A Question of Spaciousness

I’m setting out to explore the art and science of creative living, and to record everything I discover in Curiosity Files. These are my in-depth investigations and are a longer read (or listen), so maybe set aside some time, find yourself a cosy nook, make yourself a warm cuppa and settle in.

I am so pleased that you are here and I hope you’ll share whatever thoughts or questions come up as you read. Whether that’s an instinctive in-the-moment insight or after a period of reflection, I’d love for you to comment. There’s no silly questions. No need for polished responses or self censorship. I am not an expert and I definitely don’t have all the answers. This is a shared enquiry and I want to hear from you too.

If you prefer to listen just press play, otherwise read-on below.

This time I’m looking at the question of how spaciousness might impact creativity. How important is it in helping us incubate ideas, to allow for moments of insight and growth, and to feel in flow? What happens if we feel cluttered with untidy workspaces, unwieldy inboxes or brains carrying the mental load of life’s responsibilities and challenges? Can we still create?

These questions were sitting in the background as 2025 wrapped and rose to the surface when I began to map out my next 12 months of creative projects. If you’re curious about my plotting process, you can find out more in the creative adventures segment of The Creative Switch podcast, season 3 episodes, 9, 10 and 11 but, in summary, I felt a tension between planning my activities and wanting to leave room for spontaneity. Mindful that it can be all too easy to over-commit ourselves, I was looking for a different approach. It occurred to me that many of my podcast guests had shared advice and insight on ways to build the right processes, environments and time to support their creativity. It seemed to be a common challenge amongst them and so I started my investigation into spaciousness there.

‘We need to be more like jazz instrumentalists, improvising and creating space between the notes.’ Richard Tyler

When it comes to having a physical place to create, Mike Hall told the story of setting up his art studio. He shared his realisation that whilst a dedicated workspace was important it need not cost the earth. That we should be patient and ‘put the essentials in place first.’ A spare bedroom, or even a corner of one can work fine.

Then several of my guests practiced the art of time blocking, giving themselves a non- negotiable slot committed to their creative pursuit. While author Sara Adams was writing her first novel, she ‘spent an hour before work writing.’ And creativity coach Nina Lenton said, ‘You’re not likely to get me to do anything on a Friday morning because that’s when I will go for a walk and take some photos.’ For Hannah Ashe, who now runs her interior design business full time and writes Chez Hanny here, ‘Creativity is very much linked to time and headspace… it’s about carving out specific pockets of time and space that enable those thoughts and ideas to come.’

The opposite also appears to be true. Before she switched from paediatric trauma surgery to writing the Anatomy of a Decision and launching LiveStack, the Substack directory for in-person creative events, Louise Morris had no space to create. In a high pressure, high commitment career she explained, ‘You don’t have space to think about who you are and what you want… You don’t have that time to breathe.’

Not everyone will have a drastic shift in direction of course. Creative paths for many of us evolve over time with a gradual realignment of our priorities towards a more purposeful life. I love Richard Tyler’s philosophy on how to adapt our lives to incorporate our creative passions. ‘We need to be more like jazz instrumentalists, improvising and creating space between the notes.’

Why does this need for space matter so much if we want to live creatively? I am acutely aware from my own juggling act that it is something I need to manage. Multiple creative projects and forms of creative expression can feel overwhelming and making space for them seems to require conscious planning.

Yet, as I mentioned in an earlier post, neuroscientist professor Vince Walsh suggested that we’re unlikely to have great ideas if we have a heavy cognitive load and are concentrating too hard to find a solution. We need room to think — literal headspace. He explained that during times of rest or daydreaming, our brains go into the default mode network¹, where the subconscious can get to work ranging through our memories and experiences and making new connections. So, to innovate or create we need to spend time being ‘on’ and being ‘off’, or we are at risk of shutting our creative selves out.

This also ties in with social psychologist Graham Wallas’ observations of the incubation phase in his model of the 4 stages of creativity, which I covered in the same post. When we switch off and relax, we can let our ideas brew in the background. It’s even possible to put our subconscious to work while we sleep¹. Author Cara Finegan reported multiple times, whilst working on her latest novel, where she would pose herself a question before she turned out the light. In the morning, she found she had answers to plot holes, resolutions for narrative threads, and clear direction for her next day’s writing.

Perhaps the most interesting piece of research from the University of Central Lancashire is that there is scientific evidence to support something which parents have known instinctively for years — boredom fosters creative thinking¹.

A chance to be still and wonder

Instead of filling our days with ‘busy work’ or passive consumption, like scrolling on our phones or skipping through streaming services looking for the next binge worthy series, what might happen if we actively opted to do nothing? Or if, by simply sitting, we chose this as an alternative to those distractions? What might happen if we let boredom creep in? Whilst we might feel pressure to be making something, giving ourselves permission to pay attention to our breathing or to our environment — just noticing — might oddly be more productive.

Early 20th century philosopher Simone Weil explored this concept of attention at length and wrote that, ‘The mind must be empty, waiting, not searching or making an effort, but ready to receive.’¹

Many of my writer friends have experienced something similar whilst journaling, letting their thoughts tumble out — a kind of de-cluttering of the mind. Other guests have a mediation practice which serves to quiet the inner chatter — ideas, stories, trains of thought are left at the door, ready to be collected again if they are useful, discarded if they are not. Curious to know more about how this works, I discovered another philosopher who spent a lot of time ‘thinking about thinking’. Martin Heidegger determined that there are two types of thinking which coexist — Calculative and Meditative. He saw these two distinct modes enabling us to plan and compute and then reflect and search for meaning. Rather than relying on secondary sources, I have just ordered his book, Discourse on Thinking. I am keen to know more and promise to report back.

