How do creative people stay in the flow and productive when circumstances are not ideal and the pressure of deadlines feels real? It’s a question we’re often asked.
Everyone wants to experience focus, flow and productivity while at work, but it often feels elusive. You’re up against deadlines, noncompliant team members or miscommunication to name a few. They all seem to build up and get in the way.
But let’s take a closer look at the connection between creativity and productivity to see what might be missing that would be helpful.
Creativity is seeing something new, bringing the new into form, whether an idea or a series of ideas resulting in possibilities that didn’t exist before. It’s all about a fresh thought, a connection seen, and an action taken. It is actions taken from that first thought that create a new direction, a thing, or even a product.
Productivity, at its best, is being in the flow, where you lose your sense of time, you get stuff done, maybe even amazing stuff done.
People who hone their creativity are quick to see connections between ideas and things, but they often misunderstand the productivity connection, and automatically feel pressured. Productivity seems like it comes from some alien realm, as if creativity and productivity are at war and productivity has the upper hand.
When people are stressed, they feel the least like they are capable of having a fresh creative thought. They switch into pressured thinking about their lack of productivity which distracts from their ability to think clearly and creatively. That’s simply because their state of mind is low in those moments and their disconnect to their innate creative capacity is high.
What they are suffering, in the moment they don’t feel productive, is simply a distracted, cluttered mind. Their state of mind is sometimes so low that they’re fooled into believing that pushing forward is smart, when the smarter move is exquisitely simple. It’s to look in the direction of a quieter, less distracted mind.
You’ll have the most effective and productive periods when your mind is clear and you’re able to focus without mental static. You’ll have unfettered access to the source of your creativity when you feel less pressured. Your creative capacity doesn’t go anywhere. It’s built in. It’s only your ability to access it that changes.
I don’t know when you get your best ideas but mine often arrive in the shower, where my mind tends to easily quiet - no clutter, just spaciousness. Lots of times a solution pops into my head about something I hadn’t even been thinking about.
Of course, the power is not in the shower! It’s upstream at the source. Your creativity is coming from your mind, the inherent design, the brilliant system and creative process going on in you even when you don’t recognize it. You just can’t see it when you’ve applied the stress and pressure of a cluttered mind.
Productivity, unlike what is commonly assumed, can live in harmony with creativity. The willing combination of those two can create rocket fuel for bringing fresh ideas into form.
Creativity by its nature is productive. How could it not be? Stop seeing them at war and start seeing that they come from the same source and that’s your MIND. Get more familiar with its brilliant design and you’ll know what we’re talking about.
Artwork: Sun by Arthur Dove