Life’s stream of competing demands can deprive the creative mind of the oxygen it needs to flourish. According to one study, 78% of artists have other jobs and well over 40% of nonfiction writers say they lack the time they want to write.
Writing creatively has always been a part of my own life, a vital energy source for my roles as a father, husband, and psychologist. But I notice it often takes a back seat to other responsibilities, falling to the bottom of my to-do list despite its status as a core value.
When you find your creativity sidelined, how do you bring it back to center? First we need to better understand what’s getting in the way.
What Blocks Creativity
Tension against creativity can come from having multiple life roles that require activities which are rote, rushed, or repetitive. Multitasking “overdrive” or feeling swamped with uninspiring tasks can drain the creative mind, lulling it into a more passive state. High levels of stress can also interfere with the focus creative work needs. In addition, it can be harder to switch from rote tasks into creative ones when you’re tired.
By assessing your current levels of stress, fatigue, roteness, and fragmentation, you can develop a preliminary blueprint for a new creativity foundation. For example, you may discover that you need to move your creative time from the evening to the morning when you are the freshest, or batch your chores so they don’t spread out over a full day.
Another common barrier to maximizing creativity is procrastination. Since creative work is typically open-ended, effortful, ambiguous, and self-evaluation-heavy, one can fall into the procrastivity trap. Procrastivity refers to the tendency to choose a less demanding task over a more abstract or challenging one to preserve a sense of self-efficacy. One remedy is to focus more on the enjoyment of the creative process as opposed to the outcome. It’s easier to avoid self-criticism and judgment that way.
6 Strategies to Become a More Consistent Creator
Here are some additional ways you can make creativity a central, active, prioritized, procrastivity-insulated, and non-negotiable part of your daily life:
