Making Creativity a Habit.
I have kept a sketchbook, journal or notebook in one form or another for most of my life. Sometimes used just as a to-do list but often to get ideas out of my head and onto paper, where I can review it later.
For those of you who would like this in graphic form you can download my sketch here.
I recently re-discovered Julia Camerons’ amazing book, the Artists Way, about the spiritual road to creativity, whilst reading another book, The Creative license by Danny Gregory. They both have so much in common.
If ever you want to release your creative potential, overcome a creative block or just get started on the creative project you’ve had on the back-burner, these books are the way forward.
Both of them advocate keeping a journal.
Cameron suggests keeping Morning Pages, 3 pages written every morning in a stream-of-consciousness method. Gregory likewise say that you must use your journal, in his case for drawing rather than writing, everyday without fail. You need an unbroken chain. You need to turn up, for a period every day, and work at your craft.
A any working designer or artist will tell you, you can’t wait for inspiration to come, you have to turn up and do the work.
Proust Notebook
Purpose.
Journals have any purposes, but f you stick to the principles set out by Cameron and Gregory, you will see results. A daily journal or morning pages works very similarly to daily meditation. It needs to become a habit for the real benefits to be felt.
It’s a great way to get ideas out of your head and onto paper. It’s amazing how one idea always seems to lead to another and another. It’s a place where you can experiment with styles, with ideas, objectives and goals.
What has also always surprised me is that the time spent getting things into a journal or notebook seems to save the organizing and decluttering that inevitably leads to procrastination.
A massive benefit is that, by entering things in your journal you become more observant and attentive to things.
Codex Foster - Da Vinci
Method.
In the “Artist’s Way” and the more recent “Walking in this World”, Cameron says that you should write every morning without fail. To some extent, particularly when you get started, it doesn’t matter too much what you write, so long as you write and that you write in a stream-of consciousness way, that is “let it flow”. From my experience this usually starts out as a self-indulgent whine. However, after a short time your begin to put a little more purpose into the writing and begin to pick up ideas, goals and themes from previous thoughts and pages.
What she also advocates is to set yourself a little time apart for something you do for yourself. Cameron calls this “an Artist Date”, doing something relevant that feeds your passion. This is something I had always tried to et designers who working with me to do. You need to feed the source of your thinking with rich material, otherwise you end up re-using the same base for everything you do. I personally don’t thing this needs to be worthy things, like galleries, theatre or ballet, I quite like the less “cultural” inputs.
It’s very important, I think, to keep a positive mindset for your journaling. As I said, it’s very easy to get down on yourself with these sorts of entries. Some dark thoughts are necessary to purge, but you need to be able to turn them around and take positive results from them. Give yourself permission to think what you want and to express those thought however you feel is appropriate.
That’s why I think you need to keep your journal or sketchbook private. Sharing, particularly at the early stages, invites judgements from others. The journal is for you, to give you a medium to talk to yourself and to develop ideas.
Always carry a notebook with you, particularly if you want to draw. Ideas come from everywhere and at any time. Once you start t generate a creative flow of ideas, more ideas will flow. Ideas have a habit of invading at the most inappropriate times. You need to be able to capture them.
Using diagrams and drawings has always been a major part of my journaling. I don’t think you need to draw well, all that is necessary is to get your ideas down in the most obvious and simple way possible. Simple drawings can be very easy and very expressive. Graphic representations are much more memorable. A great example of how to draw and diagram simply is in Dan Roans book “The back of a Napkin” and “Show and Tell”. For anyone who wants to convey ideas in a simple communicable, graphic way, these are the best books out there.
Using sketches and writing is one of the best ways to use both so-called right and left-brain attributes. Your right-brain conceptual, imaginative side and the left-brain analytical side. It’s important to use both. Your journal is work in progress and need both imagination and analysis.
Charles Darwin Notebook
Reasons and Benefits.
There are so any good reasons to keep a journal apart from finding you own personal creative language, and these benefits are cumulative and build one on another.
Ideas often generate more ideas and often in different related expressions. Threads develop if you pursue them. However, a small word of caution, things can drift and not develop, which is why you need to review your journal often and methodically. Bring things forward, drop stupid ideas.
After a while you begin to develop a personal style (particularly if you follow the morning pages regime).
In Walking in this world, Cameron, lists the benefits as chapter headings and leads you through a path to finding your own unique place on this planet.
At some point, when reviewing, it’s worth looking at mapping your interests. Gregory divides these into 4 categories with 5 elements to lists. This is worth doing on a regular basis to see where you are and where you want to go.
Both Cameron and Gregory are deeply spiritual and deeply practical in their approach and both propose similar systems, daily routines, to get your creative juices flowing. It’s an obvious truth, ut nothing happens unless we do something. You have to get yourself in a position where inspiration and ideas can quickly find a home and expression. That means turning up and doing the work. There is no other way.
Keeping journals or day books is nothing new. Darwin, famously kept several journals for different purposes. Some for ideas some for records and observations. And of course Leonardo Da Vinci kept copius notes of all his ideas, observations and experiments.
It’s interesting to see that people lie Dean Graziosi with his Better Life Journals, and others have released their own versions of the journal. They also recognize the benefit of having a place where dreams, goals and ideas can live. What I like in Graziosi’s journals is the category marked “what NOT to do!”. It’s worth thinking about what things are distracting you from moving closer to your goals. I have always tried to hold in my mind Gary Keller’s quote “What is the one thing I can do today that will get me closer to my goal”.
So, if you want to find creative potential, follow Cameron and Gregory’s advice:
Morning Pages Every Day.
Go for an Artist Date with yourself.
Walk.
