Kaylie Edwards: So much time editing is horrible. Ah, so yeah, you have to find ways to. Find those little tricks, find those little rhythms and write it down, write your processes down and work from that. [00:04:00] It's so hard to forget. And then when you come back to it again, you might be like, oh, well what did I do last time?

Write it down and follow a plan. They are what you call SOPs.

Delores Naskrent: Standard operating

Standard operating procedures. I remember that. I've just recorded my 16th one, so I, I do this, Kaylie, this is something that I learned through coaching, and that was with Colleen Underwood.

Colleen had encouraged us, and I started this now probably a year ago, recording all of my standard operating procedures mostly at the beginning it was for myself to remember how to do things, but those standard operating procedures now I've used to pass on to my assistants, anybody that I need to do a particular task that I was doing all the time, like let's say uploading to teachable or sort of standard things that I would do with my editing that I was then.[00:05:00] 

Teaching Ché how to do, having made these little recordings and adding them to my SOP library. Oh my gosh. I can't tell you how many times I've referred back to those or passed them on to someone.

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah, it's something even I am, I'm guilty of, not doing sometimes and like you'll ask me to do something to show you how to do something, and I'm like. I could have done with a video beforehand to send you, and I'm just like quickly scrambling and putting my screen record on and trying to get a video to you to show you how to

Delores Naskrent: something. It's perfect though. It works. I'm so glad that you do that. Yeah. You're not the only one. I've had other people do that for me too, and. That's where you know, you really realize the value of that planning and routine.

So if there's anything that you're doing that you're repeating over and over again, it's a standard operating procedure and that standard operating procedure should be recorded.

Kaylie Edwards: [00:06:00] Yeah, and then once you start doing that repeatedly, it gets quicker. You get quicker at it, and it will save you time in the long run.

Delores Naskrent: Absolutely.

Kaylie Edwards: I need to do that a lot more than I have done.

Delores Naskrent: after. Put that on your long list. Your long, long list of things that you have to do.

Kaylie Edwards: yeah, my long, long list that never seems to go away and like for everybody else as well. Everybody in this day and age has like a list that never ends to do, but one of my go-to tricks is what I call the one idea three formats rule. Sometimes it will actually be more than that, but this is like at least a standard that I can go work off of.

So whenever I create content for the podcast, I'll also turn it into Instagram carousels or reels or an email. So we add it to our newsletter. So I will write a section once I'm starting to edit and do things. So when I go to come to create content, I will repurpose that [00:07:00] content and. Create it in different formats so it's spread out and people can find us in different ways.

So one piece of effort turns into three places of impact, or maybe more so Pinterest. We do pins and stuff as well.

Delores Naskrent: That is really brilliant, and you're right, it really reduces the pressure to constantly try to come up with content and constantly reinvent.

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah, that's why we did the podcast, wasn't it? Because we needed extra content, or at least a core content that we could refer back to and put in emails. Obviously post about as well, which I have fallen off the bandwagon for a while, posting about our episodes lately because I've just got so much on at the moment.

But I do need to get back to that. And it just works in, life. It's life. And let's talk about energy because it's so tied to real [00:08:00] life. For me, most of my focus work happens when Aston goes to bed. So maybe from like 9:00 PM to 1:00 AM I'm working like recording this podcast right now. It's quarter past 12 in, the morning.

Delores Naskrent: in uk.

Kaylie Edwards: So during the day I try to grab micro moments. If he's at playgroup, I'll get two hours to do work. But obviously he's off in the summer holidays now. So during meal times, I can get some stuff done or catch up on a course I'm doing when he's occupied. Playing is my best time-ish, unless he's in one of those moments where he is running around the living room with his plastic Minecraft sword, trying to hit pretend monsters.

It can be quite hard to do some work and focus, and it's often interrupted. And honestly, I've had to let go of the idea that work has to look like a nine to [00:09:00] five desk job from home. My business grows in the margins. That is okay.

Delores Naskrent: I love that, Kaylie, and for those listening who maybe don't have young kids, but have health constraints or even just limited energy, the same applies.

You don't have to match someone else's rhythm. If you can do a focus 20 minutes, that will count. It will eventually add up. Yes. So why don't we talk at this point a little bit about tech, because it can either make things easier or feel like a barrier. I can speak from experience on this for sure. I know.

