Well can you? Can you make yourself produce uniqueness on demand? Chances are that you are already trying.
For me, creativity is about the production of something that is crafted from raw materials – rather than the mere winding of a well grooved handle. Writing a report is creative. Doing your expenses isn’t. Pulling together a presentation is often very creative. Clearing your inbox rarely is.
But when we take creativity to the other end of the spectrum – the painting of pictures, the writing of music, or the scripting of verse – we would think that doing these ‘on tap’ would be detrimental to the quality of the end product. By setting a deadline for when Lennon and McCartney had to have written a song by would surely of impeded their genius.
And such is the case with our daily creativity. We are nagged for the fruit of our brains by bosses, colleagues, family members, and worst of all by our own to do lists and guilty conscious. The focus turns from “best I can” to “get it done”. Would you choose a house, car or spouse like that? Okay, would most of you choose a house, car, or spouse like that?
Not that it is necessarily possible to avoid deadlines and pressure to perform, but we can make sure we don’t exasabate the issue. I have written in the past about the benefits of a ‘must get done today‘ list – a to do of just the things you have to get done. The bare minimum. This means that you then get to choose which of the other things you want to do when the essentials are despatched – by choosing, you remove the pressure.
For example, I have to get a report handed in by Friday – now, I can choose to put it on my to do list so that it hangs over me all week until I get it done, shifting my mind set towards just trying to get it the hell out of my vision. Or I can just keep the essentials on my today list, and decide that I am not in the mood on Monday as am waiting for a call, and Tuesday is a bit messy, but I feel in gear on Wednesday and get it nailed. I didn’t finish Monday and Tuesday with an uncompleted task on my list. And that makes me sleep better.
So go on then – what is sitting there in your list that doesn’t need doing today, but is praying on your mind? How’s about giving them a bit of air?
