How to feel more inspired

Procrastinate less, produce more.

I’m a coach, working with creative professionals. So it won’t surprise you to know that a lot of my clients come to me with issues around procrastination. They want to feel more inspired, to increase their productivity. What I usually suggest is so counter-intuitive they often resist it, at first.

I often ask them to slow down, and take more breaks. To be kind to themselves, rather than to push harder.?

“But I can’t go swanning about!” one client exclaimed. She’s a brilliant and successful writer, having problems getting back into her rhythm after a family crisis. “I need to finish my book!”

‘Swanning about’ isn’t a phrase I’d heard for a while. It was one of my mum’s favourites when I was growing up: usually used about other women, always judgemental. As in, “There she was, swanning about the shops, not a care in the world, and her house looking like a bomb hit it!”?

The more I think about it, the more appropriate it feels for the kind of rest and recovery I’m suggesting. It’s how to feel more inspired. Swans look as if they’re gliding effortlessly along a river, but if the water is clear, you can see that there’s an awful lot of work going on under the surface.?

We all need more space in our lives.

It’s more productive than you think, because our busy minds will keep working, under the surface. Swanning about – staring into space, sitting in park, going to an art show, rummaging around a vintage shop, sneaking off the cinema alone – is how we get our creative juices flowing.

It gives our minds something different to focus on, space to come up with creative solutions to old problems. Meanwhile, it feeds our souls. It reminds us that work is just one part of our lives. And that it doesn’t need to be an endless struggle.?We can make it joyful.

Many of us put far too much emphasis on using every minute well. We consider any sliver of time as wasted if we’re not actually making creative work, doing chores, achieving or occupied in some way that feels useful. (Until of course we end up so exhausted that we sink in front of a screen for hours.)

Examine the daily routines of prolific creatives, and you’ll find they often include fiercely protected bursts of deep, focussed work interspersed with long walks, indulgent meals with friends, time for reading, culture, even for absorbing hobbies.?

This downtime is when new ideas germinate, when we make new connections, see new directions.

It’s how we feel more inspired.

So no matter how packed our work schedules, how many deadlines are looming, some degree of swanning about should always be in our calendar. It’s as essential as eating or sleeping. (And if you’re sacrificing those for work, we?really?need to talk.)

I used to call it noodling or pottering. Thanks to my client, I now have an afternoon of swanning about as a permanent part of my weekly schedule. I highly recommend it.

What should you do to get your inspiration back? Here are some suggestions.?

1. Go on a play date

This is a tool from Julia Cameron’s book?The Artist’s Way. She calls them artist dates, but it’s important that these are also playful, and not always high-brow and improving.

It’s about you spending some quality time with you, for at least an hour, every week. You can do anything you like on your date, so long as it’s not with family or friends.

Go somewhere new, try something new, revisit a favourite place. Do something you enjoyed as a child, learn a new skill or brush up on one you’ve neglected. Lie in the bath, go see some good art or just sit in a cafe and read.

Can’t think what to do? Here are 100 ideas for play dates to get you going.

If it feels unfamiliar, exciting, slightly uncomfortable, over-indulgent or if it’s something you enjoy but somehow never find time to do, you’re on the right track.

The rewards aren’t immediate. But do it for a couple of months, and you’ll be astonished at the coincidences, the ideas that seem to pop up from nowhere – and how productive and inspired you feel.

2. Open random books

I rediscovered this one during the pandemic, when it was harder to go to go out and explore. I’d choose some books from my shelves, open them at random, and read one for 5-10 minutes – or look at the pictures, if it was an art or photography book – before going onto the next one.?

Sometimes this led me to take a book I’d not opened for years, and move it to my read pile. More often, I’d open at a page that told me something I really needed to hear that day, something I’d forgotten. Or bits of unrelated books would combine in odd ways to spark a new idea, a new question, a new avenue to explore.

3. Go for a walk

Solvitur ambulando. Attributed to either Diogenes or St Augustine, this simple Latin phrase means ‘It is solved by walking’.

There’s plenty of scientific research now proving that walking is good for creative thinking. But this is one of those universal truisms that is easy to test, any time you like, simply by going out of your door and putting one foot in front of the other.

I’ve never met a problem that doesn’t feel somewhat smaller after a walk. And a long, solo walk is when I tend to get my best ideas.

4. Look at something. Intensely

A tree. A flower. A painting. A poem. A candle. Look slowly. Drink in every detail. Then continue looking, until the details dissolve and you almost get a sense of the atoms, the energy vibrating inside.

You can do this with your other senses too. Close your eyes, lie down and really hear a piece of music. Or eat an apple in slow-motion, slicing it thinly and savouring every morsel.?

We’re often so lost in our thoughts that we forget how magical our senses can be. Or we’re time-travelling, ruminating over the past or worrying about the future instead of being fully present. This is a way of bringing you back into your body, and into the here and now.

5. Tidy up

If you’re stuck for ideas, organise your books, your music, your art materials, that pile of papers and magazines in the corner. Look through old notebooks, or cluttered folders on your computer.

Put some good music on, and do it with curiosity. There is no goal here. You’re not trying to be Marie Kondo. Getting side-tracked is the whole point.?

You’ll inevitably find something you’d forgotten about, or meant to get back to and never did, or something that sparks a new train of thought.

6. Have a great conversation

Check in with an interesting friend or colleague. Ask them what they’ve enjoyed watching/reading/listening to recently. Or where they’ve been that was interesting, exciting or inspiring.

Listen hard. Ask good questions. Be curious, rather than jumping in with your thoughts and feelings.

Share anything you’ve found inspiring or interesting, in turn. Repeat this one often!

7. Journalling or free-writing

If in doubt, I get my journal out, and just write. About what’s troubling me, what’s getting in my way, what I like and dislike at the moment, what I need to get done.. and whatever other nonsense is passing through my mind.

At best, I work out solutions. At worst, I get repetitive and negative thoughts out of my mind and onto the page, where they lose some of their power. Written down, our doubts and fears often seem childish, and much smaller than they felt echoing round our minds, masquerading as truth.

Sometimes, I’ll draw. (Badly.) Sometimes it turns into a mind map, and very occasionally??– a tribute to my rather brilliant secondary school maths teacher, this – a Venn diagram.?Always, I feel better for doing it. And often, after a few sessions, I see a clear way forward.

8. Go people-watching

You can do this anywhere. On public transport. In a café or from a park bench. My mum loves making up stories about strangers. She’ll tell you elaborate back-stories about a couple on the other side of the restaurant, a family running for a bus.

I prefer watching to try and see the truth in a situation, what the body language is telling me. Although as I’ll never really know what’s really happening in someone else’s head, it amounts to pretty the same thing. ?

We rarely just watch life going by any more, as we’re focussed on our phones. Unless you take time out to observe, it’s easy to forget just how strange, complex, confusing, beautiful and brilliant we humans are.

9. Cloud spotting/star gazing

One of the best investments I made when we moved out of London and had more space was a hammock (￡20 second-hand from eBay, complete with a clunky metal frame that has long since rusted away). I lie in it a lot, and although I usually mean to read or listen to something, inevitably I end up just staring at the sky, day-dreaming.?

Sometimes I’ll wrap up in blankets and stare at the moon and stars, instead. If I’m tired, stuck, flagging or just want to create space in a busy day, an hour spent rocking gently while gazing at the wonders of the sky will always?bring me back to myself.

Sheryl Garratt is a writer and a coach helping creative professionals get the success they want, and build the lifestyle they want, making work they love. Click here to get my free 10-day course on growing a creative business.