How Schedules Boost Creativity

By Motivation, Success, ,

It might seem counter-intuitive, but habits and schedules can be incredibly beneficial to creativity. Creative people do the unexpected. They mix things up. They expose themselves to new ideas and incorporate them in fresh and interesting ways. On the other hand, schedule and habits invite the expected and mundane into our lives. They reject fresh and interesting ways of doing things… how could these two things possibly get along?

All activities require energy from the brain. Creativity isn’t easy. This is why schedules are so important to creative people. Many creative people falsely think that scheduling is a bad thing. When done in moderation, it’s incredibly beneficial to creativity. 

The most obvious way to apply this is to schedule your creative time. This does’t mean you aren’t allowed to work outside of this time, but it does mean that you set aside a part of your day to focus on your creativity. You might prefer being creative in the morning or at night. Either way, it should be scheduled. 

The creative muse can strike at any time, but the only reason you’ll find the muse is because they had been consistently working towards the idea. The consistent work, the consistent schedule, taught their subconscious brain what to look for. It was only a matter of time before the muse showed up. It was actively working on the process that eventually resulted in the creative insight. 

A less obvious way that schedules help creative people is by protecting your mental energy. Every decision you make throughout a day requires some amount of mental energy to make. The bigger the decision, the more energy your brain has to burn through to make it. (We’ll discuss this in a later episode) 

Schedules are a way of reducing the number of decisions you make throughout a day. You wake up in the morning and you turn on the coffee maker because that’s what you do every day. If you’re a coffee drinker, your brain didn’t need to think about the decision. That’s one less decision you have to make that day. This isn’t a whole lot of energy to save, but it becomes significant when you include all the different habitual actions you take throughout a day. The entire reason we rely on habits is to save energy on decision making. This is why schedules are important.

Creative Tip

As you’re creating today, think about how your schedule is either adding to or subtracting from your creativity. What decisions can you schedule ahead of time so that you no longer need to worry about them? Pay special attention to how your schedule might be sucking energy out of you. For me, I’ve had a lot of success scheduling emails after I’ve completed my writing for the day. Emails are rarely urgent and they tend to throw a wrench into your daily schedule. 

The morning news is another area where you can change around your schedule to benefit your creativity. For most people, the morning news has nothing to do with your creativity or the actions you take throughout the day. Think about it. Did knowing last week’s news positively affect your creativity in any way? Did you take any actions that you wouldn’t have otherwise done? Probably not. This isn’t to say that you have to cut the news out of your life entirely. Just make sure that it’s a net positive in your life.

So take a look at your schedule. What deposits energy into your bank account and what withdrawals energy from you? You are the creator of your schedule. Most people’s schedules are nothing more than an accumulation of habits, but they don’t have to be that way. You can purposefully move your schedule around to maximize your creativity and happiness. And just like with so much of creativity, the first step is realizing that you have the power to control it. 

Kaizen Creativity Questions

Here is today’s question for the Kaizen Creativity Facebook Group: 

1- What are some ways you can take more control over your schedule to benefit your creativity? 

2- What are the biggest blocks to making these changes?

You can go to facebook.com/KaizenCreativity to leave your answer and read everyone else’s answers. 

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