Healthy Creativity is a set of practices that fosters our best creative work. Even under time constraints. Even under pressure.
And yes. I’m working on the name.
So far, here’s what I’ve got:
1. Be strategic in how you use the time you have... rather than allow your creativity to be bullied by a clock that's ticking down.
2. Exercise your creative muscles both inside and outside paid projects.
3. Come to your work prepared.
Okay so today’s number four is:
Bring your best.
For me, what I bring of myself into the edit suite is pretty much what I get out. For example, one time I took a nighttime Benadryl in the morning by mistake and I was all kinds of falling asleep by the time I got to editing and had to call it quits and go home.
In general, though, I’m talking about being in the best physical and mental shape possible because we bring those states of being into our work. If we’re tired, if we’re hangry, that informs our creative work. It does. Low bloodsugaring before lunch absolutely leaves its mark on the quality of work I do. So yeah. I have to maintain my physical self, odd as that might sound for a job that involves so much sitting or standing in one spot for hours.
And mental shape, too. That’s gotta be a thing. ‘Cause that definitely colors over my creative efforts. Especially in the larval stages of some idea or approach. My mental state can snuff out ideas, prevent them from coming to fruition. Deny them fertile ground from which to spring. And if it’s a bad enough day, color everything black.
And so on.
No matter what, we bring ourselves into our work. For better. Or for worse.
So it’s important that we do everything in our power to bring not just the better...
But the best.
:-)
