If you have a creative block you’d like some help with, tell us about it – details in the first article in the series.
There’s a moment in the movie Lost In Translation where Bob (Bill Murray) is explaining to Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) how his relationship with his wife changed after they had children. “The day they arrive,” he says, “your life, as you know it, is gone, never to return.” Whether or not that’s true of life in general, it can sometimes feel as though it applies to your creativity.
The magic ingredients of the creative process are things like focus, concentration and plenty of time to daydream, read books, watch movies, go out to theatres, galleries and other inspiring places. And these are precisely the things that are in short supply the moment you become a parent. Your little bundles of joy become the most important thing in your life, shunting everything else into second place. Once you get on the seemingly endless treadmill of feeding, changing nappies, washing clothes, shopping, school runs, helping with homework and a thousand other things, it can feel like you will never have enough focused time and energy (let alone sleep!) to create outstanding work ever again.
Here’s Shane Arthur’s response to our invitation to tell us about your creative blocks.
I have two kids. I can’t seem to get much work done anymore. I need GTD for kids creative help. Time is my block right now. I need help stealing some back for creative work. I have not done a video tutorial in about a year.
Shane Arthur, Creative Copy Challenge
I know how you feel Shane. Last night we went to bed a couple of hours later than usual (Mad Men on DVD can be pretty addictive) which inevitably meant my kids would wake up and demand their breakfast an hour early this morning. So I’m sitting here minus three hours of sleep, and somehow I need to come up with the goods for you in this article. 🙂
I’m feeling slightly hesitant about writing this piece, as I’ve been a parent for just under a year, and I know you’ve been at it a lot longer than me, so compared to you and many other Lateral Action readers, I’m a mere beginner!
I’m also aware that everyone’s circumstances are different, which makes me wary of generalising from my own limited experience. My wife and I hit the jackpot and had twins last year, which feels like being thrown in at the deep end. But when I consider the challenges faced by the single parents out there, I’m tempted to conclude we have it easy.
However, I have picked up a thing or two in the past year, from my own experience and talking to other parents, so I’ll share what I’ve learned so far with you — and I invite all the parents in our audience to please leave a comment with a tip or piece of advice based on your own experience of juggling childcare and creativity.
Stop Harking Back
Parenthood brings plenty of external obstacles to focused work, but one of the biggest barriers is in your mind. It’s frustrating enough when you can’t devote the entire day to work, but you make it much worse for yourself if you keep comparing life now with the way things used to be.
Another common pitfall is to put too much pressure on yourself to perform to the same standards under radically different conditions. If you’re responsible for childcare, even for part of the day, it’s simply not realistic to expect yourself to churn out the same quantity and quality of work as you used to. So don’t use it as a stick to beat yourself with!
As Bob said, the past is gone, never to return. You can only deal with what’s happening now. So stop comparing and pining for your old routine, and start focusing on what’s realistic and possible for you today.
And go easy on yourself — instead of berating yourself for not achieving as much as you used to, give yourself credit for being a committed parent, and see whatever work you manage to produce as a positive achievement. Paradoxically, your productivity is likely to increase when you stop putting pressure on yourself.
Find the Gaps
A few months ago I was on a panel of writers, and heard an amazing story from one of my fellow panellists, a very successful novelist. She shared her experience of being a single mother to a child with special needs, which meant she only had one hour a day to herself, while her little boy was receiving a one-to-one tutorial. The moment the tutor sat down to work with her son, she dashed upstairs and started typing furiously away at her first novel. It took her many months, but she succeeded in completing the book in an hour a day — and the book’s success launched her career as a writer.
I live just outside London, which isn’t exactly renowned for its transport infrastructure. I know lots of people who complain about commuting into town and the inefficiencies of the tube system. Not me. I hardly ever get on a train without a book or notebook, or a podcast loaded onto my iPhone. To me, travelling time is a little oasis in the day, which I can happily devote to learning or writing. I must be one of the few people in the country who sometimes takes the slow train out of choice!
However constrained your daily routine, look closely and you’ll find pockets of dead time that you can bring to life with bursts of focused work. It’s no substitute for having the whole day to yourself, but it’s amazing how much better it you’ll feel if you spend even a few minutes a day working towards your goals.
