Creative Mondays #046 – Mundane tasks
When do you get most of your creative ideas?
I’m sure that for you, as like for me, creativity can strike at any moment. Anywhere, anytime. However, for me, I often find that I get a lot of my creative ideas when I’m doing simple, boring, mundane, completely uncreative tasks. Tasks that are so easy that I don’t have to put much brain power towards. Tasks I can do with my left brain tied behind my back. This can include, laundry, cleaning dishes, vacuuming and exercising.
For me, exercising is a big one. I’ll be running, headphones in, listening to music or podcast and then suddenly realize that I haven’t heard the last three songs or last 5 minutes of the podcast because my mind has been working over some new idea. Most times, I’ll have to stop running and quickly start entering the ideas into my iPhone in order to make sure I don’t lose any of them.
The thing about looking for these moments where you can put your ‘thinking’ brain to rest and just use your creative brain is that it can actually make these ‘mundane’ tasks fun. I can, truthfully, look forward to washing the dishes if I know that while I do it I can let my mind wander on some creative thought or another that I’ve been thinking of. You’re working on your art and getting housework done at the same time! Bonus!
Of course there are times where you’ll want to be one hundred percent focused on your art, that’s great. But don’t let these little moment slip away! Often times you’ll come up with some of your best stuff when you mind is wandering.
I want to point out that, yes, I also come up with a lot of ideas while driving. Mostly on long car trips when the road is stretched out before me. BE CAREFUL! Keep your eyes on the road! You can’t create if you’ve been cracked up in a car wreck!
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When do you find you come up with most of your creative ideas? Let me know in the comments below.
The best ideas come at moments I can’t document them! Driving. In traffic. In the rain. Or my favorite 2:30 am….if I get up to write this down, I will not get back to sleep….but if I don’t write it down, i may not remember in the morning. Or when I was in a dark theater watching the Nick Cave film “20,000 Days on Earth”, and I just wanted to jot so much of it down….but no…in a theater. It’s moments like these that you hope your brain will just really hold on to those good ideas, and if it forgets then maybe it wasn’t that good of an idea to begin with.