Everyday routine; has creativity gone away?

Today’s post is for all types of enthousiasts

Why we chose our job? Because we love it and feel wonderful when we create a final “product”. We love to plan a project, organize it, create sketches and wireframes. We love to be in this “zone”. Unfortunately our everyday office life is not full of these. We have to check emails, update websites, backup things, talk to the phone, tweak something here, tweak something there, make a small correction, deal with a bug etc. You all know what i mean! Many, many small things that can ruin your day and turn you away from the best part of our work. Creation.

All these seem familiar? Have you ever stopped for a moment and thought how many hours of your day are spent without any creative work? Without moving forward? Seems that something went a little wrong compared to the dreams you had when begun working.

How we began

Most of use became designers because we loved to sketch stuff, drew nice images and we were pretty good. So we ended up working in the design industry, some as traditional graphic designers, some made the step to the web design world and some made it even further in a more academic point of view.

So, what can we do now, to fit more creativity in to our everyday schedule?

First of all you have to write down all the daily tasks you have to do. Create an one-day plan. Separete the hours into zones. Make a list of all the administrative tasks you have to do during your office hours. From your experience try to find how many hours you need to accomplish them. Write everything down, don’t be lazy!
Now that you wrote down all the non-creative tasks, you are ready to make a very important plan.

Organize everything

Only if you are 100% organized in paper, you have the possibility to be 80% in real life. Because admit it, we all try to break our plans a little.

Find the hours, during the day, you feel more creative. Probably this is early in the morning or late in the night. For most of the people these hours are the best to work on new stuff. Even if you like to work at night, try to spend the first couple of hours at the office to work on new projects. Try not to mess with emails or anything else. Just focus in one job. Especially if you are in a small team, the first hours of the day 8-10 am are phone free.

After 10am is time to stop and start checking your email. Take notes of everything you have to do in your day and organize them in your day plan. First try to work and finalize small assignments. Finish as much work as possible and leave all the “difficult” stuff for later. By your lunch break you have to finish all the small but so painful tasks.

Lunch break and dead-zone

Usually after lunch, your brain goes into sleep mode, so it is perfect time to take another look into your email and plan the rest of your day. Try to relax for 20 to 30 minutes, without thinking of your work. Believe me it’s very hard, but try it. Take a walk around the block, it’s far better than standing in front of your screen goofing around.

After spending some time relazing, it’s time to get back to work. It’s time to focus in these problems or bugs which need more attention. Stick on these until the end of your office hours.

If you plan to work later at night, do not spent time in front of your screen at the afternoon, after you leave the office.

Clean separation

Creativity hours must be clearly separated from your daily tasks. You have to draw clear lines between them and do follow your own rules. Don’t waste valuable time of your day, while you can take advantage of it. Organize it properly and based on your needs. Routine work is as needed as creative time. Don’t underestimate neither of them!