What does your creative process look like? Is it kind of hit or miss? What sort of approach do you take to thinking and producing? No approach because the idea of routine seems the opposite of creativity? Does your ability to accomplish goals shut down under the immense pressure to be brilliant? Did I just hear a resounding "YES"? Yeah. Me, too.
I don't normally buy into big, shiny methods to encourage creativity because I tend to have a resistance to letting other people tell me how to do something on the creative side. I like to think that I know what I'm doing. But there were several aspects of Todd Henry's The Accidental Creative that I appreciated and found helpful reminders to the creative process.
You must make room for creativity. The biggest truth about the creative process is that you have to make room for your brain to process the information that it takes in from the world. Go for a walk, turn off the radio and the internet and your iPod. Leave the distractions behind and give your brain time to move forward instead of always trying to sort what is happening to it right now. But how do we do this in a modern, technologically driven world? You might start with blocking out an hour for thinking. Somehow that sounds ridiculous; an hour just to think? But what do you do when you think? Do you write lists? do you suddenly see connections and possible results that you had not seen before? The fact that we believe that we can make important movements forward in the creative process without taking the time to think shows one major factor of how we might be making the creative process needlessly difficult.
Be willing to say 'No'. It's disappointing to have to turn down something that looks exciting or potentially wonderful. But one of the best pieces of advice given is to be willing to focus in on the critical aspects of your work and to cut out what is not critical. The idea is that you have only so much energy before you burn out; the more pots you have the fire, the harder it is to accomplish any one thing. But if you carefully think about where your creative energy needs to be directed, cutting out or putting to the side things that just simply drain, you will find your productivity increasing. It can be hard to say 'no' to things that look exciting. But wisely doing this will positively change your approach to work.
You are a whole being. For the artsy-types, this may not be an entirely new concept. But for the business-world, where the temptation to believe that our work and personal lives do not meet might be stronger, this can be a radical message. What happens in one place has effects in another. Don't believe the lie that everything goes into a box and you can put a lid on it and forget at the beginning or end of the day (depending on what you are hiding from). The idea is here that you need to cultivate many different parts of your life in order for your whole life to be fruitful. So read books about things that interest you or that you want to know more about (the city of Memphis or baseball). Listen to lectures to stimulate your thinking (TED lectures are available for free online, or go to iTunesU where numerous universities and educational institutions have lectures available for free). Take time to be with your family (eat dinner, date nights, sleep regularly). Be a whole person. Block out time to do these things.
In all of this, there is a lot of flexibility. Listen to a fifteen-minute TED lecture in the morning. Or at lunch. Keep a written calendar. Use a white board or post-it notes or a journal to brainstorm. This book is probably geared more towards the working world. But the term 'creative' is loosely ascribed to anyone who is expected to produce. And really, who doesn't fit that category?
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