If you’re anything like me, you struggle to find tiny creative moments. Maybe you see art as all encompassing, or you have ZERO time to produce art because it’s all encompassing. I tend to view my creativity as black or white, or all or nothing. Realistically, I know this isn’t true at all! Creativity isn’t a one time deal, or a something you think of once and let it go, or something you push through while multitasking your life to bits.
Why can’t you find tiny creative moments?
When your eyes are on your phone, or a TV, or a computer screen, your mind is in a very different state than when it’s daydreaming, thinking, and processing creative endeavors.
Our brain has two separate attention systems, an external one and an internal one. The internal attention system, which is activated during daydreaming, is called the default network.
“The default network is particularly active when you are thinking about yourself, thinking about the past, thinking about the future. You can’t really have both attention systems active at the same time, but they’re in some ways linked.”
-Daniel Willingham, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia.
If you can’t have both attention systems active at the same time and you’re spending 10 hours per day on your phone, or on a computer in one attention system – the external one – it makes it difficult to tap into the internal system that is activated during daydreaming.
I believe this is why I tend to have my ideas in the shower! I’m in a state of relaxation and let my mind wander without a little device feeding me information. The same could be said for baking, exercise, walking, riding a bike, watching the rain fall, planting flowers, or when you’re ready to nod off to sleep or upon waking. For more information on the dreaming creative process you may enjoy 7 Stages of the Creative Process – Dreaming and Doing.
What to do to find tiny creative moments?
- Make time for your internal system: set down the phone and block time away from it. Keep the TV off.
- REST: Seriously! We all feel we need to move at lightning speed- always need sound/noise, and need to always be on the go. We are responding immediately on our phones. Stop. Rest for a bit. Let that internal brain talk to you.
- Keep a notebook with you: next to your bed, on your walk, in the bathroom, in the kitchen. Everywhere! Like your phone, don’t leave home without it.
Side note: Oh boy does this date me- there was a time when we left our phones at home. We didn’t take it with us. We let the answering machine get our messages, and if you’re older than me, the person had to call back to talk to you. Back then, when you were out of your homes and in the world- you were present.
This constant phone at our side is taking away some of the beauty that is our internal dreaming and our creative thought. Don’t let it rob you. Let your mind wander. Let thought in. Allow yourself to find tiny creative moments.
Let me leave you with an excellent quote by Madeleine L’Engle to think about:
“But unless we are creators we are not fully alive. What do I mean by creators? Not only artists, whose acts of creation are the obvious ones of working with paint of clay or words. Creativity is a way of living life, no matter our vocation or how we earn our living. Creativity is not limited to the arts, or having some kind of important career.”
–Madeleine L’Engle
We’re excited to see what you’ll create!
