Rest and Creativity

Rest and Creativity

One of the visions of this blog is to embellish people's lives, to make them richer by giving you just the right amount of information you need to either entertain or inspire yourself... but I also want this to be a place where we can all discuss our professional and sometimes personal woes. So this is not only going to be about Blogging but about working from home.


I've attempted to do this in the past with a series called Conversation where I went into the nooks and crannies of some of the most common issues for Bloggers - This later became Five - A series where I gave you 5 pieces of practical advice so that I wouldn't take much of your time. Both series went well but as I got further from blogging that stopped being a priority.

I'm both sad and happy that I had to stop - sad because I haven't been able to meet a lot of you through my blog anymore and happy because I've changed a lot in one year and feel safer to express myself here and on social media just the way I am. That's the reason why I'm retaking "Conversations" and I hope you can join in. I'm always and will always be interested on what you have to say.

The subject today is "Rest and Creativity" - I chose this to be the first topic because one of the reasons why I have changed and I feel on top of everything lately, is that I learned that in order to be creative I needed to rest. Not periodically, constantly. I know, that may sound like saying you should each a burger a day if you want to get thin but listen up.

I feel like everyone lies about Blogging and working from home, everyone's adamant to say how easy or how hard it is. Everyone (including myself) glorifies that idea of being constantly busy, spreading ourselves thin and sacrificing hours of rest, as if that was our standard and whoever's not doing that is not doing enough. And that simply isn't accurate.

No one (including myself) tells you the truth: That blogging and working from home can be a burden, can be boring and exhausting, that long hours in front of the computer makes you feel sometimes like you are hyperventilating, that working from home is so not glamorous that I'm writing this sitting on my couch, wearing a big t-shirt as a pajama, having eaten a nice tuna melt. TMI?

The reality is that more often than not, I'd spend all day on my computer, working... thinking I was being creative and productive but most importantly, disciplined. I never realized how few of those long hours were in fact productive. I only learned that after my big burnout of 2015. After spending months crying over not having work buddies and feeling constantly worn out to the point of living for working and not the other way around, I took a step back and started allowing myself to be a somewhat normal worker, having set hours, enjoying my weekends and mocking myself at how serious I was being about it all. Like a client was going to stab me in the eye if I wasn't in the office at 6:00 am on a Saturday or the world depended on me publishing a post about the best wall colors for 2015. What, right?

One day I overheard a Fashion Designer (I don't recall his name) on T.V. saying the most important part of his creative process was to rest and I was stunned that I had never thought of that.

In my own life now I've learned that trying to be constantly online and constantly trying to force a creative outcome, results in the opposite. It takes me to a place of overthinking and I start acting like a manic Artist painting canvases only to throw them away. Concentrating too hard ruins your concentration. Focusing on small details for too long distracts from the big picture and what you are trying to achieve. You can’t see the forest for the trees.

What works for me now is being kind to myself. I'm a non-self-shit-taker - If a design is not coming through, I step aside for a few minutes. I've even gone so far as to sleep on it. I hear some of you gasp in horror - Which yes, would have been a sacrilege in the past. I take breaks every day and my weekends are to unwind, with a few exceptions of course. In general I just try to strengthen my relationship with my work, understanding it will never be a healthy one if I don't stop poking at it every 5 seconds or if I make myself feel like a slave to it.

Being frantic all the time has done nothing for me. Being responsible and creative, delivering projects at due date and having a life and sleep is possible. Priorities may change every day - but what a little break can do for you is save you from burnout or from ending up on the floor throwing a fit about how tired you are, only to pick your computer up 2 minutes later and start going at it like the zombie apocalypse was coming, only to get no results. The key to it, I think, is to be kind to ourselves. We wouldn't force anyone to work that long and that hard, would we? If someone said "yes", turn yourself over to the police. Immediately. There's beauty in treating yourself properly in every area of your life. Creativity is found in the least expected moments, especially when you surround yourself with inspiration, not demands.

I want to know about you. How do you work, how do you stay creative?

Love and Light, Ana

Image Credit: Anna Gillar