Finding Time for Creativity

“ You need to make sure you love creativity enough to add it in your schedule.”

The crazy busy life

I’m in front of a thousand people and my brother is right beside me. I’m prepared to do make my next illusion. I’m able to see what others reactions are. Parents and children are all coming together to see what dangerous trick I will be doing.

5 minutes later I do my magic show, I get a text from my waitressing job wondering if I can start 30 minutes earlier. You know, the girl called in “sick”. Ha ha, most people lie about that one, but might as well go in because “I’m not that busy”.

After my job, I head to the gym and do a crazy 2 hour workout. I usually don’t work out this long, but my competition is in two months. I need to give it all I got.

I’m finally home, I’m painting my picture for my next exhibition show. I have only 5 days left, and I need to get this done.

This is a typical day in my life, up and go. I barely take breaks because if I do I’m worried more work will pile on. Let me tell you what I did, which allowed me to be where I am with a busy schedule.

Evaluation

Reading my daily life example shows you something invaluable.

I could totally crash at any moment.

But there’s something else. I’m pursuing my dreams and I have the oddest life ever!

I have a very strict schedule in order to do everything I love, though I really need to evaluate what’s important for me and what will give me the results I want in my life.

Here’s a great post that talks about how you can do what you love by evaluating what’s important to you. Click here

Basically, to have a life of your desires requires work in the beginning. If you don’t evaluate what is the MOST important for you, you will be juggling everything in the exact same spot. This happened to me. I evaluated and prioritized many commitments and that’s scary.

“If you don’t evaluate what is the MOST important for you, you will be juggling everything in the exact same spot.”

Why? Sadly, having too many commitments means it’s easy to lose focus. However, if you can’t do all you love right away, you have a lifetime to do what you want in the future.

This is why evaluating what’s important to you right now is crucial. I would pick 2-3 commitments and slowly work your way up to more. You need to master juggling many projects WHILE progressing. And this takes time.

Knowing

After you have decided what is important to you, you need to know when is too much and too little.

If you are busy, can you put one of your projects on the side in the future? Could you accept you might be busy for a while?

How about your down time? What will you do with your skills? Do you have a business and will you market? Will you change what you are doing? Is this a time to see if you really love what you are doing?

You need to pay attention to yourself. If you start forgetting deadlines or you are feeling overwhelmed, that is a huge indicator you are doing wayyy too much then you can handle.

This will be an important factor for you – it has been for me. You must start listening to yourself. If you don’t, you won’t know what is important to you and if you are achieving what you need to achieve.

“You must start listening to yourself.”

Creativity and a system

Is creativity still a priority for you? Good! And if not, don’t worry! You can always come back to it.

Though, even when you are super busy, you need to acknowledge creativity can be easily implemented into your crazy routines.

First, you need to acknowledge your own definition of creativity. Is it drawing, reading or trying a new coffee shop?

After you have decided what your definition of creativity means are; you just need to add in 15 minutes a day towards it?

15 minutes?!?!?!?!

Yes, 15 minutes a day results to 5040 minutes a year. That’s a lot of minutes but it only requires small daily activities.

The best advice is pick a topic, area of struggle, or inspiration to work on monthly. Focus on little challenges or skills that help you develop on the area you decided to improve on. THEN continue to use those skills in previous projects you decide to use it on.

Need advice on how to stay creative on a daily basis? This post will give you suggestions on how you can choose and implement creativity daily: Click here

Once you have decided on your creative projects all you need to do is make sure you do it the morning OR night time and not during the day. Why? Doing projects during the day hurt your creativity. You are either thinking of the next project or have too many other things to focus on. Instead, give yourself some slack and do these projects right before your day OR before bedtime.

These two times help kick in your creative flow because you have the time to focus on it. Use it wisely because they leave very quickly!

How to maintain everything

Depending on your schedule, life can be sweet or nice. Depending on your days, good or bad; you can’t give up. If you do, you will lose the motivation or desires. Here are some points to remember on maintaining your life while keeping your creative lifestyle like I have.

• Priority: Figure out what is the most important to you. You need to figure out what you are able to let go and what you need to keep. I had to do this with my youtube videos. I wanted to start another business, but I couldn’t. I simply had to let it go and realize this is not my time to start another commitment.

• Passion: This could mean creativity OR anything you love. You just need to devote at least 15 minutes a day. If you forget to practice your passions, you will easily throw away your life’s purpose

• Assessments: Daily, weekly, or monthly you need to re-assess yourself. This will help you to determine if you like what you are doing and you are getting the results that you want. I do this occasionally and this shows me if I’m doing the right actions and if it’s time to switch it up

• Plan: When you plan, you are subconsciously getting ready for you days. If you don’t, you will fall off track and forget your priorities.

• Meditation or daily habits: Once a day I suggest either meditation for 2-5 minutes OR have that one thing that gets you going in your day. That could be planning, listening to audio, or even reading. This is a sneaky trick. Doing that “one thing” will trigger you and instantly remember your plans and priorities for the day. Life is busy, and if you don’t have mini triggers, you will fall off track

In conclusion

Doing all these little things work. Yes it is a tad hard in the beginning but it will save your life in the future! Because I’ve had a lot of commitments in my life, it’s safe to say all these little adjustments add up to big results. Even if you are struggling in one area, never give up. Just work on it in the future OR work on it now. Life’s too short not to develop your creativity.

 

How do you keep creativity in your crazy busy lives?!

Today’s post comes from Jennifer at CreativeBoundless.com