Life In The “Create On Demand” World
A few years ago my (Todd Henry) company, Accidental Creative, coined a term to describe this workplace dynamic: “create on demand.” You go to work each day tasked with (1) inventing brilliant solutions that (2) meet specific objectives by (3) defined deadlines. If you do this successfully you get to keep your job. If you don’t, you get to work on your resume. The moment you exchange your creative efforts for money, you enter a world where you will have to be brilliant at a moment’s notice.
You need to incorporate practices that instill a sense of structure, rhythm, and purpose into your life. You need to create space for your creative process to thrive rather than expect it to operate in the cracks of your frenetic schedule. This will not only help you generate better ideas now, but it will also ensure that you are acting on the things that matter most instead of drifting through your days.
Creative Rhythm
To unleash your creative potential now and thrive over the long term, you need to establish your own rhythm—one that is independent of the pressures and expectations you face each day. This Creative Rhythm will provide you with the stability and clarity to engage your problems head-on.
Focus
If we could harness the sum total of wasted energy each day in the workplace, we could probably power the earth for a year. There is so much ineffective work because there is often a lack of clarity around what we’re really trying to do. In order to create effectively, you need a clear and concrete understanding of your objectives. In chapter 4 you will learn how to weed out urgent but unimportant activities, and how to direct your efforts toward only those things that will increase your level of creative engagement.
Relationships
One of the most powerful sources of creative inspiration and rejuvenation is other people. Unfortunately, many successful creatives are haphazard about their relationships and only intentionally build on them when the stars align or when it’s otherwise convenient or expedient. Why you go “outside yourself,” it frees you up and unlocks latent parts of your creativity. If you want to thrive, you need to systematically engage with other people, in part to be reminded that life is bigger than your immediate problems. In chapter 5 you will learn how to be purposeful about the relationships in your life, how to build creatively stimulating friendships, and how to limit access to the creativity vampires.
Energy
Simple time management is not enough. It does you no good to micromanage your time down to the last second if you don’t have the energy to remain fully engaged for that time. To make the most of your day, you need to establish practices around energy management. In chapter 6 you will learn how to account for energy in your daily life and how to build bulwarks against some of the more pervasive energy drains.
Stimuli
The quality of the output of any process is dependent on the quality of its inputs, and this holds true for the creative process. I call creative inputs “stimuli” because they stimulate creative thought. Despite their importance, remarkably few people are intentional about the kinds of stimuli they absorb on a day-to-day basis. If you want to regularly generate brilliant ideas, you must be purposeful about what you are putting into your head. As the old saying goes, “Garbage in, garbage out.” In chapter 7 you will learn how to ensure that you are getting good creative nutrition.
Hours
Time is the currency of productivity, and how you handle it will ultimately determine your success or failure. But in order to really thrive, you need to shake yourself of our collective obsession with time efficiency and learn instead to focus on effectiveness. You need to ensure that the practices that truly make you a more effective creator are making it onto your calendar. In chapter 8 you will learn how to ensure that your time is being spent effectively and to great result.
Practices in each of these five areas (F-R-E-S-H) provide the foundation for a life that is prolific, brilliant, and healthy.
* Source: The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry