Doing creative work on a schedule?

May 27, 2009 10:14 PM

How to do creative work within scheduled, time-limited sessions?

I've always done my best creative work when my schedule is open-ended -- a full day of solitude, all-nighters in college, etc.

Now work and family life intervene and I simply can't isolate myself the way I used to. I'd like to start scheduling regular sessions (e.g. every Saturday from 8-10am, etc.) to work.

The problem is, I've never been able to work that way before. Give me 2 hours to create and sometimes I'll come up with absolutely nothing. Other times I'll come up with something brilliant and have to wrestle with it for several hours in order to work it out.

I'm not asking about scheduling, deadlines, time-management, self-discipline, etc. I'm looking for advice on how get my brain and creative juices to work on a regimen -- how to do my best work during those 2-or-so hours, and particularly how to *stop* when time is up, even if I'm in immersed in an idea which demands an 8-hour stretch.

I know the answer is "just do it," but tips on *how* would be appreciated -- especially from people who naturally tend towards marathon work sessions but have managed to adapt to creating on a finite schedule.

posted by Alabaster to media & arts (8 comments total)

A couple of tips I've used a photographer to work under time constraints:

Even if there is no set deadline, create one in your mind. For example, I often have to mail out CD's that must be finished by 4:30pm so that they are mailed by 5pm that day.

Work in bursts of creativity whenever possible, that's when (I think) most creative people find themselves the most productive. If you're feeling on a roll during your two or three hour period, don't stop until you get to end of the part of the project you're working on.

Plan to take a break for 10 minutes every hour if the creative drive has not kicked in yet. Otherwise, keep a water bottle by your computer/work area to continue going without interruption during times of high creativity.

Mute your phone if possible. I find phone calls to be one of the biggest disruptions to creative projects, because my attention is jolted away from my current idea and taken to the phone call.
posted by mtphoto at 11:06 PM on May 27

For me, part of the frustration was in my head. For a long time, I didn't truly accept that my usual way of doing stuff for 8 hours in a stretch didn't work under the present conditions (family, kids, obligations...). It got much better when I sort of learned to embrace the options I had. that's a mental trick, okay, but it helps.

The rest lies in defining what creative work ought to be, and planning accordingly. Modern writers about how to write, for example, all seem to agree that usually, nothing much happens if one merely waits until "creativity strikes" (and this is the reason why we fool ourselves and believe that we need all that time for creative work). Instead, one has to give oneself tasks that have a connection to the work one wants to do, that get the work going, but that aren't necessarily creative in themselves. Creativity happens whenever one deals with "matter", but rarely when one waits for it. So that is one step: Get going with "something" and creativity will ensue (or, on some days, won't. But then you've done some work, at least).
Step 2, the how-to-stop question: It gets actually easier when one has learned to handle step 1. But I agree. It is hard to stop in the middle of things. Still better than to not even have started with them.
posted by Namlit at 3:02 AM on May 28

I have to disagree with the advice above not to stop in the middle of things. Training yourself to stop dead in the middle of a sentence, or painting, or composing lick or whatever it is you're working on is absolutely critical to maintaining and developing the momentum to carry out creative work in focused, time-limited bursts.

You have, through past experiences, convinced yourself that you can only do things when you're 'immersed in an idea that demands 8 hours'. Now, I'm not saying here that you should never allow yourself to work something right out to its conclusion. When you're on a roll, it's a Saturday and you've got the house to yourself it would be daft to artificially limit your output. There will still be spaces in your life where you can fit in an extended burst of work.

However, the rest of the time, it's about showing up. And a massive aid to showing up regularly to do creative work is having a working idea on the go.

And a massive aid to having a working idea on the go is having the ability to stop when you run out of time, maybe even mid-sentence/brushstroke/strum. Because you'll spend the next 12 or 24 or 36 hours thinking about it and you'll sit down and just start working again.

Show up, regularly, whether that's every day or every three days or every week, do your work, stop when you have to and come back to it ready to work again.