Plenty of people worry that if they don't have the latest iPad or the most expensive software that they can't create, that's like the old illustrator versus affinity designer argument. But honestly, I know that for myself, some [00:10:00] of my bestselling classes and products in general were built on very simple tools.

Kaylie Edwards: Yes, and for me, the big game changer has been leaning into automations and AI tools like I use ChatGPT daily for something Gemini I use for research. Sometimes Claude to help me brainstorm draft ideas and create drafts and obviously doing the research part of it. But here's the key.

I never use the outputs as is without editing first. Like I have trained chat GBT in various chats, customized to do specific tasks and to know my brand, to know how I speak, but I still edit it. Sometimes it'll come out with a weird word. And I'm like, I've never said that in my life.

What are you talking about?

And then I have to go back and edit and scan through and be like, what is it [00:11:00] saying? It called My Audience love. And I was like, I've never said that to anybody. So you need to edit. But it saves you so much time. I always fact check, I rewrite in my own voice if I need to, if it hasn't got it quite right.

But AI doesn't replace me. It supports me. And as a mom with a very limited time, it's been a lifesaver for efficiency in my business.

Delores Naskrent: Yeah, that's a good point, Kaylie. It's not about replacing your creativity at all, it's just about making space for it so it can do some of those things that just take up time.

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah. As such, repeated tasks as well, I. Sometimes I don't have bandwidth. My brain just doesn't work sometimes, and especially if I'm working late at night and I need to come up with content for an email or for a social post or something for the next week, I will ask chat GPT for ideas [00:12:00] because I just I can't come up with 'em all by myself sometimes.

And then sometimes I give it the ideas and I just get it to draft it for me, and then it becomes a reiteration. I then change and it's so helpful to just be able to do that. 'cause if I did it from scratch, like blog posts, like if I had to come up with a blog, whole blog post by myself and write that, it would take me probably two days.

Delores Naskrent: Yeah,

Kaylie Edwards: Whereas if I get Chap GBT to help me at least come up with the main content for it. I can just obviously add my stories and things to it myself, and it'll take me like so much less time. It could be done in like an hour and a half.

Delores Naskrent: Yeah.

Kaylie Edwards: Yes. And I also use like ManyChat for social media, so when someone comments a key word like handmade, it automatically sends them the right link to their dms with the info they requested and the comment in their comments.

Of [00:13:00] any relevant posts. So people expect instant gratification these days, and if we don't meet them quickly, they move on. And to be totally transparent, one of the reasons I moved away from my all in one platform, FEA, Create was because it was just being too clunky and slowing my progress down. Creating a new offer or a funnel felt like jumping through hoops, trying to find everything and make sure it's all connected without issues.

And the affiliate program that I wanted to set up for my launches just didn't happen. How it should, and affiliate payments weren't automated, so I had to remember to manually send payments and support, couldn't gimme a guidance I needed, which was just super, super annoying. And I kept going back and forth, and that was the last straw when I spent weeks getting vague answers and no real solution.

So I moved to a platform that I knew I would be able to control myself and could. Find ways to [00:14:00] automate important processes in my business, which is super needed. Now with my new platform, a lot of these things are going to be streamlined. I'm still in the process of actually doing that right now.

Delores Naskrent: Yeah.

Kaylie Edwards: While I still have workflows I need to set up, like batching content in automations and moving a lot of my stuff across, I know those investments will save me so much time in the long run.

Delores Naskrent: That's a valuable lesson, and I could. Extract 15 things out of what you just said, and one of them that stood out to me was the batching of content, because that's something we haven't really talked about too much. But this is something that I have learned over the last three years of creating courses is that it makes a lot more sense for me to batch my content and record a bunch of stuff well ahead of myself because then.

Everyone else who's involved, you know, Ché doing my video editing you, [00:15:00] doing my email marketing, Inca, doing my graphic design. It can't happen if I'm recording the class that next week, I wanna promote. So that really stood out to me like the batching of content and getting really ahead. And we talked about it just recently in another podcast.

The same thing goes for creating content that you're going to be selling for a season and doing it well in advance of the season.

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah.

Delores Naskrent: So those are such valuable things that I pulled out of what you just said. But really importantly. To me right now, and obviously to you 'cause you've just done it, you've switched platform.

I am gonna switch, I'm sure of it, but choosing a platform that supports you is very important. Not the ones that make you dread logging in to do your work.

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah. Sometimes you don't have the hindsight.

Delores Naskrent: That's right.

