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You Need More White Space

how-to-create-more-white-spaceHere’s why you’re having a hard time creating stuff right now:

Lack of white space.

You take on project after project, commitment after commitment, and you’re literally suffocating your creativity. We have to leave space for creativity to be allowed to happen.

Yes it’s true that sometimes pressure from deadlines can cue a burst of creative insight but if we always depend on the busyness to drive our creativity, it will drive us right into the ground. Busyness is not your friend. White space is. Creativity needs some wiggle room. It needs to breathe. It needs for us to pay attention and not just keep driving into the same busy-storm hoping that insight will come eventually. It might. But it may not.

The problem is that we’re professionals. We don’t have time to suck at our jobs because we will stop getting paid. So here are three ways for you, a busy creative professional, to create some white space in your life.

1. Make a “white space” block in your schedule today.
Have a set hour or so today where you don’t work on any project. I know you have deadlines. I know you’re behind. Do it anyway. During that time, turn off your phone, go have lunch out by yourself, take a nap. Whatever you’re doing, just make it not work. Do this every other week.

2. Have two experiences a month that will put your brain in a different thinking mode.
Go to a concert or a show or a food festival. Go hiking or camping. Do something on purpose that you have put on the schedule for the sole purpose of creating white space.

3. Don’t do Social Media for 2-days.
Imagine how much more space you would have in your day if it wasn’t filled with strangers opinions on the internet. Seriously, how much more time would you have to do things that free up your mind if that didn’t exist for a couple of days a week? I think it’s a question worth asking. I think this should happen at least twice a month. 26 out of 30 days of interaction on social media a month is more than enough.

These are just a few things that came to mind while I thinking about this this morning. SO:

Question: What are some things that you could do to create more white space in your life?

Happy Monday, yo!

Chris

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