Do you ever feel like your brain is just too full and your plate too weighted down with day to day tasks that you can barely trudge through one project to the next? I think we’ve all been there at some point. It’s that overwhelming feeling and one that can leave you feeling ill-equipped to complete the tasks at hand. Even simple things seem overwhelming. As educators, it seems we are always eager to learn and yet are pushed (by ourselves or others) to do more.
I do love a good project, and as a leader (whether of a district, department, school, classroom or group) it seems there’s always something else around the corner that has to be accomplished. But too often those great ideas and goals we have get lost in the day to day sway. Take for example, my personal goal of writing a blog. I want to do it. I think about it a lot, yet I struggle to make the time and even harder, determine the topic. I have lots of thoughts, but by the time I’m ready to put “pen to paper” so to speak, they seem to fall flat. But, today as I’ve been frustrated with my own ability to concentrate on current projects, I decided I needed a brief “creativity” break. Hence, my current rambling.
For me creativity simply means creating something or making something my own. I love to attempt to be creative in my “off-time”, but I feel like creativity in my work day is just as important. Our brains and bodies, simply can’t be analytical and methodical 100% of the time. (If you want to read more about timing in life, I STRONGLY encourage the new book by Daniel Pink, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing.) I find that when I get bogged down, I need to switch to a task where I can have some creative freedom. Whether it’s designing a training, building a website to share information, working on some coding or robotics activities for my Girls Who Code group or writing a blog post, my brain needs what I call a creativity break. It’s still part of my work, but it’s simply choosing (even if just for a few minutes) to switch gears and focus my energies in a different way to be “productive”. And I find the outcome of that creativity break is that I feel more accomplished, more productive and better able to face the perhaps more mundane, but equally important tasks that are in front me.
But perhaps even more important are the ideas that can come from creativity breaks. That spark that can be applied to a different project later… Or when I’m lucky enough to be creative with my team, the brilliant ideas that emerge. While I could go on… (maybe this is a topic to continue in future posts), I’ll stop here to ask you… When was the last time you took a creativity break?
Want some more inspiration around creativity? Let me also recommend a book I’m currently listening to – Creativity, Inc: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace. I’m about half way through this book which takes the reader on the journey to create Pixar Animation Studios. It’s definitely making me think about the value of creativity and a work culture that supports it.
shiftedlife.com 