Practicing With Unnecessary Creating
When we spend much of our time in on-demand creating, we can quickly lose touch with the passions that fuel our best work. We grow used to leveraging our abilities for the sole purpose of meeting others’ expectations, and much of it is driven by hitting our marks rather than by exploring new possibilities. The ironic part is that this personal creative passion is the most critical thing we bring to the work we do. Creating on demand often causes us to lose the edge that fuels our best work and sometimes causes us to shrink from risk because of the potential consequences of failure.
When we create unnecessarily, we are setting our own agenda. We have permission to try new things, develop new skills, and make things solely for ourselves. If we fail, it’s no big deal because we’re the client. We can take as much or as little time as we need to get it right. The main purpose is to put our ideas into fixed form and to attempt things that we might not get to try in our day job. We can stretch ourselves, explore fringe ideas that intimidate us, and make things that no one but us will ever see. Without this practice in our life, we can become creatively stuck. We may experience a backup of ideas and thoughts, and the weight of all that we’re not doing becomes a source of resentment and even guilt. We may feel like we’re subverting our own life and passions for the sake of everyone else.
Gardening, landscaping, writing, planning a side business, editing home movies, or anything else that provides an outlet for your passion and curiosity can be considered Unnecessary Creating. The main qualifications are that (1) the activity is something you really enjoy and (2) there is no time frame for completion of the work other than those you set.
Getting Started With Unnecessary Creating
As with Idea Time, Unnecessary Creating (creating for ourselves rather than for others) should have a set regular time for engaging in this creativity-inducing practice. Building this predictable infrastructure for your Unnecessary Creating will give you something to look forward to and will create a break in the middle of your hectic weekly rhythm. I (Todd Henry) would recommend an hour per week as a starting place, but if you’re really stretched, you can begin with an hour every other week.
One benefit of Unnecessary Creating is that it gives you the opportunity to regularly experience the phenomenon referred to as “flow.” This is a term coined by researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to describe the sensation of “getting lost” in your work. One of the main contributors to flow is doing work that challenges your skills and requires your full creative capacity. When this happens, you lose all sense of time, becoming completely immersed in what you’re doing. People who experience flow regularly report that they are able to access parts of their creative capacity that remain dormant during their less challenging work because they aren’t required to take risks or stretch themselves.
Why is this important? Because this kind of stretching, skill-developing activity increases your capacity across the boards. You cannot separate your on-demand creating from your personal creating. When you develop skills during your Unnecessary Creating time, you gradually find those same skills and experiences being unleashed in your on-demand creating. You are exercising parts of your mind that may otherwise begin to atrophy. Unfortunately, the adage “use it or lose it” is an accurate admonishment for creatives. You need to make certain that you’re not neglecting key passion areas or skills in your life just because your on-demand role doesn’t regularly require you to use them.
What should Unnecessary Creating time consist of? One technique is to keep all your potential projects in a Project Queue. Anything goes! Editing family movies, writing a short story or essay, rearranging your furniture, songwriting, developing a concept for a new business, or anything that requires you to exercise a degree of creative thought can count for your Unnecessary Creating. Keep a small whiteboard on your wall at home, and use it to track ideas for Unnecessary Creating projects you’d like to work on, or simply keep a list in your notebook or on your computer. Once you list the projects, you may want to simply attack them in sequential order during your Unnecessary Creating time. Some of these may be shorter projects, taking less than an hour, and some may be longer-term projects that require a week or more of your planned times. Regardless, it’s best to work your way through the list so that you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment as you check items off.
“Unnecessary Creating” is a misnomer; it’s very necessary, indeed. Start small. Take notes on ideas you’re excited about and things you’d like to do. Start a Project Queue. Set some time on your calendar. As you experience the benefits of Unnecessary Creating, you will be glad that it’s a part of your rhythm.
* Source: The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry