Giving Yourself Time to be Creative

In last week's blog post I highlighted a TED Talk I watched that made me reflect on a time when I struggled to see myself as a creative person. This week, I want to reflect on ideas I had when I considered if I'm giving myself enough time to be creative.

In addition to my struggles of viewing myself as a creative person, I also struggled with finding time to be creative. Was it something I could schedule? Can I put "2PM-3PM Be creative" in my planner? Then it just hit me, what this really boiled down to was how much time do I give myself to do the things I really enjoy related to my craft of teaching online. Thanks to the new Productive Online Nurse Educator Membership, I set aside specific time just to focus on my courses. This usually includes things like grading, communicating with students and prepping my courses. However, I have noticed that these moments become so overwrought with administrative tasks that it leaves little time for the free flow of creative ideas. 

As a very concrete example, I told myself that this Summer I would dedicate time to developing a new Virtual Gaming Simulation activity. However, as always happens, the whole Summer was almost gone and I had not completed nearly as much work as I had hoped. That is when I decided that I just had to make a plan and stick to it. Like Ethan Hawke said in the TED Talk, time is so short. Are we spending it doing what is important to us? I know that there are real and valid distractions and things competing for our time but as when do we draw the line on how much time we dedicate to these tasks? 

The struggle to balance administrative work and creative pursuits is a common one for many of us. With the demands of today's fast-paced world, it can be challenging to find the time to truly focus on our passions and ideas. As we juggle multiple responsibilities and obligations, it's easy for our creative projects and goals to fall through the cracks.

I have personally experienced this struggle firsthand. I am constantly bombarded with emails, meetings, and other day-to-day tasks that take up a significant portion of my time. And like many others, I often find myself feeling frustrated at the end of each day, realizing that I haven't made much progress towards my personal goals.

I decided to stop that I would take a drastic step toward accomplishing my goals. I created a personal 5AM Sprint for 5 weeks where I would get up at 5AM 3 days a week to work on some of these goals I had not accomplished. I made sure that there was time set aside just to focus on developing new activities for my students. By the way, the answer to the question of scheduling time to be creative is YES! LOL. However, you can't just make the ideas come to mind, however, you can give it a boost. I usually do this by sparking my creativity by reading articles, seeing what other educators are doing and even checking out publisher resources.

I'm glad to share that I'm more than half way through my sprint and although I still don't enjoy getting up at 5AM, I am definitely being productive. So what will you do to give yourself time to be creative? Maybe it means making time to take a walk in the morning and allow your thoughts to flow. Maybe you can find time to meditate a few minutes for bed. Or better yet, maybe you will join the Productive Online Nurse Educator Membership and use our twice weekly co-working sessions to stretch your creative muscles!

Share your thoughts, experiences and ideas in the The Online Nurse Educator Facebook group!