Reading time: Less than 1 minute
This is my weekly installment of “writing about writing,” in which I scan the world to find websites, books and articles to help other writers. Today I discuss a blog post on whether stress is killing your creativity….
Cedrik Kieffer and Dominka Krasnicka are London-based entrepreneurs who run a website called Paid to Exist. They recently posted a blog under the headline, “Is stress killing your creativity?” and I loved their suggestions for helping to restore creativity.
Their tips included:
- Lying on the bed and doing nothing but listening to music
- Leaving the phone at home, going to the park, sitting on the grass and watching people
- Eating the whole tub of salted caramel Häagen-Dazs instead of dinner
- Deleting junk data from the laptop
- Watching the whole second season of Big Little Lies in one day
- Staying away from the phone as much as possible
- Stopping multitasking
I like the way some of these ideas sound silly (watching a whole season of Big Little Lies) or unhealthy (eating a whole tub of Häagen-Dazs). But they illustrate the double-edged sword of creativity: In order to accomplish something, you need to relax and let go of the need to accomplish anything.
A section of my own website addresses the issue of creativity and writing. But the bottom line is this: You don’t need to be busy every single minute of every day.
Or, as Cedrik & Dominka put it: “If you feel stressed and the sucked out of creativity, do something that you secretly wanted to do for a while but deemed a ‘waste of time’.
The more you allow your mind to wander and your body to rest, the calmer and more focused you will feel.
An earlier version of this post first appeared on my blog on Aug. 12/19.
