importance of daily routines for the aspiring creative
I tend to create in spontaneous bursts of energy. In other words, I create when I feel like it, when I am inspired and in the mood. This year, however, I decided to turn creating into a daily habit.
I have always been mesmerized by how other aspiring creatives approach and produce work. In particular, I was fascinated by their daily routines.
Take Hayao Miyazaki, for example, animation director of Studio Ghibli, whose unvarying morning routine for kickstarting his creative process has interested many. He rises at 6 a.m. each morning for exercise and coffee, arrives at Studio Ghibli by 9 a.m., and ensues a hectic 12-hour workday with strategically allocated breaks.
While the word routine connotes a sense of unimaginative monotony, and perhaps, conventionality, it is considered a potent mechanism for deep workers when it comes to fully capitalizing on finite resources like time, willpower, and discipline. For the disciplined creative, routines are integral for minimizing the resistance of transitioning into the work state, while generating the most valuable output possible.
In order to craft a daily routine that deeply resonates with your life and the kind of person you want to become, decide what your goal is. You want to write more? Draw more?
Allocate a specific time for your creative process. At best, it should be the same time everyday, in order to alleviate any resistance and maintain the deepest state of uninterrupted concentration possible. What I mean is, when you commit to the same time on a daily basis, your mind will naturally transition into work mode, without objection, as it has conditioned itself it's work time.
Commit to a feasible routine that best supports your work. If you create an oppressively daunting routine, you will likely find excuses not to show up. The goal here is to build a sustainable structure that will ease you into the workflow, without thinking too much about it, instead of creating only when inspiration unsystematically strikes.