Changing the way I think.
April 10, 2008 |
When I was in college and my sleep schedule was more geared toward being awake until around 3am, I learned something about the way my mind functions. After about 10pm I move into the most creative and productive part of the day. Unfortunately, since I now have to wake up and go to sleep at more normal times, 8ish and 12ish, it feels like I’ve been missing out on the creative portion of my day. I try to do things that let me explore my creativity here and there — be it redesign this site, design something at work, etc — but it’s just not quite the same. While in college it wasn’t uncommon to sit down at 2am and end up writing a few thousand words in comedic fashion, or design some sort of new layout in Photoshop.
Now, it’s not to say I’ve lost the ability to be creative due to a more refined sleep patter. It just means I need to change the way I approach my creativity and do more things to try and draw it out.
The first step is to write more, a lot more. I need to write about anything and everything. Practice more stream of conciseness writing. Just write, write, write and see what comes out. I am also going to start carrying a notebook to jot down things that catch my eye, inspire me, or whatever comes to mind. Again, it all comes back to writing as much as possible. The more I write the better. Along the way I’ll hopefully come up with more ideas as creativity tends to spur more creativity.
The whole idea is to switch my way of thinking to move my creative period from post-10pm to pretty much any time of the day. We’ll see how it goes and if I’m doing what I should be, I’ll be writing about it here. So, journey with me as I change the way I think. What do you say?