As is often the way with us humans, we have so many questions, and whilst we are driven to search for answers, through scientific investigation or technological advancement, I have found that the study of creativity almost seems to resist that enquiry. It feels as if the very nature of creativity prevents us from seeing under the bonnet. But there is a good chance that within all the wisdom and enlightenment held in our collective human memory, somebody, somewhere, at some time has had a breakthrough. Whether that’s a great piece of advice from your granny, or wisdom rooted in ancient philosophies, sometimes we simply know something is true without needing to prove it.

There’s a beautiful illustration of this in the Daoist principle of Wu Wei or ‘effortless action’. My good friend, the Reverend Deb Connor, who writes Creative Spirit with Rev Deb on Substack, introduced me to this concept in a brilliant piece last year on ‘The Dao of Doing Nothing.’ She explains, ‘Wu Wei invites us to align with the natural flow of life, doing without overdoing. In creative pursuits, this approach is particularly powerful.’ She is one of my favourite writers here and if you are curious to explore her work, you’ll find a link in the Signposts that accompany this piece.

So, if we are looking for effortless action, how can we recognise or arrive in the right place for it to be possible? There is another Daoist concept, Ziran. British philosopher Alan Watts said it’s, ‘What happens by itself, what isn’t pushed.’¹ Is this then the natural state we need to be in to allow effortless action or wu wei to emerge?

If we look at the conditions or physical environments which help us to create as individuals, we might find that a messy room or desk interferes with our headspace. Or that it could be precisely the cluttered space which stimulates or sparks new ideas for us. The more I look into this the more it seems like new thinking and innovation can be stimulated in both open¹ and enclosed spaces¹, and that there is no definitive answer to the clutter question.

Then there’s other sensory considerations. Are we in need of complete silence or can we tolerate the hum of a busy coffee shop, or a favourite playlist? Do we work best with all the blinds down and a single desk lamp (which seems to be the default for most fictional detectives and private investigators)? Is there a particular view which works for you? A broad expanse of a sea merging with sky at the horizon, or floor to ceiling books on all sides of a comfy corner in your local library? One study in 2024 looked at the effect of these physical conditions on creativity in education¹, and suggested that they can have a significant impact.

Whether you are writing or crafting or taking photos or painting on a canvas, rehearsing your lines or blocking out your choreography, I’m sure you will have had experience of this in practice. How do you know when it’s working or not working for you? How do we discover the right fit between ourselves and the spaces we have available to us?

One of the writers I mentored knew she’d hit the sweet spot when she was immersed in her work to the point she sometimes forgot to eat. Another found writing by hand on multiple notebooks removed the temptation to over-edit whilst she was deep in drafting her novel. Each one of us is different, and often it takes a fair bit of trial and error and experimentation to understand ourselves and the conditions we need, to do our best work or find that flow state.

Renowned psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s flow theory¹ highlights the need for uninterrupted time and psychological spaciousness. While 20th century ethnographer, Victor Turner saw liminality as the ‘in between’ phase. ‘A realm of pure possibility where novel configurations of ideas may arise’¹ and new ways of thinking become possible — that, ‘Liminality is the seedbed of cultural creativity.’¹

This is precisely what comes through in Richard Tyler’s concept of ‘the space between the notes.’ It’s those threshold moments when environment, attention, and inner spaciousness align to create a sense of crossing into a different way of being.

Many indigenous knowledge systems understand creativity as something that arises from relationships, with ourselves, the weather and the seasons, with ancestors and the stories we re-tell, and with the land itself. They remind us that spaciousness is also cultural, a way of moving through time in cycles, and letting ideas ripen in their own rhythm.

One of these Indigenous systems — introduced to me by Nick Haines of the Five Institute¹ — Chinese five element philosophy¹, focuses on understanding how energies and timing might impact our lives and how we connect with our creativity. Each year has its own energetic characteristics. The upcoming year of the fire horse¹ has action, momentum and a bright unpredictability. It can be seen as an invitation to work with a different rhythm. One that favours openness, responsiveness, and a little more room around the edges of our plans.

If spaciousness makes it possible for creativity to emerge, then a year with this kind of energy asks us to pay attention. To notice the opportunities that feel right. To respond more intuitively and to leave pockets of time where we can say yes to the unexpected.

I started by mentioning the tension between planning and spontaneity, and sensing a need to make more space for creative ideas to flourish. Having set out to investigate how spaciousness impacts creativity, I‘ve discovered that it is an essential ingredient for creative living — whether that’s time to let our minds wander, a space which stimulates new ideas or a more relaxed way of thinking.

Then, as the Chinese year of the fire horse approaches with its pace, high energy and impulsivity, this is the perfect time to make plans in a different way. Rather than a structured goal or a rigid direction, I’m looking for Spaciousness to allow for Spontaneity, to say yes to the opportunities which feel right, balanced by space to seek out Serenity.

I’m planning to do less, spend time, energy and resources on things which feel expansive and joyous, allowing a buffer for the unexpected curve balls, and making a commitment to switch off and recharge regularly.

Spaciousness. Spontaneity. Serenity.

Where in your life might you create more space — for your thoughts, your senses, or your spirit — to let creativity in?

Pop your ideas and thoughts in the comments and let’s keep exploring together.

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¹And if you are curious to explore further, or follow up on the episodes, books and research mentioned, you can find links to everything in the Signposts post which will accompany this piece.