Practicing Being Productive

Creativity vs. Productivity
Productivity used to stand in opposition to creativity in my mind. "Being productive" carried impressions of dull, repetitive drudgery or frantic work in the face of looming deadlines. It meant churning stuff out according to someone else's expectations or standards. It sounded like work.

"Being creative" meant no deadlines, no rules, no boundaries and no expectations. It was self-indulgent and all about fun, but there was a hitch: my creative “success” was measured by whether or not the result was something moving, stunning, profound, beautiful, etc. Most importantly, it had to be completely unique in every way. When the fun was over, the pen put down, the amps turned off or the files saved, the result had to be greatness (in my estimation, at least). Anything short of that felt like a failure.

This created a lot of frustration. Worse yet, each subsequent time I set out to do something creative, the fun seemed to end sooner and sooner. A lot of perfectly good ideas were abandoned. The act of creating stopped being fun because the expectation of brilliance took the passion out of it.

Getting Out of Your Light
Tonight on the ride home from work I got a reminder of how this grandiose view of creativity can be crippling, and how a healthy focus on productivity can actually allow you to be more creative than ever.

The reminder came by way of an older episode of The Radiant Vista Podcast from 2005 (Episode 4, "Workshops"). The Radiant Vista is a website, online community and education resource dedicated to photography and the creative process. This episode was about getting the most from Radiant Vista’s photography workshops, many of which involve shoots in the field. Since the shoots are often held in national parks or other heavily photographed locations, some of the attendees find themselves unable to find inspiring pictures. The hosts took some time to address this issue of creative block.

Fighting the Future
It turns out that one of the reasons people feel stuck in these situations is they come to the location and immediately start looking for that shot that no one else has ever seen. They may be familiar with the area and recognize certain angles and compositions as having been seen before, leading them to pass by dozens of shots on a quest to find something new and leaving them frustrated when they can’t. The problem is they’re thinking way ahead of the process to a disappointing end result instead of doing what photographers do: taking pictures.

The Fix
There is a way to beat this. The basic idea is that giving yourself a set of parameters, limitations or goals to work with can get you past that part of your mind that judges and get you moving on to the business at hand. An example offered by the folks at Radiant Vista is to choose a particular subject or color or theme to shoot and then just start looking for it. If you’re busy trying to find these you won’t have time to think about whether or not what you’re doing is great. The point is to take the shots and to enjoy doing that. There’s plenty of time for evaluation, critique and editing later on. This basic principle applies to all forms of creativity.

There's More to Art than Inspiration
The key to making this technique work is recognizing that creativity is not always about those moments of inspiration. Sometimes it’s about doing the work, putting in the time and pushing yourself to be productive no matter what. Sometimes it’s about bringing your mind back from thinking about the future (the end result) or the past (previous successes/failures) and into the now (the act of creating or being productive).

If you’re a photographer, take the shot. If you’re a musician, play the instrument. If you’re a painter, load the brush. If you’re writer, write. And so on. Pick a mission—any mission—and pursue it.

Waiting for inspiration to come is passive and can ultimately be self-defeating. Discarding an idea before it has even a tiny chance to become something real is the antithesis of creativity. See things through and evaluate later. You will likely be surprised at the results. To paraphrase the advice a friend once gave me, no matter what you end up with, at the very least it didn’t exist before you made it.