Antony Trollope famously wrote for precisely two hours every morning before work, often stopping mid-sentence, and occasionally finishing a novel and beginning work immediately on the next one. While you need not be quite that methodical about the whole thing, let go of the notion that creativity has to have unfettered, unlimited chunks of free time in which to happen. If anything, building creative work into and around the structure of your everyday life will both allow you to create more, improve your work through regular practice and refinement, and give you sustained and self-reinforcing momentum.

Also, try and get a room with a door you can close, switch off your phone and if you're working on a computer, take out the wireless card.
posted by Happy Dave at 4:33 AM on May 28 [2 favorites]

I work in the same regimented little parcels of time you speak of. I would say not to concentrate on the getting the ideas per se, but in developing the ability to more quickly get yourself in a state of mind where ideas come. Work on getting into "the zone" faster. When I first started to write, I'd lie around for a half hour of my two-hour window trying to get into the zone. After ten years, I can get into the zone in five minutes. The ideas will follow.

Also, you didn't say if your work is being done for money or for personal fulfillment. Professionals are the people who can be creative on command. I know lots of funny creative people. The ones who make money from it are the ones who can be funny and creative on a Tuesday night when they're sick, the kids need homework help, the toilet's clogged and somebody needs the script by 9 AM Wednesday.

So your quest is a worthy one. The quicker you can harnass the ability to work in those little time windows, the more valuable you become to people who might want to give you money for your skills.
posted by lpsguy at 6:27 AM on May 28

When I first started to write, I'd lie around for a half hour of my two-hour window trying to get into the zone. After ten years, I can get into the zone in five minutes. The ideas will follow.

Care to elaborate on how you do that lpsguy? Sadly the only technique I've found that works for me is the aforementioned 'stop dead when the time's up'. Would love to hear how you've gone from half an hour to five minutes.
posted by Happy Dave at 7:54 AM on May 28

Do you keep a notebook with you at all times to record the creative ideas that come to you outside of your allotted work time? Sometimes* when I get an idea, I also record a few tidbits of info about the circumstances in which I got that idea. That way, when I have time to actually work on it, I have a little bit of a feel for what my mind was like at the time I first conceived it, and that helps me to get into a creative mindset a little faster.

*I forget as I often as I remember to do this, so clearly I'm not an expert at it yet.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 9:05 AM on May 28

There is a free PDF about this, titled Time Management For Creative People (1.64MB) by Mark McGuinness. It is incredibly well-written. Unlike a lot of professional books, it wastes no time on filler. So it's more of an extended essay about how to get your creative juices flowing on command. It gets right to the point and lists extremely helpful tips.

To sum up:

Prioritize work that is important but not urgent.

Figure out the time of day and other environmental conditions that get you into the creative state of mind. Set aside that time and provide those stimuli.

Don't be at the mercy of interruptions. Ring-fence your attention.

Don't let to-do lists be just another time-consuming task: install a buffer between the requests of others and your response. Look at email once per day. Sit down to answer all emails from yesterday in one burst. Ignore all email that comes in today.

Use "buckets" from the Getting Things Done method. One place to gather everything you need to remember, to make sure you won't forget it. Someplace you are sure to check daily. Never put a commitment anywhere else. Then don't think "what am I forgetting?" while you're working. It frees your mind.
posted by Matt Arnold at 11:39 AM on May 28 [1 favorite]

Don't think upon your ending time as the actual ending of your creative process. Sure, you may physically be done creating for that time period, but I find that stepping away from the project at hand and incubating the creative process in my head at other times during the day/week, say, while I'm commuting to my day job, often results in other ideas pertaining to the project at hand, or results in another creative project all together. Keep a notebook with you at all times, as SuperSquirrel says.

Also, if your creative process allows, leave something "easy" on your work surface for you to start when you sit back down to work, to ease yourself into the creative act. Example: I make mixed media paintings. I will often start my process painting backgrounds to ease myself into things. I may or may not use them right then and there, they are just there to get my creative juices flowing.
posted by sarajane at 12:11 PM on May 28