Cut the Fluff
All kinds of unnecessary fluff finds its way into our working day — frittering away time on irrelevant websites, checking e-mail, unproductive conversations and pottering about your home or office instead of knuckling down to work. Once you have kids, you realise you just don’t have time for that stuff.
Remember the novelist dashing upstairs and typing furiously the moment she got the laptop booted. I’m not quite that quick off the mark, but my morning ‘warm-up routine’ — coffee, Google reader, checking in on Twitter and my web stats — has got considerably shorter since I’ve been responsible for getting the kids up and making their breakfast before work.
Have a good look at your working day, and see how many minutes you can shave off by giving up a few digital distractions and cutting down on ‘busywork’.
Get Help
You’re probably doing this already, but I want to emphasise the point, particularly for the new parents out there. Unless you’re superhuman, you’re not going to be able to do all of this yourself. Swallow your pride and accept any offer of help you can get! And don’t be afraid to ask either.
My wife and I have established a daily childcare routine, so I know the times when I’m ‘on duty’, and can therefore focus on work the rest of the time. None of our parents live nearby, but we’ve been very grateful when they’ve come to stay for ‘working holidays’, helping out with the kids and household to give us some time off. And friends who offer to babysit are instantly canonised. 🙂
Another more subtle form of help comes from spending time with others in a similar situation. I’ll never forget going to a first birthday party a few months after our children were born. After a few months of feeling pretty isolated in our flat with the children, it made a huge difference to talk to other parents in the same boat. And the forums of the Twins and Multiple Births Association are a fantastic source of twins-related information!
Spend time with other parents, to share experiences and solutions, and offer mutual support and encouragement. Even better if you can find parents in the same line of work as you. And complement real-life meet ups with online parenting communities.
Savour Your Work
I have a friend who is a single parent working in a high-powered job. He tells me it feels like light relief to go to work on a Monday morning. I know how he feels. I love spending time with my kids and I certainly don’t have my challenges to seek at work. But it always feels like a relief — even a treat — when I close my office door, or take the stage in front of an audience, and start work.
Make the most of whatever time you get to spend on your work. And if you do find yourself harking back to the past, maybe you could remind yourself of the times you used to procrastinate, complain or waste time during your working day. Compare that to now, when you see how precious your work is. Enjoy it!
Learn from Your Kids
Children are exciting, unpredictable, full of energy, frustrating, contradictory, hilarious, fascinating, perplexing, mysterious and utterly priceless.
Does that remind you of anything?
Surely we could easily replace the words “children are” with “creativity is” and that sentence would ring just as true?
No wonder the Romantic poets believed children were the embodiment of the imagination. Maybe we should take a leaf out of the Romantics’ book and welcome the disruptive, unsettling and unforgettable intrusion of children into our neatly ordered lives, and learn to be grateful for the creative chaos and disruption they bring?
Well, I hope that’s been some help. You might also like to revisit an earlier article from the creative blocks series, How to Find Time for Creative Work, and a piece I wrote last summer called 9 Productivity Lessons from the First 2 Months of Parenthood.
And Tony Clark of the Lateral Action team has a lot more experience of parenting than I do, so I can highly recommend you check out two of his articles, Balancing Work and Family as a Home-Based Entrepreneur and The Myth of the Sleeping Baby and other Fallacies for the Work at Home Parent.
Let’s Hear from the Parents!
This is a huge challenge with no simple solutions. So if you’re a parent who has never left a comment on Lateral Action before, I’d suggest today is the perfect time for you to step out of the shadows and share some of your hard earned wisdom about getting creative things done in the midst of looking after the kids.
How do you find time for creative work as well as looking after the kids?
What creative lessons have you learned from your children?
About the Author: Mark McGuinness is a creative coach with over 15 years’ experience of helping people get past their creative blocks and into the creative zone.
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« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 Next »My children are 26 and 20. I am a writer and I chose to become a dad. I look back at all the times I said that I stopped writing my novel because I had children--and I realize it was all a cop-out.
The reason I didn't write my novel was because I didn't write my novel.
Period.
To blame kids for a lack of productivity is a mark of weakness.
