October 5, 2017 | 1 minute read

What to do when the creativity battery runs low?

Passle

It's easy to dismiss creativity as being the purview of only certain job titles, but in reality, very few jobs don't involve creativity, and we've all, I imagine, struggled to get out of a creative drought at times.

Some weeks, I feel like I have to tell my brain to keep a lid on things, others, like earlier this week, I struggled to fire up anything. This is totally normal - just as sometimes you have to let a field lie fallow, episodes of non-creativity are also essential. While they might be frustrating and feel unproductive, you do tend to come out of the other side with a rebooted fresh approach, which you wouldn't have acquired otherwise.

Linked to below is a fantastic post by James Qualtrough in which he interviewed some leading Creatives on their strategies when creativity runs low. They are mostly designers, photographers and artists, but their tactics can apply to many other industries and roles.

A common theme to the answers, is the necessity of leaving your environment, your desk, and going outside to experience new things.

Aka, if something isn't working, stop beating yourself up about it. Grab your coat and go for a walk, let your brain do the wandering it needs to find a solution.

For me though, nothing really beats a good night's sleep!

Being creative is a key part of the job description for so many of us. We see it as a responsibility to our audiences, clients and our employers (if we have them) that we must continually improve and deliver on this magical, mystical thing – ‘creativity’. But can we really deliver on this expectation? Is creative inspiration really something we can be held accountable for? This belief adds pressure, particularly when creativity isn’t a measurable resource. We have no battery meter telling us when we’re running low and we don’t perceive creativity to be limited like time. We simply don’t know how much we have in us or whether we’ve stoked the fire enough.