Make Every Day Creative

Making every day creative is entirely possible, especially when you set yourself up for it to be easy. Very few of us get to spend 4 or 5 hours purely being creative every single day, let alone every week.

But we can do something every day that connects us to our own creativity, and it can be really simple, very achievable. The small wins are perfect for having us feel like we are succeeding.

And beside, when was the last time you experienced someone really big happening with just one piece of effort? I never have. I’ve seen great things created that have taken loads of small actions.

For me, having creativity in my life gives me meaning. It balances all that over thinking I’m really skilled in. I’ve had to learn how to set myself up with really easily doable activities so I can feel positive about where I’m spending my time. I can get caught up in so many other normal life things that what lights me up the most is left undone.

As a creative creature there is an endless list of things that I want to explore and develop so as long as I do something each day that lights me up, feeds my creative muses, I feel better within myself.

So here’s what I’ve learnt:

1. Giving myself permission to create time during the day or evening for me.
2. Be kind to myself about what I am doing, I’ll always want to do more, even if I give 60 hours in a week to my creativity, I’ll still have more to do.
3. Make some easy wins for myself.

And here’s how I do it:

1. I have a sketch book (or more like 4 or 5 going at any one time, including a little one in the car) that I can draw or paint views, ideas, designs, anything and everything. I even use sketch books for journaling out business strategies.
2. I can be crap at what I create, it gives space for better pieces to come through.
3. There’s a lot of scope for what’s creative, it includes photography (with my old phone or camera), sketching, drawing, painting, designing, ceramics, writing, lateral thinking, story telling, stitching, playing with my art and craft supplies (LOVE doing this!), reading, sorting through books, gardening – you get the picture, it’s any aspect of my creativity that lights me up – yours will be different, just give yourself the scope. For some it could include doing puzzles, cooking, carving – anything that gets you into your flow.
4. Getting into a Make a Mark a Day practice, again, as I’m setting the parameters that reflect my creativity, it’s about the creativity side, so it can be anything from designing, stitching, drawing and painting, pottery – it’s the doing that matters. It can be all of 5 minutes getting a quick sketch done in front of the tv through to painting for a couple of hours. The daily discipline is the structure that benefits me with the work that comes out of it.
5. When my loud head chatter is trying to beat myself up for what I haven’t done I turn it around to how I would talk to a beloved friend and praise her for what she is doing.
6. Generally if I can get 4-6 days with 5 mins to 2 hours of creativity in them each week I’m doing really well. I set my own terms, no one else does.
7. Letting myself try new ideas, arts or crafts. Workshops and classes are great for this – an opportunity to explore and learn

Here are 7 ideas for adding more creative fun to your day:

1. Go down fun rabbit holes of your favourite theme on you phone while on the train or bus.
2. Read something each day, whether it’s a novel, magazine, blog, newsletters.
3. Listen to something that lights you up – music, podcast, you get the idea.
4. Get along to an exhibition (online anywhere in the world or in person somewhere local).
5. Book yourself into a workshop or seminar or class on something you want to do, then enjoy looking forward to it too!
6. Write down or sketch out a list of things that light you up, then find ways to do more of them.
7. Get along to a local arts and crafts market and enjoy some shopping and chatting with the makers, if you’re a foodie then include the farmers markets too.

So what would you like to add to the list? Make one of your own and have a play.