Plotting Your Creative Journey

Today I am thinking about how we are all in this together. I know that phrase is often used by companies who are under-delivering and need a way to apologize with a slogan, but I truly believe that this applies to everyone working on creative projects.

Because creative work is “good” work. We come up with ideas and tools that aim to help other people, either through brightening their day, giving them new insight or just fixing a problem that they’re facing.

Bad work or evil work, by contrast, takes away from people’s lives. Negative thinkers tend to do bad work as they put their egos at the centre stage. Their projects are structured around bringing themselves up at the expense of putting other people down. But thankfully you’re not like that, and that’s why we’re in this together.

The Distraction of Life

Riding my bike in warmer weather, my eyes tend to wander. Living in a big city there are all types of people to see. I might be in awe of a beautiful woman or look at a guy and wonder what he does for a living. I see a young family and I’m either happy for them or I wonder if the parents get along.

All this while operating a machine going at a pace fast enough to injure me pretty badly if something comes up quickly. And still, these things are what make the bike ride interesting, and all public commutes for that matter.

Now to refocus this on your Most Creative Work, all the drama that life throws at you is the equivalent of staring at people at the side of the road, when you could be focused on what’s happening in front of you.

Creative work is about engineering situations to bend in your favour. It’s pretty remarkable to be able to take 30 minutes or one hour of time in the day and sculpt it into a session where you do the work that you feel like you’re intended to do. The other 15 hours, sure it’s ok that they’re spent in other ways, and don’t bother judging it because that’s how life works for most people.

Plus, you can argue that those other hours are creating the substance from which your Most Creative Work is derived. We need to live our lives to have experience and create a unified point of view. The drama is part of the fun of it.

10 Ways to Reconnect with Your Most Creative Work

Photo by Transly Translation Agency on Unsplash

The issue is that we have a lot of amnesia. We know we want it bad, but we are easily distracted like squirrels. Here is a short list of ideas for creating triggers that help you remember to check in with your Most Creative Work every day.

Let’s see how long we can grow the list by leaving a comment with what you would add to it. If we can come up with a list of 100 I will create a free PDF with it and credit you for your submission.

1. Create a vision board in Canva to visualize images related to successful outcomes in your work to spark a bit of motivation inside

2. Keep a folder on Google Drive of recent works to review. You can put music or manuscripts in there.

3. Start a Substack or Instagram to create a public journal about what you’re working on to share with your best friends. An audience of 5-10 people is still worth talking to because how many friends do you have in your life at any given time anyways?

4. Join an online community related to your work to keep you accountable and engaged with the process.

5. Use Focusmate to schedule a block in the future when you will have to show up and review your recent work.

6. Set reminders on your phone to go off daily and prompt you to think about your Most Creative Work.

7. Write down affirmations on 3 x 5 index cards with a Sharpie marker related to your goals in the creative world. Scatter them around your desk or near your bedside. Sticky notes work well too.

8. Create time for yourself by using the Alarmy app to wake up early without snoozing and then use a habit tracker like Strides to see how many days in a row you can repeat it.

9. Use a habit tracker like Strides to see how many days in a row you can spend 20 minutes or more on your Most Creative Work.

10. Meditate or simply close your eyes and visualize you doing your Most Creative Work. There are incredible studies about visualization and its effect on learning and performance. Taking in so much stimulation through the eyes is one reason that we keep forgetting about our work.

What will you add to this list?

The Most Creative Instagram

Ok I don’t think this is the most creative account on Instagram, it just so happens that when you have a brand called The Most Creative, every word you stick onto the end of it takes on that effect (ie The Most Creative Podcast, The Most Creative Newsletter).

mostcreativehq

A post shared by @mostcreativehq

Project Navigator Sessions

I have been enjoying the Project Navigator Sessions which use mind mapping to help you plot strategies for doing your Most Creative Work. Plotting is the evil work that we do to figure out how we will outsmart society and do the work that matters most to us. Write back with the word “yes” to claim next week’s free spot.

Thanks for reading and see you soon. I might move this newsletter to Mondays to align better with the weekly cycles. What do you think? Write me back if you have any opinion on this change.

Elliott

Inspiration and Action On-Demand

1. Confident Enough on Camera (Course)

2. Keeping Your Projects Moving (Course)

3. The Most Creative Instagram (Prompts and Ideas in your feed)

4. Try Focusmate to actually get things done (referral link)