When you develop the creative side of you there will be a few things about yourself which you’ll discover. First is that you cannot create anything new unless you have some material to work with. First is expression; be it tone, color and form, movement, speech or writing.
Expression is training, exercise, training, failing, mistaking, failing, stumbling upon the right medium and slowly carving and shaping your expression through the medium, and if you’re lucky; success.
Luck has a lot to do with time and chance, where, when, who and how you express to the right audience, at the right moment, using the right tools, for your hook to catch the fish. But if you’re not ready, you’ll fail. And more importantly, if you think it has something to do with your arrogant and vain personality, you’ll fail miserably.
Secondly you’ll discover that your creative flow needs a certain balance of procrastination, leisure, playfulness or carefree’ness. As long as your self education allows for material to connect into something created you will be productive but only as long as you have your ego put aside and your passion for the substance you wish to see born into the world has enough drive to make you do it – for it always is hard and always requires sacrifice – you’ll be creative.
This post is a response to an article on Daily Mail.
All of the above is completely void of the need to organize your time. This is why I am both fascinated by the link provided and mildly dismayed at the audacity of mass media to let an article of this kind loose upon people: Because people who don’t question below the surface might be fooled into believing that creativity has something to do with time management.
Time management is only useful if you know your goal, you have the material to work with, and you have made the necessary soul-searching in order not to be distracted by emotions, impressions, hiccups, dreams, influences and other things standing in the way. In all the classes I’ve taught about time management the biggest hindrance to people has never been the knowledge on how to organize time or differentiate between small vs. large goals, and short time vs. long time goals. The hindrance has always been emotionality and clear vision.
As soon as emotionality and clarity of vision is resolved, passion steps in, insight steps in, and the rest is left to logical time management and drive.
I mentioned that I have taught time management, but I have also used it. I taught for eight years, in adult classes and you cannot do that if you’re not prepared. I published a magazine for almost five years, and that is impossible without time management. I’ve written numerous manuals for my curriculum and I’ve worked on countless software projects; I know about the creative process – particularly the incubation period – and about managing goals and time.
I also am admirer of art, science and philosophy – among other disciplines – and I work constantly, sometimes at seemingly doing nothing. Therefore I loved to see the article and particularly to see re-enforced to me something I already knew and you probably know as well: If you want to accomplish something, it is best done in the morning.
But if you want to create, and you have nothing to create from, then you first have to dig that out. This part is left out of the piece, which is written to coerce you into thinking the following: that in order to be effective then you must manage time and if you don’t you will be less than those great men. Second you’ll be left with the feeling that if you don’t do it in the morning you won’t achieve.
This is bull.
There are many scientists, artists, writers, and creative spirits, who worked – or work – best in the afternoons, or in the night. Some people don’t do anything for weeks, then suddenly the incubation period is over and pang; you simply work non-stop until the piece is made; then you might time manage until you’ve refined it.
I currently have about four unfinished pieces lying around me, some drafts I made last year, some just weeks ago, some are older; they’ll all be refined soon. Some of my projects which I finished in the last three or four years came out of that shed.
Do some research, check out if what I say rings true? Above all, don’t let mass media feed your insecurities.
