the cure for creative blocks

The Cure for Creative Blocks? Leave Your Desk.
by, Jocelyn K. Glei for Behance

Everyday between 8:00 and 8:30am writer Stephen King arrives at his desk with a cup of tea. He turns on some music, takes his daily vitamin, and begins to work – exactly as he began the day before. Using this routine, King has produced well over 50 books, averaging 1-2 novels a year since 1974 when he published Carrie. Clearly, daily routines can be incredibly valuable. That is, until they’re not.

While familiarity, organization, and discipline can be powerful agents of productive creativity, there is a “tipping point” – when these same once-fruitful qualities transform into creativity killers. In his great TED talk on time off, graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister recounts the feeling of stuckness that prompted a massive change for him:

“I originally had opened the studio in New York to combine my two loves, music and design. And we created videos and packaging for many musicians that you know… [But] I realized, just like with many things in my life that I actually love, I adapt to it. And I get, over time, bored by them. And, in our case, our work started to look the same.”

But how to battle this stagnation that ultimately sets in with most any creative endeavor? Sagmeister decided to take a yearlong sabbatical every seven years – for the first he stayed in New York, for the second he went to Bali. Of course, there are smaller, more accessible ways to spark new creativity. But they all have one thing in common with Sagmeister’s sabbatical: It’s all about putting some distance between you and your desk.

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