Why rituals and routine matter for creativity
“Inspiration exists but it has to find you at work.” - Picasso
For anyone that’s ever engaged in a creative career, the struggle to find the right moment and state of mind to wrestle out one’s ideas, can be a constant daily battle. According to publishing entrepreneur, Vitaly Friedman: "The beauty of good ideas lies in their unpredictability... you can't come up with just the right sparkle of innovation at just the right time”. This chimes with the popular notion that creativity is chaotic and irrational – rather than the product of human application. The ancient Greeks thought that inspiration came from the gods and their Muses, who supervised human creativity. Socrates wrote that creativity only happened when the chosen vessel was “bereft of his senses”, as thinking might prevent the reception of divinely inspired revelations. Even the word ‘inspiration’ comes from a Greek word meaning ‘god breathed’.
Unfortunately, back in the real world, creativity has to work to a schedule, whether that’s a client meeting, a publisher’s deadline or a pitch. Whilst you might often feel like howling at the sky for a bolt of creative lightning, no one pays you to sit around waiting for divine intervention. Dealing with this conundrum is the cross that creatives have to bear – and herding oft elusive ideas out of the ether to order, can sometimes feel downright impossible. But what if you could create a framework around your process, a creative corral, if you will, that gives you the best chance of rounding your creativity into the pen at the right time?
Perhaps surprisingly the solution might lie in routine. Whilst it might seem like the death of creativity - preventing opportunities for the random connections that fire our imaginations - having structure and the right kind of routine might actually free our minds for creativity instead:
1. Find your rhythm
Most of us instinctively know whether we tend to be at our mental best in the mornings (larks) or evenings (night owls). But faced with rigid office hours and endless meetings, it’s rare that we can organise our days to suit. However, scheduling our work around our unique circadian rhythms is one of the best ways to optimise our creative potential. According to Dan Pink in his book, ‘When’, our waking days are divided into 3 distinct energy patterns: our ‘peak’ (when we are at our most alert), our ‘trough’ (when we’re pretty much good for nothing) and our ‘recovery’ (when we get our second wind). How and when we experience these patterns will be governed by our personal tendency towards either owliness or larkiness.
During our peaks our brains are brilliant at screening out distractions, which is perfect for analytical thinking or detailed craft work, but surprisingly not so great for work that requires insight. Sometimes called the ‘inspiration paradox’, the irony is that our capacity for creativity is at its best when we are not at our best. Instead, it’s during our ‘recovery’ phase, when our minds are less focussed and we let our mental guards drop, that we are most likely to let the unexpected thoughts of divergent thinking creep in. So, whether you’re a lark or an owl, by identifying your own daily pattern of energy and assigning tasks to fit – your brain is more likely to play ball. So don’t go near your email when your brain is primed to create and don’t sit down to start a project in the middle of your post-lunch slump. If you lead a team, then protect their need for meeting-free time and allow them the flexibility to schedule their days around their natural rhythms, and you might just unlock their full creative potential.
2. Practice rituals
“People who have long creative lives - don’t get inspired and start work. They start work and get inspired. And they do this every day.” - Alex Soojung Kim Pang
However, even if you time your energy right, the dreaded procrastination is a hurdle many creatives still have to overcome. According to choreographer Twyla Tharp, “it’s vital to establish some rituals, at the beginning of the creative process, when you are most at peril of turning back, chickening out, giving up, or going the wrong way.” Whether it’s Beethoven counting out precisely 60 beans for his morning cup of coffee, Murakami working for six hours straight from 4am every day, or Agatha Christie eating apples in the bath – the daily rituals of artists, captured in Mason Currey’s two fascinating books, demonstrate how successful creative people use rigid rituals to get them in the zone.
But why do rituals work? From Pavlov’s dogs to the All Black’s Haka, creating an association between a ritual and an activity to illicit an ideal response is a proven technique. Once the mental link is established, you can repeat the ritual (ringing bells, scary dancing, counting coffee beans) to reliably induce the desired outcome (salivating dogs, winning mindset, famous concertos). So, by picking a ritual and repeatedly pairing it to creative activity you eventually form a neural association that becomes self-fulfilling. Simples. Stephen King considers this daily discipline essential to creativity, believing that routine induces a state of self-mesmerism, what he calls ‘creative sleep’, in which the mind can unleash its creative potential. In short, the repetition of the mundane can often lead to the miraculous.
3. Minimise decisions
According to Currey, when sculptor Louise Nevelson learned that Danish writer Isak Dineson consumed only oysters and champagne, she thought “what an intelligent solution to ridding oneself of meaningless decision-making.” This act of repetitive routine, to save brain power for more important stuff is another tested approach, that’s backed by science. Barack Obama’s daily grey suits and Steve Jobs’ black turtle-necks did not bely a lack of imagination, rather a desire to avoid what scientists call ‘decision fatigue’. When we use our brains for conscious effort we are drawing on what is called the ‘executive function’. However, studies show that this function works rather like a muscle – when it’s depleted it becomes less effective. So the act of making seemingly minor choices early on in the day, such as picking clothes and deciding what to eat for breakfast, can actually impact our capacity for mentally taxing tasks later. Ergo, if you need to be on sparkling creative form, stripping out decisions and replacing them with predictable routine can save your mental energy for the stuff that really matters.
4. Establish good habits
According to the founders of IDEO, David and Tom Kelley, when it comes to inspiration, quantity matters. In their book ‘Creative Confidence’ they observe that what makes venture capitalists so successful is that they see a lot of new business ideas every day. The more they see, the better they get at judging what’s good. So much so, that their ‘deal flow’ is considered to be a determinant of a venture capitalist’s success. They believe the same is true for ideas: “the more fresh, new ideas cross your field of vision each day, the greater your insights will be”. The learning here is that building a daily habit of ‘ideas flow’ into your routine and ensuring that you regularly expose yourself to new ideas and thinking, will more likely maximise your chance of having a burst of insight when you need it most. Quite simply, the more you input – the better your output.
So, whilst creativity will never work to a precise clock, allowing yourself and your teams to work to your own unique patterns, might just give you a fighting chance of creating the best circumstances for brilliance to happen. In life, as in art, order and discipline are the surprising prerequisites for creativity and daring. It takes habit to achieve creative mastery, rules to enable innovation, and security to create freedom. Although it might seem like a paradox – applying structure, routine and rituals to your day may actually create the mental space for those elusive flashes of inspiration, even when the gods are otherwise engaged.
https://www.creativereview.co.uk/why-rituals-and-routine-matter-for-creativity/