Series: Building Your Creative Practice @ Work
Part 2: Time, commitment, and power of constraints
This is Part 2 in our series Building Your Creative Practice @ Work. Haven’t read Part 1 yet? You can check out this post to learn about uncovering your opportunities for creativity.
You can also find us guest posting about the “good” struggle on
There’s an interview with author Neil Gaiman where he talks about his creative process. He goes out to a little shed in his yard where he has his writing setup, and he allows himself to do one of two things:
Write
Nothing
He can’t scroll social media or pay a bill. He can’t call a friend. He can’t read or do a chore. But he doesn’t force himself to write. He can write, or he can do…nothing. And after a while, writing becomes a lot more interesting than doing nothing. And so he writes. (Our brains are dumb—or very smart—like that.)
Gaiman is onto something we talked about in this newsletter a few weeks ago about the mysterious power of space and time to give rise to play, a necessary mindset for being creative. Creativity thrives when given the time and space to flourish. But even then, it’s not something that we can access on demand. All we can really do is set up the conditions under which it can occur. It reminds me of this “hummingbird party” where people dress in bright colors and don extravagant outfits covered in flowers and sugar water feeders. The goal is to be the first person to get a hummingbird to land on you.
Creativity is like that; you can’t force it. You can only create the most attractive “garden” for it to land in. And when we think about creativity as a practice, something we dedicate time and space to on a regular basis, we become a more and more predictable garden. A place that creativity can trust—and a place where you trust that creativity will visit you, even if it skips a few days. Cultivating this kind of trust with yourself in your creative practice is critical! Remember: You can’t be creative when you’re anxious or stressed, and what’s more anxiety- and stress-inducing than feeling like your creativity might never manifest?
In Part 1 of this series, we explored ways to uncover your best opportunities for being creative at work. There’s more detail (and a downloadable workbook!) in that post, but the summary is this:
Identify the creative benefits that are most meaningful to you
Identify where you have control (agency) in your role
Brainstorm new approaches in each area you control, using your benefits as a “filter”
This approach will yield a list of meaningful opportunities where you can experiment with creative problem solving or brainstorming. (Or you might already have some opportunities for creativity off the top of your head!)
So how do we create the right conditions for creativity so we can tackle those opportunities? The most important condition may be the simplest…and the most difficult to achieve. And not to totally freak you out, but it’s also one of the few non-renewable resources we have in our lives: Time!
Take your time
I’m going to say something that might sound ridiculous in today’s work climate: Block your calendar for dedicated creative time.
I know, I know: Productivity is the holy grail, so how can you possibly justify time every week or even every month that just sits empty on purpose? Well, the answer is that aside from being inherently fun and engaging, creativity is a powerful asset. Creative thinking leads to innovative solutions, improved problem-solving skills, and fresh perspectives that can streamline your work processes, transform your approaches, and actually end up making you more effective in the long run.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, “Research has found that taking breaks can improve your mood, boost your performance and increase your ability to concentrate and pay attention. When you don’t give your mind a chance to pause and refresh, it doesn’t work as efficiently.”
A rested brain not only works better when you reapply it to your work, but it’s also a balm against burnout—and what’s less productive than burnout?
But wait, is taking time for creativity the same thing as taking a break? As therapist and social worker Julia Jarrold says, “The brain is never not working, even when we're asleep. This means that the brain engages in different types of work at different times which in turn means that there are different types of brain breaks. They can be creative breaks, breaks away from work, and even sleep." So yes, switching into your creative mode counts as a break with the same restorative benefits.
So seriously: Block your calendar.
Now, what you do during this time doesn’t have to be as rigid as Gaiman’s all-or-literally-nothing technique. We’ll cover more structured ways to use this time in other posts, but how about…
Brainstorming ideas for new approaches to the opportunities you identified in Part 1, either alone or with your team or peers
Doing an activity that absorbs your whole attention and is conducive to flow, like a craft or automatic writing
Practicing mindfulness for the first 10 - 20 minutes
Looking up inspiration, like an interview with a creator you like, for the first 10 - 20 minutes
Be consistent
This part is pretty simple: Block your calendar on a regular schedule. When you’re able to be consistent every day, every week, every two weeks, or every month, you’re creating that rhythm of trust with yourself. The garden that the hummingbird flies to most often is the one it knows is a sure bet to have flowers! And even if you don’t feel like you’re able to be creative every time you set aside a block, your creativity will know—your brain will subconsciously know—that it's going to have another opportunity to play and be creative soon.
Whether or not you try to block the same time every day, week, or month depends on the type of person you are and the type of schedule you have. Are you someone who thrives on routine? Then just set your recurring calendar block and walk away!
But if your life or your personality are a little more loosey-goosey (Hello! It’s me.), then set an alert for once a week or once a month to go through your schedule and plan your ~*bespoke*~ creative blocks for the next period. Meaning, instead of scheduling a recurring 1-hour block every Wednesday from 9:30 - 10:30am, you set an alert for Monday morning that reminds you to look at your schedule for the week and find your 1-hour window.
Don’t rush
You’re going to need to block your calendar for a while—at least an hour at a time. John Cleese talks about why he prefers 90 minutes, and I tend to agree with him. Less than an hour might give you a break, but it’s not going to give you sufficient time to ease into a new mindset and to get creative. Our brains aren’t used to switching into the open, relaxed mode on command, and especially not during the work day. It takes time to disengage from the mental jangling that follows us around all the time, and if you’re only about to achieve that spaciousness after 20 to 30 minutes, but you’ve only set aside 30 or 45 minutes…you’re setting yourself up for frustration.
Like with any habit or discipline, establishing a creative practice requires a positive feedback loop in order to stick. We know this at an instinctual level, even if we like to pretend that will power conquers all. If we do something only for the sake of doing it but without receiving the benefit or reward…we won’t do that thing for very long. That’s the trick to establishing a good habit: Make it feel good! If you only take 20 or 30 minutes for your creative practice, and you are routinely frustrated that you don’t get to switch into your open creative mode, that you don’t get to play, that you make no compelling progress on the opportunities you’d like to apply your creativity to, then there is no incentive to stick with it.
Giving yourself 60 - 90 minutes at a time will help set you up to succeed. You will feel good, you will get the benefits, and it will subconsciously reinforce your practice.
Obey your schedule
We’ll likely talk more about the power of creative constraints in another post, but a timebox is one of the most obvious and most impactful constraints there is. (This is the magic of the Pomodoro Technique, a method I employ all the time in my work life, including while writing this post!) I don’t like to think about timeboxing as having the pressure of a deadline, because if your brain knows the deadline isn’t real, it won’t treat it like its real; rather, the power of timeboxing is that when you know you only have X minutes until something ends, you give yourself the permission to concentrate on just one thing without feeling derelict in your other duties.
Time to try it out
So, to summarize how to leverage time to create favorable conditions for your creative practice:
Block your calendar
consistently
for a while at a time
and stick to the time limit.
Any strategies you love for finding and setting aside time in your schedule? Let us know in the comments!
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