Besides, having children is the ultimate act of creativity.
It's true that time seems to slip through your fingers once you have children...no time for friends, no time for date night, no time for errands, and any work that needs to be done is usually put on hold until 10pm when the household is quiet (thank goodness I'm a night owl). 7am always comes as a rude awakening.
However, I've found that having a child has actually improved my creativity. Whether it was sitting on the floor playing blocks when he was 1, digging on the beach when he was 3, reading a different bedtime story each night in a different funny voice, or curling up to watch his favorite dinosaur videos ad nauseum, I have been inspired just sharing small moments with my child.
One blustery night I was holed up in my office, beating myself up because I couldn't come up with a theme for a keynote at a creativity conference (no pressure there). My 4-year-old son popped in all cute-like in his jammies and asked me to watch Planet Earth's episode on deep sea creatures with him. It was in that moment that I found the inspiration for my keynote. After my son went to bed I developed the entire presentation and corresponding interactive exercises within a couple of hours.
Now that he's 6 we play all kinds of creative games -- playing the ABC game to different themes like foods, places, made-up monster names or gibberish words. We also "piggyback" ideas in creating our ideal home or amusement park (yes and...), and I've even had him come up with points of departure/stimulus when I design ideation sessions. He's having a blast and I'm getting my work done!
I've become more creative because I'm inspired, and continually challenged, by the ultimate source of creativity...a child.
I'm not a parent, but I understand the "finding the gaps."
For some reason, the more I have on my plate, the more productive I seem to be. I think it's because I'm more aware that I have less time and I cut out a lot of the fluff as a result.
I get inexplicable pleasure if finding the hidden moments of the day when I can work. Amidst my bag of tricks are carring a notebook in every bag, always having pens handy in various spots throughout the house, and, when necessary, locking myself in the kitchen to cook while my husband watches the kids with my computer or draft open so I could read or write while stirring.
My frustrations - lack of time, constant interruption, lack of sleep, etc - that come from being a parent are not the problem. The distractions are inherent. My reaction to the distractions has been the problem - like irritation, escapism, harking back - and that has what has forced me to use creativity to be more creative. As @Glenda Worrell commented above, "If having kids spells the end, one wasn’t really creative in the first place — one was simply productive," I totally agree. Having kids has upped the ante. I have to be creative to be creative and there's more joy in my life as a result of it.
I had to change what and how I was creating.
As a computer programmer (oh, all right, tinkerer), getting an hour maximum away from the childcare to be creative wasn't working for me because by the time I'd:
1 booted up
2 recreated working environment
3 found where I'd left off
4 got my code flowing to a level where production was possible
the time would almost always be up. It would usually be up around item #3, getting past #4 and into actual production was a super-rare occurrence. This was very frustrating.
However, it turns out that having lack of time really helps focus the mind on what's important.
I discovered I didn't want to program as much as I wanted to play piano.
And I didn't want my children to remember me as that bad-tempered guy who seemed to think their names were "go away" and "I'm busy"
So I'm learning piano instead.
It's much more sympathetic to the rhythms of looking after small children because:
* you can start as soon as you sit down - there's no startup delay
* even a practice session as short as 5 minutes can be useful and productive - add a few of these up over a day and your practice hours total gets quite respectable
* you can follow it away from the piano - in books, tapping out rhythms and even playing in your head so journeys, parks, sitting in on the 'scary' bits of Disney DVDs all become opportunities for creativity.
So I would say that a lot of being creative with children is what you choose to be creative with.
Some things, like programming, at least for me, absolutely require significant periods of seclusion, silence and concentration (and good luck with that now you've got children!).
So you need to be sure that the environment that supports how and what you create is realistically achievable in a home with children. And if not, find another way.
@ Michael - "we are not our work". Agreed, and it's so easy to get sucked into forgetting this...
@ duckpaddling - I like the idea that kids open more doors (creatively and otherwise) than they close. And as for going from none to two, let's just say it's been intense!
@ Doug - Thanks for the wise appraisal. Sounds like another example of Resistance in action! And when I look at my kids I can heartily agree with you about the ultimate act of creativity.
@ Susan - Great example. Creativity is often about noticing the opportunities around us, not just focusing on the downside.
