We’ve looked at the importance of prioritising ‘urgent but not important’ work. But how do you actually do this, and maintain the laser-like focus required for concentrated creative work, in the midst of all the demands and distractions of your working life?
Pick your most creative time of day
In my last post, I talked about my decision to get up early to write, before the onslaught of phone calls and other distractions. Apart from the lack of external interruptions, I write first thing in the morning because (once I’m up) that’s the time of day when I’m most focused and alert. I experience a greater mental clarity in the first couple of hours of the working day than at any other time. As a writer, that quality of attention is my most valuable asset, so I’ve learned to guard it carefully. If I start ploughing into e-mails, reading blog feeds or doing mundane tasks such as accounts, then I’m squandering my most precious resource.
Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope puts me to shame with his habit of getting up at 5.30 to write his novels before breakfast. But early morning isn’t the most creative time for everyone. We all have our own daily rhythms of alertness and rest. ProBlogger Darren Rowse says that 10am to 12pm are his “golden hours” for “thinking creatively and getting things done”. Fellow blogger and author of The Four Hour Work Week Tim Ferriss writes blog posts in two phases, at different times of day:
Separate brainstorming (idea generation) from synthesis (putting it all into a flowing post). I generally note down 10-15 potential points for a post between 10-10:30am with a double espresso, select 4-5 I like and put them in a tentative order from 10:30-10:45am, then I’ll let them marinate until 12am-4am, when I’ll drink yerba mate tea, craft a few examples to match the points, then start composing. It’s important to identify your ideal circadian schedule and pre-writing warm-up for consistent and reliable results.
Writer Maya Angelou makes a similar distinction between time for writing the first draft and for revising it:
I get up about five… I get in my car and drive off to a hotel room: I can’t write in my house, I take a hotel room and ask them to take everything off the walls so there’s me, the Bible, Roget’s Thesaurus and some good, dry sherry and I’m at work by 6.30. I write on the bed lying down – one elbow is darker than the other, really black from leaning on it – and I write in longhand on yellow pads. Once into it, all disbelief is suspended, it’s beautiful…After dinner I re-read what I’ve written… if April is the cruellest month, then eight o’clock at night is the cruellest hour because that’s when I start to edit and all that pretty stuff I’ve written gets axed out.
(From Creators on Creating, Ed. Frank Barron, Alfonso Montuori, Anthea Barron)
Ring-fence your attention – get yourself in the right state of mind
Maya Angelou’s writing habits might seem eccentric, but they actually make complete sense. Writing in a hotel room effectively separates her writing time from the rest of her life, eliminating distractions and ensuring that she can enter a highly creative state of mind whenever she wants to.
My first professional training was in hypnotherapy, which taught me how sensitive the nervous system is to ‘triggers’ in our environment. The more intense the original emotion and the more unique the trigger, the stronger the emotional reaction will be. For example, if you think of a song you used to play with your first boyfriend/girlfriend, you will probably start to feel some of the emotions you felt with him/her without even hearing the recording. Supposing the song were Bowie’s ‘Moonage Daydream’, you might get something of the same nostalgic/romantic feeling by listening to other glam rock songs, but not as strongly as whenever you hear the opening chords of ‘Moonage Daydream’ itself.
Looking at Angelou’s account, she obviously experiences strong emotions whenever she is writing. And by confining her writing to a special place and time, she has trained her nervous system to associate her creative state with unique combination of different triggers – the early morning drive, the hotel room, blank walls, the Bible, Roget’s Thesaurus, dry sherry, lying on the bed and yellow paper. No wonder she is in the ‘zone’ soon after entering the room!
Looked at from this perspective, many of the supposed eccentricities of creative people seem perfectly logical and reasonable. Here is Stephen Spender describing the working habits of himself and his fellow poets:
Schiller liked to have a smell of rotten apples, concealed beneath his desk, under his nose when he was composing poetry. Walter de la Mare has told me that he must smoke when writing. Auden drinks endless cups of tea. Coffee is my own addiction, besides smoking a great deal, which I hardly ever do except when I am writing.
(from Creativity, ed. P.E. Vernon)
Can you see how each of the poets is using a particular stimulus to trigger his creative state?
Maybe you have a special place you go to for focused creative work – a secluded office, a particular chair, a seat in your favourite café. Or you may have a favourite notebook, pen, software application or make of computer – using other tools doesn’t feel quite right. Once you get into the habit of using these triggers, they form a kind of ritual, or process of self-hypnosis if you like, to help you reach that state of focused absorption Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls ‘creative flow’.
I don’t go as far as Maya Angelou, but I do have a morning ritual to help me get into the right frame of mind for writing. A cup of tea first, then filter coffee. Tea goes in the blue china ‘Maneki Neko’ mug. Coffee in a different cup, covered in Japanese calligraphy, from Kyoto (a city with wonderful associations for me). If I’m drafting poetry, the Mac is banished from the desk. I write on sheets of A4 with a black 0.5mm Muji pen. For other writing, I use the Mac and switch on Isolator to black out the whole screen except the window I am writing in.
Even if you have to work in the middle of an office, there are things you can do to minimise distractions and interruptions. Switch off your mobile phone. Put the landline on answerphone. Close your e-mail application. If the office noise is distracting, try listening to music on your headphones. Set up a signal (e.g. a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on your desk) to let your colleagues know they will interrupt you at their peril. Keep a notepad open and write down any tasks to do with other projects that occur to you while you are working. You can then consult the pad and get on with them after you have finished. (Writing them down will get them off your mind and leave you free to focus – more on this later in the series.)
Finally, if you find yourself starting to procrastinate, here’s an excellent tip fromMark Forster. Say to yourself: ‘I’m not really going to start working on this piece, I’ll just open up the file and look at it…’
Questions
- When is your most creative time, when you are most alert and find it easy to focus?
- If you could arrange your ideal schedule, what time would you ring-fence for focused creative work?
- How close to your ideal schedule can you get within the constraints of your current situation?
- Do you have a special place for creative work?
- What physical triggers (such as pens, paper, computer hardware or software), rituals or routines do you use to get yourself in the right state of mind?
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