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Updated November 3, 2022Youβre reading an excerpt of Creative Doing, by Herbert Lui. 75 practical techniques to unlock creative potential in your work, hobby, or next career. Purchase now for instant, lifetime access to the book.
In 2018, the average Instagram user on Android spent 53 minutes a day on Instagram. Over the course of the year, thatβs 322 hours, the equivalent of over eight full 40-hour work weeks.
Imagine what you could create with 53 minutes a day! (Especially if youβre reclaiming that time from Instagram.) Even five minutes will move you further along your creative path than no minutes at all. You can begin to reclaim time for creative work by setting yourself a manageable limit.
You can use a technique called timeboxing, which means giving yourself a set amount of time to do one thing. One of my favorite devices is the kitchen timer. Iβve bought maybe a dozen of these in my life so far, and I plan to buy dozens more. I set the timer for a few minutesβfor a short workout, for a sprint through really boring paperwork, or to get started on a big creative projectβand then I press start. I give myself a window to work through. After that, I can choose to stop, and sometimes I do. But many other times, I keep going.
In the professional world, a popular productivity strategy is the Pomodoro method: set a timer for 25 minutes of uninterrupted time to complete a task, take a five-minute break, then start the timer again. After three of these 25 minute sessions, the person takes a longer 30-minute break.
A deadline is a variation of this time constraint. In her memoir Bossypants, producer and actor Tina Fey quotes Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels: βThe show doesnβt go on because itβs ready; it goes on because itβs 11:30.β You can set a deadline and timed event to happen regularly: βEvery day when I wake up, Iβm going to take two minutes and write a note.β You might also challenge yourself to make something whenever you have idle time, like when youβre waiting for a bus or during commercial breaks. You wonβt find inspiration by waiting for it; youβll need to put the work in to uncover it. And you donβt only do creative work when youβre inspired, you do it because itβs on your schedule to do it.
The two most common dimensions weβre constrained by are space and time. If setting a time limit is timeboxing, then perhaps the space-analogous exercise can be called sizeboxing. You pick a limited size for your work and work within that.
One popular format Iβve seen is an essay that fits in a screenshot on your phone. When working on articles, I write my notes to fit a 4-by-6-inch index card; any longer and it has to be a new note. This keeps me concise.
If youβre recording music, scale down by committing to recording a song with only two instruments if you usually use more; or if you want to produce a lot of ideas, commit to writing thirty-second melodies for one week.