@ Amy - Thanks for reminding us it's not just the parents who are up against it. :-)
@ Rose "Having kids has upped the ante." That's it in a nutshell. We can't indulge ourselves as much, or (ahem) kid ourselves on. It's easier to see what's really important, which leaves the question: are we going to rise to the challenge or not?
@ Simon - Another great example, thanks. It reminds me of a friend who became a (very very good) writer when her children came along and she couldn't sustain working in the theatre, because paper and pen were easier to slot into the day than hours of rehearsals.
@Mark, I'll print it out and read it :) Maybe one day I can write a Time Management for Parents ebook :)
I agree with a lot of you who say it's a cop-out to blame your child. I'm working toward being more productive and cutting out the "junk" stuff that I do that is not as important. Sometimes though, it's hard--and kids DO change your entire life around.
As I've often told my husband, it's not that I'm wanting complete absolution from the situation--I know that ultimately it's my responsibility to do things and if I really want to do them, then I will. What I want is recognition--for someone else to say, "Yeah, I can understand where you're coming from. That is hard."--and then encouragement--"But you know what? You're doing great. And I'm sure you can do even better."
Does that make sense? I appreciate being beaten about the head with my lack of time management skills--but once the problem is acknowledged, it's time for encouragement :)
Hi, I'm Kari and I'm a parent. :)
I have written multiple novels, screenplays, and worked on web sites all in my spare time while raising two children with my wife. What I truly gave up was watching television and movies. Before kids, we had two nights a week, at least, where we just sat and watched. Now I just join the kids and watch what they watch. It helps me understand their world, connect with them, and, considering this is America, it's quality time.
I also give up on sleep and get certain chores done after they are asleep at night, and get up before they do in the morning to give myself a chance to be creative.
It's been far from ideal, but it has kept me intact. I'm deeply frustrated, but I still feel like I'm in the game and poised to make a career out of a creative outlet.
So the real linchpin is to not give up. You can't give up on the kids, and you can't give up on yourself.
Your suggestions are great and a necessity if you are going to steal some creative moments for yourself. Everybody else comments are extremely helpful too and I think I'll be coming back to this post often.
I'm right in the thick of it right now and my kids are 5 and 7 (although it's much easier now than when they were babies - but it's still busy).
My big one is to not worry about the sleep deprivation - you may feel lousy but you can work through it (and maybe even forget about it for few moments throughout the day).
My husband also bought me some Japanese brush pens which not only are really cool but easier to pull out when you have a few moments instead of an easel and paint. I also do most of my drawing on a tablet computer as that is also easier when you are short on time and there is no clean up after.
The biggest problem now is they love the tablet and are always trying to steal it from me!!! I do have to hide the pens too! I'm always losing art supplies if they are left out in the open.
As far as writing goes, I don't get the long expanses of time that I used to and write in shorter spurts. I'm working on a book right now and it's getting written one paragraph at a time - but those paragraphs are starting to add up!
Thanks for the post and all the suggestions.
Does having kids spell the end of your creativity?
No.
It might spell the end of your sanity, but sometimes that can FEED your creativity, so no worries there.
My daughter is six and I've been a single mom for the last three years. In those 36 months, my creativity has actually blossomed. I went from working as a Web dev project manager (which, don't get me wrong, required some major creativity, just not the type I wanted to have to exercise) to being a full-time marketer and writer. I also started singing on stage, wrote my first NaNoWriMo (google it :) novel, and joined a fiction writers' group to start work in earnest on my first "real" novel.
My days are jam-packed from 5AM when I get up to do yoga, cruise the blog scene, and maybe do a little writing until 11PM or midnight when I fall into bed with my iPhone and a hope and prayer that my darling daughter sleeps soundly through what's left of the night. It's not always easy, but being a parent has inspired me to start building the life I want - for me and for my daughter - in earnestness. The passion in my heart to create a wonderful life for us pushes me past my fears and my doubts. Motherhood has been a much-needed kick in the pants. ;)
As for finding the TIME to be creative, I think all your tips are great. The bottom line for me is that it's not about FINDING time as much as it is about MAKING it. You have to want it. Bad. When you do, you'll make the time. Trust me.
:)