Finding Your Creative Flow

Happy Sunday! As I was thinking about what I could share with you this week that could be helpful, I remembered a conversation I had this morning about the creative flow.

I think the building of a business is one of the most creative things you can do. To me, great business is art. It takes creativity and thought. Lots and lots of thought.

The thing about creative work is that for most of us, there is an ideal time of day to do it. For me, it used to be late at night. That was before I had children :)

I would stay up after my wife had gone to sleep and write or plan, or do whatever thought intensive work I needed to do. It was not unusual for me to stay up until the early morning hours getting a thought out of my head an down onto paper.

That has changed a lot in the last ten years. Now, I’ve found that early mornings are my most creative time of day. I just don’t have the energy at night I used to. Now, I set the alarm to wake up before the family and that early morning, when the house is quiet, is my sweet spot.

How about you? Have you noticed a time of day that you get your best thinking done? Have you thought about it? You should.

I find it helps to get my creative work done before I get to the task oriented stuff. I’ll check my inbox first thing, just to make sure there isn’t an emergency I have to deal with. Emergencies are rare for me- a client’s website goes down, or they have a critical, time sensitive matter that I need to attend to. So once I know there are no fires to put out, I close the email, close Twitter and Facebook, and any other distraction, and get to my creative work. Whether it’s writing a blog post or a proposal, or creating a strategy and action plan, I find I am most creative before the tasks of the day fill my head.

So if you haven’t thought about it, give it a try. Find out where your sweet spot is. And once you do, plan your day around making yourself available to the important, creative work that is necessary to build your business. Block that time out in your calendar if you have to. Make an appointment with yourself.  You’ll be glad you did.

Have a great week!