Creative routines




 

 

Taking your creative life by chance allows it to slip through your fingers. Without deliberate focus, creativity won’t happen on its own. Most days I need help settling into a creative mindset. It’s kind of like summoning the muse that we talked about last time.

With a full-time job and a family, I find it difficult to set aside thoughts of what still needs done at the office or what chores I need to finish at the house in order to open my brain to writing or making things. The easiest way to unlatch my frontal cortex (the part of the brain known as the center of creativity) is to develop a routine that triggers my mind to switch gears.

Establishing the right creative routines will help you enjoy consistent productivity — and see a definite improvement in the quality of your work. The more you do something, the better you become at doing it. Well-established routines almost guarantee a creative life, because by definition the routines will keep you engaged in your imaginative work. One question to ask yourself daily is “What am I going to create today?” Not what am I going to “do” today, but what am I going to “create.”

For me, completing a mini-project lets me know it’s time to delve into a bigger project. Recently, I’ve started making glass art and T-shirts. Some of these projects take less than 15 minutes to complete. The act of using the heat press on a T-shirt, or designing with glass frit, clears away thoughts of the day-to-day and makes it easier for me to slip into my broken world and write.

Another thing that helps me is to take massive projects and break them into manageable pieces. I’m a list girl. For me, there is no feeling quite like checking something off my list.

What routines trigger a change of mindset for you? Until next time, remember 15 minutes a day for creativity and weekly Artist Dates feed your abundantly creative life.

GLENDA THOMPSON, a columnist for the Pleasanton Express and is currently writing a series on finding your hidden talents. Glenda resides in Charlotte where she is hard at work on the second novel in a series about Texas Rangers with dark secrets. Her first novel, Broken Toys, is now available on Amazon.

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