It sounds like an impossibility, time manage creativity.  Indeed so much of time management does assume that each task takes a relatively predictable amount of time. That of it is scheduled it will happen.  Creative tasks are often far more difficult: you might allocate an hour, or a day and yet at the end have made no progress whatsoever.

In this lesson we will try to cut through this Gordian knot.  We will consider create plans that guarantee progress while allowing room for creativity, how to break creative tasks down into more achievable parts, and what to do when you get stuck.   Crucially, we will see how we can manage our own emotional state and learn the importance of procrastination and doing nothing.

 

9.1  Introduction

Time Managing Creativity – it sounds like an oxymoron.   Can you really schedule a creative tasks for 10am on a Tuesday?

In this section we will see how traditional time-management techniques do not really work for creative tasks, they cannot be performed to order in the same way as digging a whole or typing a letter.

However, in the rest of this lesson we will see that there are alternative ways to plan around the particular qualities of creative tasks.

 

9.2  Plans

Simply adding a step entitled “be creative” into a linear plan is a recipe for disaster.  In this section we will explore ways to create high-gain/low-risk plans that are both open to creative insight and yet also guaranteed to produce some useful results.  We’ll also see ways to break down creative tasks or do less creative ones that build the seedbed for more insightful moments.

 

9.3  Busy Work

Busy work is used in many different sense, but always to represent something bring … very uncreative.  In this section we will see how particular forms of ‘busy work’ can actually be conducive to enabling more creative time.

 

9.4  To Do and Done

To do lists can of course be useful in helping you to achieve your goals … but can be so daunting, a constant reminder of what you have not yet done!

In this section we will see how to do lists can be re-imagined: a way to clear mental space tings to be done later, reminding you of what is done, or what you don’t need to worry about until others do things first.  Crucially, they can be part of personal emotion management helping you refocus on what you have achieved, not what you haven’t.

 

9.5  Impasse

We’ve all been there: the blank sheet of paper, the blank screen, the day we have done nothing because the small task we need to do just seems too hard.

In this section we will focus on this sense of impasse when nothing seems to make progress and explore ways to break through chipping away at the impossible task until maybe it just melts away.  Most important we lean the important principle: DWYFL.

 

9.6  Doing Nothing

When you are stuck doing nothing is precisely your problem.  However there are also times when doing nothing is the best thing to do.

In this section we’ll discuss some of the ways you cab be productively idle, making space for yourself to be creative.

 

9.7  The Creativity Plan

So what is the best plan for creativity?

In this final video, we reveal all.