Hey Creative Souls!
In today’s edition, I am going to share some key insights and interesting facts about procrastination and how it can be used to boost our creativity.
Everyone in their lives, at some point, has procrastinated and kept themselves away from doing the work which is important or meaningful. Procrastination is usually seen in a negative context. It is a feeling which is considered to be unproductive because the work is not getting done. People who procrastinate often are simply labelled as lazy.
But what if I told you that there are ways to use procrastination to our benefit in getting more done? And also is a great strategy for more creative work.
There could be numerous reasons. May be we are afraid of not meeting society’s expectations of what a creative thing should be, maybe we are afraid of other people’s judgments about our creativity or maybe we are just not able to take the step to be in the creative process because we are so busy in fulfilling the life’s demands.
But what exactly is creative anxiety? Is it an illness that we suffer while we are being creative?
Some of our history’s greatest thinkers are known for their procrastination. These include Leonardo Da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, and Frank Lloyd Wright to name a few.
Romans used the term procrastination to refer to “sophisticated decision making regarding when not to act,” such as knowing when to wait for the right time to deploy a war strategy.
Ancient Egyptians had two verbs that have been translated as meaning “to procrastinate”: one referring to “laziness” in completing necessary tasks, but another referring to the useful course of action to avoid “unnecessary work and impulsive effort”
We are always surrounded by our to-do lists and multiple tasks to take care of. Whether it is working on multiple projects or checking off chores off our schedule. The strategy for task avoidance is to avoid one task by working on the other. This is when you procrastinate on one task by putting your attention towards something different.
For instance, last week I was working on three different projects simultaneously. I was working on creating a Youtube video for my channel, writing for this newsletter and also creating new music for a dear friend. Video filming and editing can take up a lot of time, so whenever I felt tired of working on Youtube video, I took a break and in that break continued working on my music. This not only energized and motivated me but also made me feel good about the progress I made on both the projects.
Letting our minds incubate throughout our creative process is a must. Spending time away from our creative project or task has shown significant results in improving the outputs. Incubation is when you step away from the task and let your mind wander. This random divergence and wandering gives rise to unique connections within our minds which can spark new insights for our project or any problem we are trying to solve.
It can be very beneficial to schedule 15 to 30 minutes break in between your focused work to let your mind take a breather and expand its realm to give space to new thoughts, insights and ideas. So whenever you pan to work on a project that requires your full focus and attention, try to schedule some time in your calendars to take a break and move away from the task. When you restart after this short break, you will find yourself working with a new energy.
I like to call period of incubation as Mindful Mind Wandering because we allow our minds to wander, on purpose, with an intention to return back to our task or project. I have made a video on my channel talking in detail about Mindful Mind Wandering. Check it out: