Four Habits That Super Charge Your Creativity

Miro, the painter, believed in a variety of daily vigorous exercises: boxing, jump rope or gymnastics. He stayed in his studio until 8 p.m. and hated parties, saying “… everyone talks too much.”

Gertrude Stein enjoyed writing in nature, admiring cows, and rocks. Carl Jung sequestered himself in a tower.

These examples of creative geniuses’ quirks come from Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey, which describes the habits of 161 artists. I read the book looking for patterns and found a couple of trends.

Most artists are early risers. Toni Morrison used to watch the sunrise, saying that the emerging light was a transition, signaling it was time for her to be a conduit for creativity.

Long walks were another common habit. Dickens strolled the streets of London for three hours a day, and Freud was such a fast walker, no one could keep up.

But, overall, there was a big variety of habits, which made me wonder, which habits most benefit creativity?

According to Steven Kotler, author of The Art of Impossibility, your habits should put you in a good mood, because a positive mind frame allows you to feel safe and secure, and you’re likely to take more creative risks.

Bad moods, on the other hand, constrict your thinking and make you less likely to generate novel ideas.

Spiritual writer Eckhart Tolle also agrees that a positive mood is essential to creativity. He claims we do our best creative work when we are in one of three states: acceptance (not resisting the present moment), enthusiasm, and enjoyment.

Besides walking, here are some creativity-inducing habits that have worked for me

Journaling forces you to look at your life on a daily basis, allowing you to address concerns with your creative work before they get out of hand.

In psychology, there’s something called “just noticeable differences” which are small changes we might note in a situation, but very often ignore.

Why? The left side of the brain has a tendency to normalize differences in our environment instead of exploring them to see if they’re significant. Like when we ignore our jeans getting tighter (you just washed them!) or a twinge in our tooth.

But the more intuitive right side of the brain, which is active in journaling, doesn’t so easily ignore signs that something is off kilter.

For instance, a few years ago there was a major problem in one of my personal relationships, and I’d been skimming over the issue for months. Journaling revealed it,  

Used to be that when I got stuck in my writing, I’d hop over to Facebook or Substack. That’s a recipe for shallow work, according to Cal Newport, author of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Deep work is a deep topic, but the most important aspect is to focus on a task for a certain period of time with zero interruptions.

I like to do one-hour sessions of deep work with a five to ten minute break between sessions, but it took me a while to work up to that. You might begin with 25-minute sessions if you’re just starting out.

Steve Jobs says, “Creativity is just connecting things” and in order to make those connections, you need to constantly refresh your brain with new information.

What better way to do that than with reading?

I’ve always been a reader, but in recent years, I’d been slack, mostly reading articles on the internet, which can’t explore a topic as deeply as a book can, Now I read three to four books a week.

Every month I fill up a notebook with all the ideas I get just from reading

What do you really want to happen in your creative life? The right side of our brains love to deliver answers and will work overtime for you, so long as you direct it with a specific intention.

For instance, I’ve set an intention of making a certain amount of money from my creative work and ever since then, I’ve been on a roll with ideas to help me achieve that intention.  

When you have a lot of creative tabs open in your brain, the ideas come fast and furious. Super creative Zibby Owens started off with a podcast called “Moms Don’t Have Time to Read.”

That led to her writing her own novel, launching a publishing house, opening a bookstore and heading a media corporation which she jokingly calls the “Zibby-verse.”

In other words, a few sparks can lead to a bonfire if you are open to following them.

Do you have a habit that increases your creativity? I would love to hear about it.