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If you are a creative, then you know there are some things you have to do to carry out creativity. You have a responsibility to look at the world in a different way. Of course, doing the same things that everyone else is doing will get you the same results that everyone else is achieving. You can and will accomplish more with your life when you adopt creativity for yourself.
The excuse for most people that don’t create outside of their minimum basic contributions to this world is a lack of time. I mean, I get it. But, to do what you truly want to with your life, your view on how you are creative will have to change. When you change your view, you will realize that the creativity you are pursuing won’t complete itself. If you are to become more creative, then you will need to give it some effort, but I can help get you there.
I want to help you get your best jump start on living a more creative life, so here are five tips that you need to live out more creativity with your life:
1. You need to schedule creative time.
This point hits you one of three ways – you either don’t have any more extra time, you feel that creativity should just flow whenever you have a free moment, or structure of any type feels like a constraint on your creativity. The truth is that scheduled time for creativity is what keeps you accountable to the process. It is what keeps you showing up time and time again to get the work done and if there’s anything that you need, it is more commitment to the craft you are pursuing. That’s exactly what this scheduled creative time gives.
2. You need to get alone.
This is the worst part of the process for me. With a wife and two children, the last thing that I want to do is isolate myself. But, being alone is one of the most necessary parts of the creative process. Being alone gives necessary clarity in the midst of a noisy world and when done correctly you are more efficient in the other areas of your life.
Being alone is most effective when you know where you need to be to create. If you work best in a quiet environment, find a library or other quiet environment to create. If you work better in a noisy environment, find a busy coffee shop to be creative in. If you find that you can’t create in your office environment, then it’s time to get out. The right environment can help you be more creative, and the great thing is that you can probably choose where you do your work at some point in your day.
3. You need to take care of things as they happen.
Something has to give when you pick up new things to do, but beginning anew doesn’t always have to mean that other areas of life need to suffer. When we know what our top priorities are, we don’t have to wonder what it is that needs less attention, because we have already streamlined our life in the way it should be. When we take on anything and everything, life quickly becomes chaotic. I’m sorry to break it to you, but you can’t possibly do everything in this world and still do it well. But, when you decide what you need to pour your heart into, you allow yourself to be more creative in these areas and can make a bigger impact as well.
Room to breathe and margin is what helps you get the work done. Now, some people like pressure in the creative process, but I have found that space allows for more time, which allows more tinkering with ideas. Great things happen when there is time to mold ideas into better ones, and that only happens when we give the process of finding solutions more of our time. Rushing creativity gives basic thoughts, but when we have time to ponder these ideas, it is here that we get to push through to find our best possible answers.
4. You need to create more often.
When people say they haven’t done what they have wanted to in life, my first question to them is, “Well, how many times have you shown up?” The process comes down to odds. If you have only shown up five times, then you don’t have that good of a chance to find what you are looking for. But, if you show up 100 times, successful creativity is probably right around the corner. Practice is what makes the process easier and helps ideas flow in more manageable ways. The more you show up to work, the easier it becomes. The more often you create, the easier it is to see what works and what doesn’t.
5. Share the process and results you find with others.
At some point you need to share your ideas and creations with others. This sort of brainstorming with other people helps you shape your ideas into something that can help them as well. It is always helpful to hear from others to make sure you are heading in the right direction and thinking of all possible ways to produce better outcomes.
You can also build a team of some sorts, either by hiring virtual assistants or other employees, to free yourself to create more often. The more ways you can find to create, share your creativity with others, and empower others to create, the more impact you will have through creativity.
In the comment section, I would love to hear what the creative process looks like for you and what you are working on, today.
The term “creativity” has a broad scope in my mind. I think some people view creativity where it relates to work or career as simply “doing something that wasn’t assigned”; but while that may turn out to be creative, I don’t view every such undertaking as necessarily a creative one. And since creativity does have such a broad scope, it’s hard for me to nail down one single process of mine that results in creativity.
For instance, I have what I call “cartoon brain.” I see outlandish scenarios playing out all the time, ridiculous alternate realities to what is actually playing out in front of me. So reality may be showing me some guy at the gym bending at the waist in front of the cable ropes doing an ab routine; and my cartoon brain plays out my running up to him, pushing him over with my foot, and then running from the building laughing, flailing my arms over my head like Kermit the Frog as I exit. Creativity is happening — in that new connections of possibility are forming. But does it have a process? No. It’s just part of who I am by nature. Thankfully, I have a working amygdala, and so I don’t usually act on my cartoon brain’s creative offerings. However, while such random creativity may not seem USEFUL at first glance, it absolutely IS; that is, I’m continually in a creative space. It’s that 5 vs 100 times showing up thing you mentioned, Adam. My brain naturally shows up a LOT, and so many times DOES produce useful connections that I did not necessarily plan through a process.
Every time I write, I am forming new ideas — or at least new combinations of words to express ideas, whether new or not. Some of these times FEEL more creative than others, but they are all creative by definition. Do I have a process for the writing? Not usually. Again, my brain is going all the time. I’m interacting with people. I’m engaging. I’m taking risks. And so ideas are occurring to me on a continual basis. By the time I site to write them, I’m really just watching a sort of movie in my head, allowing my right brain to pass its information to my left brain to describe what I see.
All of that being the case, I do have some things I do that help me CAPTURE creativity and harness its energy into usable / useful forms:
1. I use my voice recorder. Any time a particularly cool new idea, connection, dream or even “cartoon brain scene” stand out, I record them. Sometimes, in playing something back months later, it will take greater form and come to life.
2. As much as I am able, I hang around other free-thinking, creative people. Where music is concerned, while I do write some of my best music alone in the quiet hours while the world around me is asleep, some fantastic surprises come out of just hanging out and fiddling with ideas, with other creative musicians, producers, etc. — particularly those whose musical tendencies are quite UNLIKE my own. Some great hybrids have come out of this along the way.
3. Rather than constructing set TIMES to “produce” based on creativity (e.g., writing a blog post or book chapter), I set broader goals by way of deadlines, such as “go live with one new blog post every Friday-through-Monday.” I’m not so much concerned with when the actual writing happens; as I say, my brain is going all the time.
4. I keep track of my creative “pieces.” As with the recorder, I have notes jotted all around my computer — thoughts that occurred to me; doodles; an underused vocabulary word that struck me while reading. I don’t throw these thoughts or notes away. It’s pretty cool how often, just by being in my space for a while, something will jump from the “creativity bank” I’ve collected one day and come to live as a full entity of its own.
I love your detailed comments, Erik. Yes, creativity definitely does have a broad scope. Maybe creativity is what produces the positive and productive outcomes, whether it’s the outcomes you were looking for or not? James Webb Young goes into detail about the creativity process in A Technique for Producing Ideas. It’s all about seeing the new relationship between existing ideas. Sort of goes with this, but that’s what I’m thinking about right now. 🙂
I think I will try testing my creativity sometime in trying to say 1000-words worth of thoughts in 100 words or less. I’ll look into Young’s book, Adam. Thanks for the tip!
Haha. Well, when you get the book, don’t expect anything long. I think it’s something like 30 pages.