"Creativity is not a talent - it is a way of operating".
This talk by John Cleese, at some anonymous event, is pretty essential viewing for budding or wannabe creatives. 36 minutes, but well worth it.
If you don't have the time for the whole thing, I'd urge you to consider the following wonderful advice.
If you need to solve a problem, set yourself a time to start being creative, and set yourself a time to stop.
Why? The instinctive response is to say it seems overly regimented; that it goes against the free-wheeling nature of creativity.
But as Cleese says, applying a deadline makes it easier to seal yourself off from the demands of the uncreative world. If you don't know when your creative period ends, it's harder to push these thoughts ("should I email this person", "maybe I should clear my room") to the back of your mind. With a deadline, you can just think "I can worry about that at 3".
Which fits in very neatly with the conversation I was having with a fellow SCA student about musicians and writers who stick to a regular working pattern. Nick Cave, for example, famously went to write songs in an "office" somewhere around Brighton and Hove, just like any other commuter, starting at nine, and closing the piano lid at five.
It's also worth mentioning this final thought:
"It's easier to start little things we know we can do, than to start on big things we're not so sure about".
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