Managing Creative Drought
Even the best wells of ideas run dry sometimes. In my experience, what starts off as a vague uneasy feeling soon leads to the realization that things aren’t flowing like they normally do. The water metaphors are coming thick and fast as I type, because the optimal creative state is often referred to as “flow”, and in the absence of these ideas our minds can feel quite barren.
The worst thing to do is panic. The greatest innovators of our time had plenty of days where things didn’t work out. Jobs was ousted from Apple, Samuel Morse went bankrupt developing the Morse Code and Thomas Edison discovered hundreds of ways not to make a light bulb work.
In my experience, proper action when you have identified a creative drought minimizes downtime, and gets the creative juices flowing. Here are some things that have worked for me:
- Take a step back. Sometimes stopping work on a project or indeed starting another whilst still in the process of finishing the first can help because it stimulates differential thinking around the original task.
- Engage your creative muscle. Sometimes those who work in creative industries need to reserve some time for something other than their job. An extra creative hobby can give you that outlet, and perhaps take the “work” feeling off all creative engagement.
- Crowd-Source – Many heads can be better than one, and several perspectives on a single challenge may point you in the right direction. This can be done over a coffee or on the plethora of online forums where people exchange ideas.
- Get inspired – Look to the web, the local library or wherever you generally re-energize, and give yourself some solid time to relax and recuperate.
There are a wealth of videos, quotes and other pieces I find stimulating on my facebook page on website so feel free to take a dip into the toybox for some light refreshment.
