I Rediscovered the Creative Truth by Not Doing Very Much at all

I just spent ten days away from my desk. Doing very little.

I planned the most unproductive couple of weeks possible allowing myself to do not very much at all. I would delight in not concerning myself with clients (mostly) and go about doing what I should be doing — not a lot. I would focus on doing what felt ‘right’ in the interests of not thinking about work. On my return to the studio, I would be refreshed, relaxed and therefore energised with sparkling creativity. What I proposed would be based on giving my brain a rest and on returning to the studio I would be ready to fire on all cylinders. If it all went to plan, I would be bursting with creative energy from the moment I re-entered the studio.

The exact opposite was true. When I returned, my creative flow had stopped. I did arrive at my desk with some energy but felt devoid of inspiration and lacked the forward motion I had built up over the past few months. By gorging myself on mental inactivity, I had succeeded in creating a massive inertia hangover. I had been concentrating on ‘nothing’ as opposed to being inspired by ‘something’ or indeed anything.

When I am at work, the daily activity of not doing very much — if applied correctly — works very well. In fact, my ongoing story of cultivating and nurturing creative energy is reliant on these bursts of downtime. Regular daily fragments of ‘not working’ form an essential part of my working week. I build in two or three twenty to thirty-minute sessions of downtime every day to keep me focused. These scheduled periods are not a luxury, they are essential to me being able to function to the best of my ability. Those thirty-minute nuggets are much more productive than actually doing client work. The regular and concise timing of these blocks allow me to be inspired and the result is that I am re-energised when I continue with what it was I was doing.

The time out is not inactive — like gazing at a screen — but well utilised by doing something, anything that is unrelated to work; reading, walking, listening or just looking. The timed and precise nature of these ‘breaks’ is everything in ensuring that I maintain the level of focus needed in moving forward. When I get back to client projects, I am refreshed, and I have the energy to re-evaluate and review where I’m at.

I instilled in myself a hardcore work ethic as an undergraduate; I was always working and trying out new things above and beyond what was expected. My curiosity knew no bounds in the realms of visual exploration. Of course, that somewhat open-ended way of working is not viable in the commercial world, so working method and processes became more structured. 

The value of this structure doesn’t lie in the ability to be able to hit deadlines; the value lies in a structure that is built on a foundation of regular snippets of downtime. The inclusion of these nuggets of divergence allows me to look at the bigger picture. My working day always starts with not doing any work. I sit at my desk, and for the first ten minutes, I engage in something other than anything directly related to client work. This is the beginning of a process that allows me not only to get things done but get them done with more energy and dynamism.

It’s a given that my clients can rely on deadlines being hit, but I’d like to think they work with me because of my ability to flex and apply my creative skills rather than my ability to function merely as a delivery bot. This creativity is reliant on my ‘non-start’ beginnings; this creates a flow that allows me to be at my creative best.

It’s not that my clients are paying me to sit around reading books or walking around the garden admiring my Aspidistras, but if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to provide them with the level of work they expect. The time well spent doing something else has an incredibly beneficial effect on the creative process and therefore client work.

My need for a complete ten-day shut down was as a result of me not adhering to my own system of regular and scheduled periods of ‘downtime’. I was overly focused on not doing anything, and so I failed to maintain the pathways and inspiring brain feeds I had already made in moving forward with my own creativity. 

Too much time away from ‘the flow’ makes it harder to get back into the rhythm of creativity. Creativity is a continuum, and the daily practice of including regular nuggets of downtime ensures the momentum of such creativity. 

For me, true creative progress lies in a system that allows frequent and scheduled snippets of doing very little. The well-timed inclusion of doing very little enables me to achieve a great deal more — but what I have learned is that the worst kind of not doing anything, is doing nothing at all.