My Top 5 Productivity Tips for Creatives

As I was trying to come up with a catchy intro for this article, I identified Homer Simpson as good example of someone who is NOT productive. I then wasted over half an hour on YouTube watching clips from the Simpsons TV series, trying to find that perfect Homer Simpson quote that would pull readers in to my article. I had a few good laughs, but I didn’t get that quote. I realized I was just wasting precious time. I decided to give up my quest for the quote, and get back on task. I instead came up with my first tip (Tip #5 below).

For writers, especially, it is so easy to spend an inordinate amount of time fleshing out an idea or researching a topic. It is important to figure out how much time to give to these tasks up front. Of course, the time you allot will likely depend upon context. For instance, while I probably should have only given myself about 15 minutes to find a Homer Simpson quote, if I had been writing an article on a topic that required research and attribution, I would’ve needed to allow more time for that.

My suggestion— give yourself guidelines up front for the time you will spend on diversions, and when you find yourself hitting that time limit, start looking for ways to streamline your approach, shift your focus, or even let go of what may have seemed like a good idea. Sometimes you can streamline your approach by simplifying an idea. Sometimes you can shift your focus, as I did with my Homer Simpson quote idea. If you decide to let go of an idea, write it down as a potential article idea for later. The idea may be easier to develop, or may warrant more time and attention, in a different context.

I have struggled for years to optimally use a calendar and a to-do list together. Honestly, I still slack off at times and forget to use them completely, but my productivity definitely suffers when I do this.

A few times, I have tried to implement an approach of scheduling time on a calendar for completing specific tasks, and I have never been able to keep it going for more than maybe a week. I think everyone’s a little different in this regard. For some, I suspect it works well to, say, schedule a 3-hour block of time on their calendar for writing. For me, I like keeping things less rigid. For this reason, I typically follow the approach of using my calendar just for appointments and other scheduled events, and using a to-do list for tracking the things I want to get done. I absolutely love checking tasks off a to-do list as I complete them, and I enjoy the flexibility of deciding on-the-fly what to work on at any given time. For this to-do list approach, I try to refresh my to-do list at the start of each week, for instance.

Eventually, I may try to go back to using my calendar (to some extent) for tasks, but for now I’m pretty happy with the above approach. If you’re not already using both a calendar and a to-do list, I encourage you to do so and to find your own approach to balancing the benefits of both tools.

I find it uncanny — at times my brain generates so many good ideas at once I can barely write them all down, and at other times I can sit for what feels like an eternity and get nothing. Why is that? I don’t know, but I have learned that when the ideas do come, I need to capture them right away. Otherwise, I won’t be able to recall many of those ideas hours or even minutes later.

In addition to writing in my spare time, I’m also a part-time song writer and music producer. Ideas for a song, or an article, often come to me when I’m walking the dog, or running around town. When that happens, I just whip out my phone and record the idea right then and there.

Many of you probably already do this, but if not, I highly encourage you to start. I find that OneNote works well for this, as I especially like the electronic notebook format and voice-to-text dictation functionality. I have the app on both my phone and my laptop, and the apps on these different devices sync-up really well. I have OneNote as part of my Microsoft Office 365 subscription. I’m sure there are other apps with similar functionality (I believe Evernote is one example).

I received this advice years ago when I worked as a waiter, and I still use it to this day in various areas of my life. My manager told me to never leave the wait station, or walk onto the dining room floor, to perform just one task. An example would be to take one table water as you’re headed to another table to deliver their check. Or better yet, perform 4 or 5 tasks (or more) each time you circle the room.

That same advice translates well for writers and other creatives. As a new writer on Medium, I am still trying to figure out how to get multiple uses out of the work I put into each article. I see some writers on Medium already doing this — each article appears to be way to learn about a topic the author is interested in, and the content is then re-purposed for newsletter content and YouTube videos, for instance.

This article is proving to be a great exercise for me in figuring out how to boost my own productivity. Going forward, I will definitely be looking for other ways to ‘consolidate my moves’ with respect to my writing.

This one seems obvious. Why am I making it my Tip #1? Because with respect to productivity in creative pursuits, the tools we use can make a world of difference. I already mentioned how I use OneNote to organize my ideas. I also use a wide screen monitor so I can have multiple windows up at once. I’m always looking at new plug-ins for my digital audio workstation to streamline and improve my music production.

And now there’s AI. I’m not a big fan of AI in a lot of ways, but I do recognize its potential to help me be more productive, and so I’m learning to use it. In fact, that’s how I identified Homer Simpson as an example of someone who is not productive. I’ve watched the Simpsons for years, and of course I know that that Homer is the epitome of a slacker on that show, but I didn’t think of him on my own. I asked Bing’s AI tool to give me a list of well known characters from TV shows or movies who are considered unproductive. Homer was on that list (unfortunately, Bing wouldn’t give me a good quote).

I’m not advocating for spending a ton of money on new tools. But I do think it is useful to develop the habit of continually exploring tools (some of which are free) that can help improve our productivity.

Those are my top 5 tips. I would love it if you’d share yours in the comments.

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