Creating Time to Create

Do you love dreaming, scheming, creating and painting the big picture? Andrew Griffiths says making time to get excited about ‘what can be’ is one of the most stimulating aspects of being in business for yourself.

 

Getting excited about what can be is one of the most stimulating and energising aspects of being in business. 

Unfortunately, it’s hard to feel creative when the weight of the world, or at least the demands of your business, are hounding you. I know that stress and pressure will, over time, erode creative capacity. There is no doubt that this will impact your business.

It’s important to accept that being creative, and creating time to be creative, are vital aspects of running a successful business. Try a few of following ideas to help get your creative juices flowing.

 

In my business we have weekly creative meetings. These are open with no agenda. My team spends an hour talking and sharing their dreams and thoughts, both personal and professional. We have quite incredible discussions. They are also a lot of fun and provide the vision to improve what we do and to grow the business each week.

I discovered a few years back that driving puts me in a very creative space. If I want to work something out and I can’t get it sorted at work, I grab a notebook and hit the open road, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for a few days. 

I let my mind work it through, and pull over once in a while and jot down notes. We all have places where we are more creative. You simply have to work out yours and make the time to visit it as often 

as you. 

 

I write copious amounts of notes in spiral-bound notebooks. These are my ideas, my rantings and my thoughts on life at the time. I start a new book every month and I have about 15 years’ worth of my thoughts in a huge pile. I refer to them often and I always carry the current notebook with me for any time that I might get a burst of inspiration or motivation, like on a plane, beside my bed, in the toilet.

I read a lot. In fact books are my drug of choice and, according to my accountant, it would probably be much cheaper for me to have a heroin addiction at the rate at which I buy books. Anyway, I love reading about other people’s success stories. They fire me up, help dispel any doubts that creep in and give me the fuel to pursue my dreams.

We all have people in our lives who we really connect with, who we feel safe enough to be open and honest with and to share our fears and aspirations. I like to spend as much time as I can with these people. They can help to make a great idea even better and they can also help me to think an idea through so that I don’t make a big mistake. Either way, I enjoy the experience. 

When I talk to people about the importance of making time to be creative, most get embarrassed, saying they aren’t creative at all. But I’ve yet to meet a single business owner who isn’t a creative thinker: that is, after, all why they’ve ended up in their own business. So whatever your business and your stresses, just keep dreaming!