Every time I read an article about making more time for my creativity by getting up a half an hour earlier and devoting that time to my art, I have to laugh. Frankly, if I was the kind of person that would get up a half an hour earlier, I would probably also be the kind of person that has thin thighs from using the stationary bike that now languishes in the spare bedroom. I might even cook some of the recipes I look at the pictures of in magazines and alphabetize my CD collection. The sad fact is I need that sleep. Badly.
It seems to me that there is something fundamentally wrong with the idea that we must “make time” for creativity – as though creativity were yet another chore. Our creativity is a part of each of us, like our sense of humor, or a propensity towards sneezing in threes. Creativity saturates everything we do. Here is a revolutionary idea. What if Creativity, at its essence, is simply our natural ability to solve problems?
Think about creativity in the arena of art, as that is where most people place it. When an artist makes the choice to paint the sky in shades of pink, orange and yellow they are using their creativity. Likewise, when you make the choice to put the happy face on your daughter’s lunch bag, or slip a love-note in your spouse’s briefcase, you are using your creativity.
Some people naturally gravitate to “less creative” and more obvious choices – like choosing to paint the sky blue. Are some people more predisposed to choosing to paint the sky blue? Absolutely. Do we all have the ability to choose to paint the sky pink and orange and yellow? Yep. So how do we get past blue on to pink? The same way we expand any skill. Practice and knowledge – and that leads us back to the original issue of making time.
Most of us must balance the demands of our lives (the laundry, the kids, the car pool) with the need to nurture our creative selves. It would be lovely to live a life where everything revolved around our creativity – for about ten minutes. Then think of the stress! We wouldn’t be able to create because of all that pressure to be creative. Eventually you’d miss the kids, and your spouse, and you’d feel a bit guilty about not taking the dog for a walk. In other words, there is no perfect life when it comes to nurturing our creativity. No matter what your life is like, there will be distractions. That’s the way it is supposed to be. Those distractions (also known as life) become part of your creative process because how you deal with them – how you solve those problems – is your creative process.
To truly nurture, and make time for, your creativity you need to understand that every thought is a creative act. Making time for your creativity then, is making time for you. What do you need to operate at your peak creatively? That extra half hour of sleep everyone keeps suggesting you give up for one thing! You also need to pay attention to your own body. Are you a night owl or a morning person? If you are more creative at night, then do your creative work at night. Rearrange things if necessary, make bargains with your significant other, do whatever it takes because there is no more time than you already have. The standard issue 24 hours is all we get; you just have to get better at using it.
Set the scene and make it easy for yourself to be creative. Personally, I can’t write if there is a TV on or music with words. The words in the background get tangled in my mind. When I write, I listen to instrumental music, but when I paint I listen to rock. Finding out that listening to The Doors inspires me to design was one of the most beneficial discoveries of my career. Think about your own creative life. When have you been really on fire creatively? What was happening? Were you alone or in a group? Was it late or early? Was it quiet or loud? Use these cues to make it easier to get yourself into a more creative mode for your work.
It is important to realize that there is a difference between making time for our creative work and making time for creativity. In her wonderful book, Art and Soul: 156 Ways to Free Your Creative Spirit, Pam Grout writes, “By the time Michelangelo landed a commission to paint the Sistine Chapel, he had done hundreds of thousands of simple sketches. His first sketches probably weren’t that different from yours or mine. In fact, this is what he said: “If people knew how hard I worked, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”
Fear and comparing our work to others diminishes, and sometimes destroys, our creative payoff. Instead of giving ourselves permission to learn, we expect our first story to be a Pulitzer Prize winning novel. The relentless demand for perfection in our own minds can paralyze us from even taking the first step towards enjoying our own creative processes. If you don’t give yourself permission to be a beginner, you will never push past beginner to get to expert.
Something else that can make us feel time-crunched is that we don’t make choices that support our creativity. Instead of doing things that nurture us, we waste precious minutes and hours on time monsters. Jennifer Louden writes in The Comfort Queen’s Guide to Life: Create All That You Need With Just What You’ve Got, “Time monsters are anything or anyone that eats our time and takes us away from what is worthwhile, juicy and meaningful. Procrastination is a big time monster. Reading the newspaper or fashion magazines for the sake of getting caught up, overzealous record keeping that has no payoff, phone conversations with people we don’t really want to talk to, pointless meetings with unprepared people.”
We use time monsters as busy work so that we don’t have time to do our creative work. In that way we can let ourselves off the hook because, after all, we just don’t have time for our creative work and ourselves. We are just too busy taking care of everyone else, and doing that paperwork, and getting through that stack of magazines. In other words, we are too busy lying to ourselves so that we don’t have to take the risk of actually getting to work and putting ourselves to the test.
There are many habits you can incorporate into your life to take time back you’re your personal monsters. Learn to love waiting. When I am at the doctor’s office, or waiting to pick up a prescription, or a hundred other small waits in my week, I pull out my journal or my sketchbook. In those stolen moments I get a lot done.
Don’t let inspiration pass. No matter what is happening – if the baby is screaming, the dishwasher is overflowing, or the phone is ringing – take time to write it down. Well, okay, if the baby is screaming over something life threatening you can deal with them first. But otherwise, write it down. You won’t remember. You know you won’t. Make it easy for yourself. Buy small pads of paper and keep them in every room of the house.
Finally, do just one wonderfully creative thing each day. Flex your creative muscles by doing something new. Rearrange the furniture. Cut the kid’s sandwiches in the shape of flowers. Write a poem for the company newsletter. Do something everyday, no matter how small. If you change the course of a boat by one degree, the passengers will not feel the change but within minutes the course they were on will have dramatically altered. Choosing to live your life more creatively is like that. Little changes have big effects.