Productivity tactics don’t limit your creativity
How to protect your creative time from "life".
Let’s play a game.
What’s the first image that comes to mind when you think about the workspace of a TRULY creative person?
Crumpled paper covers every surface, canvases are piled against the wall, stains of paint ornate every object. Maybe musical instruments dangerously lean against the furniture.
Creativity loves disorder. Order kills creativity. It’s a worldwide conviction.
It extends also to productivity. You can’t box creativity into rigid calendars and pre-cooked routines.
This
is
bullshit.
Sorry, but it’s true.
Let me show you how some productive structure actually helps you spend more time creating, and creating better things.
Luck is not a strategy
For many people, you can only create when inspiration strikes, when motivation is high, when the muse speaks to you.
If you depend on inspiration, you are at the mercy of luck:
maybe it will never come,
maybe when it comes, you don’t have time to act,
maybe when you finally sit at your desk with the perfect idea, someone or something interrupts you and it’s gone.
The counterintuitive solution, but the only solution, is to block time for creativity. Find a moment, possibly every day, when you can’t be interrupted, you can’t be distracted.
Creativity is like a flywheel, you need a lot of force to make it spin. But the more you push, the faster it goes, the less power it needs to keep going.
The longer you sit down with your creative idea, the higher the chance of creating something good out of it.
Routines change your identity
Routine is the death of creativity, right? Creativity is about novelty, not repetition.
But if you study the best creators in all fields, you’ll see that they all stop functioning without a daily routine. There’s even a book titled Daily Rituals proving it.
The thing is, becoming a creator means wearing a new identity. You weave it through the actions you repeat day in and day out:
Want to be a writer? Outline, draft or edit daily.
Want to be an illustrator? Draw daily.
Want to be a Youtuber? Script, record or edit daily.
Without a fixed routine, you’ll never work consistently on your content. A thousand different things and excuses will interfere.
As creativity becomes a routine, your mind changes. You start seeing the world through the eyes of a creator. Everything becomes material. The lessons learned, the conversations, the tiniest anecdotes carry the seed of valuable content.
The best routines are the ones you design for yourself. I wrote a guide to help you design and create the best system for you.
Here it is:
But what about ideas in the shower?
The best ideas come when you are in an unfocused state. It’s a fact.
In this state, the mind works in the background, making unexpected connections. These are your most original ideas.
But you can’t take day-long showers, right? You can’t block time for serendipity. So how can you make idea generation predictable?
Productivity techniques help here too. Ideation is a flywheel. The more you embrace the identity of a creator, the more you turn your experiences into material, the more ideas keep coming to you.
You can ease this process also through the right productivity tools. I get ideas at the worst moments. When I’m cooking, driving, or playing with my son. If I don’t save them, they’re gone.
So, I use Todoist, a todo list app. With two taps on my smartphone, I open the widget and save the idea.
During my daily review of Todoist’s inbox, I archive ideas in my Notion board. If necessary, I add more information to be able to understand the idea in the future.
Nothing gets wasted.
Tame the time vampires
I’m annoying. My wife can’t stand my inclination to optimize everything we do at home.
But, after 14 years of being married, she started recognizing the importance of efficiency. Especially after our son started wrecking our plans without mercy.
Constantly thinking of the fastest way to do everything is tiring. Optimizing chores and errands seems overkill.
But if you don’t do it, they swallow up all your free time. Do you prefer to spend 1 minute vacuuming or creating?
I understand this feels unnatural to some people. My wife included. But you can try to be a productivity nerd just for a moment. Make something, anything, in your life a little more efficient, and enjoy more time for your creative efforts.
A little tool porn is healthy
The most successful videos on my Italian Youtube channel are about tools for digital businesses. I know that most people watch them for entertainment: they get a small dopamine hit dreaming about how they can become more productive. But they don’t take the time to really change their procedures. They jump from one tool to another.
This is called tool porn. It’s a silly form of procrastination.
But spending an appropriate amount of time choosing and learning the best tools for your craft is crucial.
The best tools disappear. They don’t get in your way. After the inevitable initial training, they become an extension of you. They make your creative work even faster.
Are you a productivity nerd? What are your best tactics to be productively creative?
Let me know. And tell me any of your questions regarding productivity.