Find Your Creative Space and Get More Productive

This article about finding your creative space was recently published on my e-newsletter “Innovation Espresso.” Please see the bottom of the article for a list of creative spaces that my graduate students at the International Center for Studies in Creativity found helpful for them.

Find your creative space and get more productive!

As some of you know, in May of 2007, I stepped away from the business. During the past year, I was able to remove myself from the daily demands of the world and gain an entirely different perspective on life. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have had this opportunity.

However, I didn’t spend the entire time in a cave meditating on my navel. In addition to shedding over 30 pounds, having some major spiritual insights (I labeled this year as my advanced Jedi Master training from the movie “Star Wars”), I wrote two books. One book is the sequel to my first book, “Why Didn’t I Think of That?” which was published over 20 years ago. I am currently collaborating with a novelist, Hallie Saxina, on this project. I am excited with the possibilities that might result from this joint effort. We plan to publish the book in the next eight months.

Where is your creative space?

Because I had been away for a year, I wanted to make this edition of Innovation Espresso special. I wanted to tell you what I have experienced and learned. I wanted to convey some of the lessons that come as a result of slowing down and stepping away from the world for a while. I wanted to impart some great wisdoms… and that is why it has taken me so long to write this piece. My judgment got in the way of my productivity. Finally, I decided to let the ideas simmer, trust the intuitive part of the creative process and let the proper topic surface at just the right time. That time, for me, is right now.

As I write this, I am sitting at the dining room table in the main house of our family farm in Colorado. It is a beautiful summer afternoon. I can see our red barns and the Colorado Rockies in the distance. The sun is shining and the sky is that light indigo, “Colorado Blue” color. This is a creative place for me.

As I began to reflect on the places that inspire me, I thought of my study at home in Buffalo, New York. When I sit at my computer, I look out over my tree-lined yard and watch my resident ground hog devour apples that I have left for him. As I consider my Colorado creative space and my New York creative space, the common denominator is nature. If I can't be out in nature, I love to look at it. I like to see the natural contour of the land and the folds of the leaves on the trees. I also like to hear the sounds of waves or water tumbling over rocks. A number of years ago, I built a pond with a small waterfall on my property in New York. I get some of my best thinking done while sitting around that pond.

Have your ever walked into a place, rubbed your hands together and said, “I could really do some great work here?” Artists and musicians have studios; craftsmen have workshops, professors and pastors have studies. Where is your creative space? Where do you go to do your best work?

One of my friends (who is a professional artist) describes her studio as her sanctuary. It is her “safe place.” When she is in her studio she is able to create, try out new concepts and leave her work in progress. Her studio is filled with light; it’s clean and well organized and is just the right temperature for her. It is also the place where no one disturbs her. It is her retreat from the hectic, outside world; a place where she can immerse herself in a private world of concepts and colors.

Other notable creators have had their working environments as well. Schiller loved the smell of apples so he filled his desk with rotten ones. Proust worked in a cork-lined room. Mozart composed after exercise. Frost would write only at night. The extreme case was the philosopher Kant, who would work in bed at certain times of the day with the blankets arranged around him in a specific fashion. While writing “The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant would concentrate on a tower visible from his window. When some trees grew up to hide the tower, he became frustrated and the city fathers cut down the trees so that he could continue his work.

I am not advocating that you stock your desk with decaying fruit or cut down the trees in your neighborhood, but what are the attributes of your optimal working or creative environment? Remember, if you expect yourself to do creative work – then you need a place to do it.

I asked my students who are taking my graduate course, Facilitating Creative Problem Solving, what they found were creative spaces or times for them. Here are a few:
(1) In the middle of night when I wake up in bed;(2) Driving the two hours it takes me to get to class; (3) Before falling asleep at night; (4) While I am mowing the lawn; (5) Sitting at my picnic table in my back yard listening to my fountain; (5) In the kitchen chopping vegetables; (6) In grocery stores or coffee shops; (7) When I got to "Office Max;" (8) Sitting by a favorite lake or pond and (9) Sitting in the bathtub.