Making Time for a Creative Practice: for exhausted people with demanding jobs

No one has time to keep a creative practice, not your co-worker, not me, and certainly not you. We’re busy.

This is my story of how I found time that was not there. This is the story before the story of how I developed, illustrated, and published a cookbook on top of a demanding full-time job.

Every season has variations of wall-to-wall busyness. I had no time as a student or a new grad in a lonely city. The “no time” turned into even less time during any and every career transition. Then dating ravenously consumed every spare minute in its path.

Even full-time creatives lament the lack of time to keep a (non-client binding) creative practice. Gone are my visions of these “living my dream” folks spending all day blissfully painting and writing poetic novels. My mind, aided by the internet, fabricated that image.

Time is scarce, for everyone. Time is our most valuable resource.

How are we using it to live?

A time-priority wake-up call

A horrific commute screeching to a halt was my wake-up call from an unquestioned existence.

A career opportunity came up that would require 4 hours of extra daily commuting time. The opportunity was my lucky break into a new industry. I gritted my teeth and signed up. I would have to magically squeeze 4 hours out of a gridlock schedule.

I ruthlessly re-examined the use of every minute. I dropped the drawn-out gym classes for a run in the dark. I streamlined my morning routine, and packed three meals and two changes of clothes into my mega backpack. I carefully strategized to avoid errands and extra grocery runs, and set my alarm an hour and a half earlier. I fell asleep earlier, only missing the late-night phone scroll.

Over the course of 2 years, I managed to never miss a bus, keep up my relationships, stay healthy, and grow my career. Yay me. Kinda sad machine me, if I’m honest.

March 2020, and 4 hours rolled back into my pocket. Still in the habit of rise and grind at 5:00 a.m., I was swimming in time, a hot commodity a mere week ago.

Out of sorts, I picked up my illustration pen and began to draw. Better. I did the same thing the next day. I kept waking up at 5:00 and continued drawing for every minute that I used to commute.

I haven’t stopped drawing (and now writing) daily for over two years during those early hours. The habit is essential. It’s my safe, happy, dependable creative haven.

Protecting time to keep a creative practice is not merely an indulgence.

A creative practice is a career lifeline

My creative time is how I maintain a curious, confident, and happy approach to my day-to-day work.

Giving myself time to keep a creative practice builds creative process mastery. Working through my own creative challenges, I overcome frustration, push through ambiguity, and feel the exhilaration of the results. I then enter the workday seeing problems as approachable creative problems, nothing to fear. I’m all warmed up.

I’m reminded how much I like this stuff.

Practicing reckless curiosity during my creative practice develops bold innovation skills. Trying something new comes naturally outside of the pressures of clients, bosses, and stakeholders. Bad ideas are simply ideas instead of career/portfolio storms. New risky ideas are just experiments.

My creative breakthroughs come from playing around. So I play first thing in the morning. The playing does not stop when I enter the work day.

As I enter a day full of corporate woes, the setbacks are approachable. Thinking outside the box is fun. The Sunday scaries lose their grip.

The power to make every day a good one

Returning to the office post-pandemic, I continue to find that time. The practice is too important to my well-being.

The world is interesting as I look at it with curious eyes. I feel present. Engaged. Excited.

Even if all heck breaks loose and it’s just a bad day; well, for at least a few minutes, I did something I wanted to do. I had at least a few minutes of feeling alive.

What is time for if not to feel alive?

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About the Author: Betsy Freeman is a product designer by day, illustrator and published cookbook author by night. Find more from her at b.free creative