Today for the Creativity Series I’m keeping it short and sweet — the goal this week is to DO SOMETHING. Ready?
Buy out time for creative pursuits. Leaving creativity to chance is equivalent to leaving exercise to chance. It won’t happen unless you take charge. Analyze your weekly tasks and decide what can be exchanged in order for you to schedule a regular creative pursuit. This can be an outing such as a gallery visit or something as simple as a visit to the local book shop, or you can use the time to be more hands-on whether it’s through photography, composing music, or scrapbooking. When I’m in need of inspiration I usually open up my journals and start cutting and pasting (example above).
Key is at first: Keep It Simple and as you start seeing the benefits, you can expand from there. In looking over these 500+ comments where decor8 readers outlined what they would do if they had a day off and $20 to spend, I noticed a theme: They’d get outside, exercise, and do something creative. Maybe you can spend time today looking over some of their comments for ideas as to how you can carve out an hour, an afternoon, an entire day for YOU. Easier said than done, but if you leave something that impacts your life in a positive way (and those around you) on the back burner and just keep plugging away at work, work, work you may find yourself at the doors of burnout and absolute loss of ideas and inspiration. Be an example to your family, friends, and those in your field: You have your act together, you are at the steering wheel, you buy out time for yourself which makes your body of work stronger and more interesting.
For encouragement, I’d like to leave you with a creative exercise this week. Write done at least ONE thing that you plan to do this weekend that will put you back in touch with your creative side. It can be anything. Then I’d like to ask that you return here to this post on Monday and report in whether or not you actually did it, how it felt, and how you feel after the activity. I’ll do the same. If you can photograph what you did or saw during that creative time, please link to the photo in Monday’s comment. Sound good?
(photo by holly becker for decor8)
