Productivity is different for creatives.
For us, it’s not necessarily about doing more, about busily ticking to-dos off a list. We need time and space to dream, explore, read, research, think up new ideas. Going down the rabbit hole can be essential, for us.
And yes, we also need to do the maintenance too, and get through our to-do list because, you know, life, money, responsibilities, being an adult…
I say this often because it’s important: a lot of what we do doesn’t even look like work, from the outside. And you’re the only one who knows what it feels like on the inside, when you’ve tipped over into delay and procrastination.
Creative work is unpredictable.
We all work at different speeds. When a client recently told me he can draft out 1300 words in a 30-minute sprint, I was astonished. I can’t type that fast, let alone think up the words I’m typing.
For all of us, there are days when the work comes easily. And others when it feels like swimming through quicksand. Sometimes it feels like you’re simply receiving your ideas from the universe and getting them down; other times it feels like a battle that will never end.
Then there are the times when we realise that we’re heading in the wrong direction altogether. This is an essential part of the process, and it doesn’t mean you’ve failed, or been unproductive. It’s rare for anything good to happen without these diversions, and no work is ever wasted. It’s all feedback, new information.
All of this means I can predict fairly accurately how many words I can write in 90 days of steady work. But not how much I can produce in a day, or even a week. It changes as the project progresses, and that’s OK.
So how do we pace it?
It can help to think in terms of marathons and sprints.
Sprints are short bursts of creative work.They’re a great way to make regular progress on your projects, no matter what else you have on.
I’m self-employed and have a lot of control over the shape of my days, so for me that means writing from 8am-9am, and trying to fit at least another hour in later, between meetings and coaching appointments.
If you have a day job, children or other responsibilities, for you it might be a focussed 90 minutes on a weekend, or slivers of time throughout your week when you just write a couple of sentences, do a quick sketch, record a new idea.
We adapt to our circumstances.
When I was a magazine editor, I learned to write quickly in noisy offices, with the phone ringing, music on loud, and constant interruptions. Yet when I went back to freelancing, I became convinced that I could only write if I had a couple of hours of clear time, and a quiet, empty house.
Then my son was born, and I had to adapt to working in short, concentrated bursts. I’d write while he was napping, while dinner was cooking, and as he got older, while he and his friends were running riot in our living room. I might get down an introduction to a new magazine feature while sitting on a park bench, watching him play, or edit a paragraph on my phone.
If I needed longer stretches I often took them late at night, when everyone else in the house was asleep.
You don’t have to wait for the conditions to be perfect.
In fact, if you’re waiting for a magical stretch of clear, uninterrupted time to open up, you might wait forever, and never create the things you’re longing to bring into the world.
Don’t ever tell yourself you don’t have time to do the creative work that makes you.. more you.
When we’re busy, making time for our creativity can be a form of self-care, so long as you don’t make it punishing. Do a little at a time, but do it often. Then plan a marathon every so often to put in some serious hours and really move your project forward.
Marathons are about working more intensely.
This might mean taking yourself away for a few days of intensive work to push a project forward: going to an artists or writers’ retreat, booking a studio or hotel room, or arranging a few days home alone so you can really go deep and progress.
Some marathons are planned. Some are thrust upon us.
When you’re on a shoot, in rehearsal or have a tight deadline you often don’t get a choice about how long you work. You’ve in it for the duration, no matter what.
Most creative professionals have done jobs at some point when they’ve worked all night, somehow done a month’s worth of work in a week, performed a show or talk in one country then got on a red-eye and performed on the other side of the world pretty much straight from the airport.
Some of us even thrive on this, enjoying the adrenalin buzz we get from rising to the occasion, of not having time to overthink, procrastinate and let our perfectionist tendencies get in the way.
But this way of working isn’t sustainable, long term. After running a marathon, even the greatest of athletes needs time to recuperate, recover before resuming their regular training.
You’ll need to reset after an intense work period, and return to gentler, more sustainable rhythms.
Most of us need a balance of the two.
I know plenty of novelists who work steadily at home, a few hours a day, but then go away a couple of times a year to really immerse themselves in their story, solve a knotty problem, get some new thoughts down or polish the final draft.
Even musicians who can afford a sophisticated home recording set-up often find it useful to do some longer, more intense days in a commercial recording studio – where the expense alone tends to give some extra focus.
So what stage are you in your most important creative projects? What to do need now: marathons, or sprints?
And if you have productivity systems, tools or tips to share – or challenges that trip you up – do let me know. I read every email. Or just put it in the comment below.
What do you think?