Kaylie Edwards: When you pick a [00:16:00] platform and it is literally about testing and finding out, and luckily some of these platforms actually have trials that you can get in and have a play around and see what they actually do and if it feels right for you. 'cause sometimes you can get into a platform, think it's okay, somebody else has found it easy.

But you go in and you have no frigging clue what's going on and their support may be not the best, or maybe they just don't have the tutorials that you need. It's all about finding things that will help you in the long run. I know like with batching, yes, it can take time to batch a load of content, but just think how much time that saves you not having to rush to do something because you've forgotten to do it, or you get a timer reminder saying, oh, you need to post a, I don't know, a blog post today.

And you're like, oh, crap. I haven't set that up. If you have them all batched, it saves you so much time. It, yes, pick a [00:17:00] time and date to do it and actually do it, but I'm guilty of this where I haven't at the moment been able to. Tying myself to actually do something like that. I've lost track of my social media.

I, that's my mistake at the moment because I come back off holiday and I, 'cause I hadn't batched my content, I haven't now got the time to actually get content out. 'cause I'm trying to catch up. So don't make the same mistake I do where I can't get that out. And here's the shift. Constraints can actually give you clarity.

If I only have 30 minutes, I don't have time to overthink it. I just have to create it.

Delores Naskrent: Absolutely some of my, best work, some of my signature styles, all of those different things that have gone into my creative life in general. Some of them came directly from working within limits, whether that was just a, like with a [00:18:00] artwork or pattern, select collection that I'm creating.

I was constraining myself to having just a very small palette, or I needed a really short class format, or I just was working with limited tech. Sometimes those constraints, they don't necessarily limit your creativity. They often define it.

Kaylie Edwards: Yes. A perfect example of this is Jenna Blackburn. She teaches classes on finding your style, and one of her methods is all about setting creative boundaries. For example, she will have you work. With a limited color palette or focus on single subject or a theme and repeat it in different ways over a set period of time.

So it might sound restrictive at first, but it's actually quite freeing because you are not bouncing between millions of options, but you're honing in and exploring deeply and noticing the threads that naturally appear in your work. And that's often when your unique style starts to [00:19:00] shine through. And when it feels like limitation is actually a framework for consistency and growth.

Delores Naskrent: That's so true. And sometimes those are the very limits that are what your audience connects with. You don't think about it in advance, but. It actually is the thing that gives you that connection, your style, your pace, your way of approaching your craft. unique because of the way you've worked your way through those constraints.

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah. 'cause your constraints might look different to somebody else's constraints.

Delores Naskrent: Absolutely.

Kaylie Edwards: So, lovely. Listeners, if you've been telling yourself, I don't have enough time, or I can't, 'cause my tech isn't fancy enough, take this as your sign. Start small. Use the tools you have. Find tools that will work for you and create in the margins if you need to. Even if you can only work for half an hour a day, [00:20:00] you will make progress over time.

It might be small, but you will get there. And if you'd love some step-by-step support to make your business feel lighter,

I want to share something that's been a huge help for me. A great entrepreneur. I follow Sage Grayson has created some brilliant programs that are all about streamlining and fixing those. I don't have time moments. Her "startup in 60" course is amazing. It's full of tasks you can do in 60 seconds or 60 minutes, so you always know how to move the needle even when your time is limited.

can check it out through my link in the description of the episode of the show notes, and if you've ever had a launch or a plan, totally go sideways like we have. We've all been there.

" Fix it fast" training is a lifesaver as well. I will also put that in so it shows you what to do when your plans fail, and so you can get back on track quickly without floundering and maybe [00:21:00] shutting the curtains and eating ice cream and thinking you've given up.

Delores Naskrent: That actually sounds fantastic, Kaylie. I. Love the idea of fix it fast. I am definitely gonna check that out. I'm glad that you have shared that. I think that so many of our listeners will resonate with that, especially we're all juggling those unpredictable days and limited energy.

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah, exactly. It's just something that'll help. I'll pop both links in the show notes for you, so go take a look. If you're ready to make your creative life feel a little bit less overwhelming than it has to be.

Delores Naskrent: Yes. And we would love to hear from you as always. Tell us how you found this episode, if you've got some useful information from it.

And I would love to know, I'm sure Kaylie, you would too. What other people. Think is their biggest creative restraint right now. We would love to talk about it in a future episode, [00:22:00] so keep creating, keep juggling, and most importantly, keep finding joy in the process.