“The creative process is not controlled by a switch you can simply turn on or off; it’s with you all the time.”
Alvin Ailey
The majority of the time, you’re going to hear me talk about how important it is to work efficiently and to work with focus while reducing distractions. But, we aren’t robots and sometimes we need to balance things out with a more relaxed approach.
Let’s look at creative people. It’s common to believe that creative people work from the right side of their brain. But, psychologist Dr. Scott Kaufman and health writer, Carolyn Gregoire claim that the create process uses the whole brain. They state that highly creative people use two parts of the brain at the same time. One part is used for imagination and another part is used for attention and memory.
Personally, I believe that creative people are always thinking about the next project and that they see the potential in many things as they come up with lots of ideas. For example, when I work with clients in a craft room, they are going to see the potential in each scrap of fabric, each button and each sequin as a future project. When I think about business owners, they may see potential for projects, collaborations, products they can create and so on. This is exciting and makes it understandable that the creative brain is stimulated and ready to jump around between exciting projects. What the creative person may be working on right now may already feel boring.
When is it okay to jump around a bit or work at a more casual and relaxed pace instead of striving to be so focused?
- On a day when you want to work in a more relaxed way and you don’t have a big deadline or due date ahead of you.
- When you’re working on a lower value activity. Examples: reading a blog post, organizing supplies in a drawer, ordering supplies, printing documents. Maybe you jump around a little bit between these activities. I still believe in the efficiency of working on just one thing at a time, but again, we’re not robots and sometimes it’s nice to do a little here and a little there. As long as in the end you’ve managed your time in a way that you wrap all of the tasks up to completion.
- When you need to get up and move around. Some people can’t sit for long periods of time due to health reasons, ADD, etc. And really, it’s not good for any of us to sit for long periods of time. It’s good for the body and the brain to get up for a change of scenery. Get up, stretch, go into another room for a coffee or snack, step outside and get some fresh air or go for a quick walk.
- When you need to do some creative thinking. Just sitting in front of a computer trying to be creative often doesn’t work. Are you trying to come up with a product, content, a blog post or a solution to a problem? It may be time to get up and get out. It’s amazing how the answers can just flow right to you when you go for a walk, a hike, a run or just sit in the sunshine. There’s something about nature and fresh air and not trying so hard that gets the ideas flowing. Sometimes you really do have to slow down now to speed up later.
Wrap Up:
If you find you always have ideas popping into your head, keep paper and pen or an app close by to get the ideas out of your head. This will relieve your brain from worrying about forgetting this awesome new idea you have. You do need to work with focus on the task at hand much of the time, so this strategy will allow you to come back to your ideas at a later date.
Work toward being a better judge on when to work with focus and when it feels okay to jump around a bit. Make sure jumping happens when you have time on your side, you don’t have a deadline and you are able to make sure you button everything up without leaving loose ends.
“The time you enjoy wasting is not time wasted.”
Unknown
