It’s been a long dry spell for my creative projects. Years, in fact. I’ve been so busy working on my teaching business that I simply haven’t had the time or energy to do anything else.
However, I’ve finally finished creating a class that I think I can be proud of, and I’ve reached the point where I have a little breathing room. But, I still felt like I had no ideas, no inspiration for creative work.
After thinking about this for a little while, I realized it was because I was getting up every morning, spending four hours working on business stuff, and then, in my “spare time,” trying to do creative work. But it doesn’t work that way. At least, not for me.
My prime creative hours are in the morning, as soon as I get up. By spending four hours working on business stuff, I was essentially spending everything on the business and then trying to give the remaining crumbs to my creative work.
This is like the common fallacy that people commit while trying to save for retirement: save whatever money’s left over at the end of the month. Every financial planner ever born will tell you not to do that, because there will never be anything left over. Instead, if you want to save, pay yourself first. Put your money into savings at the beginning of the month, and make your finances work with whatever’s left over after that. You’ll find a way.
So that’s what I’m going to start doing: Pay my creative self first. I’m going to spend two hours every morning doing creative work before starting in on business work for the day. Whatever business work needs to get done will have to fit in around that.
Welcome back, creative self. It’s been a long time.