MUTARE MORES CREATIVE SYSTEMS

Mind management, not time management – David Kadavy

For creatives who struggle with their time, whether it be constantly changing schedules, or feel like they aren’t able to create at their full potential.
Managing your mindset about your schedule and how you work will be much more effective than worrying about specific time management techniques and tools.
Many are helpful, but if you don’t reframe your relationship with time and your schedule, you will end up doing more busy work with marginally improved progress.

Many places have a completely different relationship with time
- They are event-based, not time-based
- Instead of thinking about 11:30am, they will say “after lunch” or “after the previous meeting”
- While they might not be as productive and aren’t constantly busy, they tend to be happier and more satisfied with life
Your prefrontal cortex is the “CEO” of your brain, it likes rules and structure
- When it is less active, you are in a more creative state
  - This tends to be in the morning, when you’re groggy, but this is different than at night when you are tired
    - You still need sleep to process information, so don’t stay up late all the time
    - Avoid coffee and stimulants, embrace the grogginess to work on creative tasks
      - The author implemented a rule to do the creative work for the first hour in the morning
- Important tasks first, think of filling a jar with rocks, then gravel, then sand
  - You can’t fit the important tasks (the rocks) if you fill your day with small ones (the sand)
Stages of creativity
1. Preliminary work
2. Rest
3. Creativity
- Research and get to know the problem at hand from all angles
- You can’t go straight into creative thinking, give your brain time to rest and then think
  - This is why “Shower Thoughts” are a thing, your brain is forced to “zone out” and that’s when it processes things
- Distracting yourself (social media is a big one, of course) prevents this processing