This is all about defining purpose. It may seem an obvious question to ask and you may already have an answer on the tip of your tongue, c’mon Darren, that’s a bit straightforward! Well, yes and no. The simplest answer is because I can, it is something that I do. I live, therefore I create. I have no problems with this, and wholeheartedly agree with it. But left at this level, it can lead us into frustration as we struggle with motivation and lack of focus. All creatives should share in the mantra, ‘lead us not into frustration.’

Being creative is our identity, part of who we are. Why we are creative can be seen as our purpose. It should flow from our identity. My point is we can become fuzzy with the purpose of being creative. Like most things in life, if we can set goals, and I mean clear, timed and measured goals, our purpose is clearer.

So why are you being creative? We’ve established that you are creative, but what are the outcomes to your creativity? Are you being creative to make money, to pass on your creative output through a sale? Are you being creative to produce something that you can look at, or use, or enjoy? Are you being creative to relax and develop your own sense of oneness with reality? There can be many reasons and those listed are only thoughts and ideas. But if you can define your reason for being creative in this way, you will have a focused purpose. It will help you understand why you are doing something and provide motivation along the way. Of course, the way is another post. But without a destination; a purpose, you can’t begin the journey.

The following quote from A. A. Milne is an interesting one. On the one hand, the more uncluttered we are, the more space we give to our mind to be creative. However, does the following contradict this…

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.

Personally I think there is a difference to disorderly and cluttered, and that is why the opening statement and the A.A.MIlne quote are essentially true.

Disorder, allows us to create connections, to dream dreams and to use our imagination. If we kept everything in order, and ‘as it should be’ there is no development, no evolution and no creativity. In some areas of our lives we need order, but when it comes to being creative it can stifles.

Keeping things uncluttered is about the mess, the distractions. While these may initially lead to some interesting connections and creative ideas, they more often than not distract us from our creative goals.

To sum up, I think the following illustration helps. If I am creating some music on the computer, I don’t want several other applications running and cluttering up my workspace, however, keeping an open, disordered mind during the process can allow me to develop new ideas and walk down new musical paths – ‘what if I did this instead?’

I must admit that I have been struggling recently in the creative arena, and the posts here have been few and far between because of that… well okay I have also been extremely busy with the day job, but that is no excuse. Still it got me thinking about what you can do when the ‘muse’ has gone away, when the creative ideas just don’t seem to flow. (You’ll find this is a recurring theme here and I’ll return to it quite often).

So here are five quick ways to rediscover your muse if she’s gone away:

• Open your eyes – It is very easy to crawl into our own creative ghetto and just keep putting out. But that eventually leads to creative burnout. Find others who use a similar creative genre and look at what they are doing, immerse yourself in their creativity for a while.
• See the ‘real’ world – Nature is organic and as such can provide us with limitless inspiration. It isn’t bound by our human ideas and so reaches beyond what we can imagine. Tap into that creativity by taking a look at what is beyond the concrete. It also gives you any excuse to get out of the studio!
• Close your eyes – Sometimes you simply need to down tools for a while. Simply close your eyes and get away from the paper, paint, materials or music, and relax. It is surprising how often the muse will return when you stop looking.
• Make a list – The brain fills up quite quickly with a lot of junk to distracts us. One of the best tried and tested methods of helping the poor brain during these times is making lists. Even if you don’t do anything with them, just getting it out of your head helps a lot, and gives space for the muse to move back in.
• Fall in love – Find your soul mate, spark up the relationship and voila. Okay, that is easier said than done, but what you are looking for here are strong emotions. Emotional energy has a big impact on creativity, so if your creative levels are down, perhaps you need to hold an emotional audit.

I’d love to hear any other ideas you may have to woo the muse back into your life, so please add them to the comments.

Darren Rowse at ProBlogger has a really interesting post about keeping ‘like’ tasks together. I am sure you’ll find something of interest in the post even though it doesn’t deal directly with being creative. However, if you are like most creatives then a little organisation could go along way.

How Batch Processing Made Me 10 Times More Productive

You too can achieve your creative goals through those three steps and if you keep those steps in mind you’ll be amazed at what you can create:

• Preparation – prepare everything you may need, both during your creative journey and before you even start, e.g. resources, templates, time.
• Inspiration – the enigmatic spark that is fanned into the creative flame. Seek out inspirational tinder for you fire, e.g. images, sounds, space.
• Perspiration – nothing is free (well almost) and creativity will take effort on your part, so be aware that you’ll need to sweat a little to create.

Now what creative mountain are you going to climb today?

Well look it seems you may be in luck, take a trip over to the link below and you’ll have a ready made to do list to prime that creative pump – so to speak. The post is written by Leo Babauta who keeps Zen Habits ticking along quite nicely, but he has also created this post.

The Top 20 Ways to Come Up With Amazing Ideas

Stuck for that creatve idea to push the project forward? Has the muse flown the nest and taken your imagination with it? Are you struggling to find the idea to hang your assignment on? Well have a kiss.

KISS, or Keep It Simple Stupid is a maxim creative people need to keep close by. Creative people often exist in one of two spaces. The scenario I outlined above or letting our ideas run away to end up with something so complicated you need a study guide to explain it. In both examples it can be helpful to rely on a KISS.

Simplicity may be the solution your client is looking for, or perhaps the idea you need to convey needs to be blatantly obvious. Clever campaigns are fine, but are useless if only those in the know understand them.

One KISS approach I have found useful in the past is to look for something else that does what I am trying to achieve and then adapt it for the media I am useing or current project. Take for example web design. You need to design a news page for a client. One way that news has been delivered in the past, that everyone knows about is a newspaper. Therefore why not use the newspaper as your starting point? What about designing your links page? Again one way that people recognise the concept of linking is on train maps, so why not use this as your creative starting point?

The point is to start simply and at square one. The muse may be gone but you can kick start your imagination by doing a little thinking and making some very basic connections. Fancy a KISS?

As you may have noticed by the lack of posts I have been a little busy of late and I don’t see any let up in that in the foreseebale future. However, I will be pressing on with things here.

One thing that often happens with creative poeple is that they get engrossed in what they are doing. The focus is total on the creative task at hand. Whilst this is great for that task, the more routine and mundane tasks that life often demands get left to one side. [Please note that I am not suggesting for one moment that !maginality is a mundane task.] It is no wonder that creative poeople can be hard to live with as they focus on what they are doing rather than the relationships they have.

The danger with such a strict focus is burnout. Creatives will seek the to stay in the zone and the more they cling on the more it can damage. It is all too easy to then look for external stimuli to stay in the zone, excess caffeine and even something a little stronger.

What any creative needs to do is make sure they take downtime, this doesn’t mean they can’t be playing with ideas, taking notes and doodleing, but they should take a break. The batteries need recharging. There is more than one masterpiece in us all.

One sure way to stifle your creativity is to get too stressed out. This could be due to other pressures in life or simply by stressing out on the creative project you are currently involved in. If you are suffering from a little stress then these five, simple and well-used ideas will help.

With the stress now sorted you can be as creative as your talent deserves.

“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.”

George Bernard Shaw