A close friend once told me that I would really start to feel my age in my mid-forties. Well, suffice it to say, he was right! So, about a year ago, full of fresh Biggest Loser determination and inspiration, I set out to change my deteriorating fitness once-and-for-all. I’m thrilled to report that I’ve dropped about twenty pounds, am stronger than ever and feel better than I have since I can’t remember. That said, those things were not the greatest benefits of the change. The greatest benefits were all mental; the most exciting of which was discovering my daily creativity window.
What is a daily creativity window? It’s fairly obvious, but it is the time of day when your creativity explodes. In asking around, I have found that, if a person is aware of their creativity window at all, it opens at different times for everyone. For some morning people like my wife, it happens early in the day. For some it happens right before lunch or, for an unfortunate few, in the middle of the night. The trouble with the creativity window is that it has a tendency to close quickly if you fail to give it your undivided attention.
Before we can discuss how to exploit it (coming in this article’s sequel), we have to know how to identify it. So, if you don’t already know your creativity window, ask yourself the following simple questions:
- When is my energy at its highest?
- What time of day am I most courageous?
- When is my brain at its clearest?
- When do I have my best ideas?
- When do my burdens feel the lightest?
- What time of day is my hope at its brightest?
Typically, these all occur within the same few hours of your day and, thus, define your creativity window.
Commit to recording the minute these things start and the moment they begin to wane and you can clearly define your unique creativity window. By doing this simple exercise over a short week or two, I was able to nail down my most creative hours and know exactly when my creativity falls off–I can actually feel it happening. When you get tuned in to it, you will too. The more you’re able to identify your window, the more you can learn to expand it and exploit it for your benefit and for the benefit of those in your sphere of influence.
Watch for my follow-up article which will explain how to fend off potential creativity blockers and will cover how to expand and maximize your daily creativity window. Here’s to your success!