Can Routine Fuel Creativity?

I think the jury is still out on this one. Part of me believes what author Elizabeth Gilbert writes in her book Big Magic, that we should strive to be as light and carefree as possible to maximize creativity. But as creatures of habit, where does routine fit in? Today I’m here to share some of my thoughts on this topic.

I shared in my last post that I spent most of the month of April training to be a palliative support volunteer, perhaps more widely known as a hospice volunteer*.

*Although the two are different, they are similar enough for the purposes of this blog that I will likely use them interchangeably.

I wrote about how this training has been on my list of things to try on my journey to financial independence for a few years now. It’s only a once-a-year training, and I passed it over last year because it “wasn’t the right time.” But I didn’t make that mistake again this year. This year, it was time to make it happen.

It was also true that before I started the training, I was a bit bored with my daily routine. At the time, work was easy and (if I’m being honest) downright boring. My daily routine was feeling drab. I had added in so much good stuff to my routine over the year, like consistently writing for this blog, reading, journaling, and exercise. But I was starting to feel restless. Suddenly, I felt like I had room for more. I felt I had plenty left to give of myself at the end of the day. I was ready to add in something else to my routine.

I tried adding in a sport called pickleball to my weekly routine. I tried attending some in-person yoga classes after years of sticking to an at-home practice. But none of those activities made my heart sing the way I wanted it to. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve since become quite obsessed with pickleball, but I was craving something a bit more meaningful for my day-to-day. And I desired even more creativity in my daily life.

My recent realization about routine and creativity

One of my most recent life learnings occurred after the first real vacation Mr. Dink and I took earlier this year. I learned that I need routine to fuel my creativity.

To be clear, when I say routine, I’m not necessarily talking about being productive. I’m talking about structure.

I love resting. I love being unproductive. And in fact, resting itself also fuels creativity. But I’ve learned that, at least for me, the key is incorporating rest into routine. For me, rest on its own is a creativity squasher.

Ok, back to our recent vacation. To paint the picture, we decided to spend a week in Santa Cruz, California. This was a combo of a late honeymoon trip for us and an early 40th birthday trip for Mr. Dink. And I was ready to relax. I brought with me several books, and I even brought my laptop thinking that I would get some blog writing done! I thought I would be extra creative on vacation because I was going to be in REST mode. And before this trip, I thought rest was a recipe for maximum creativity.

And oh boy, did I rest. However, to my shock, I didn’t feel creative AT ALL on this vacation. In fact, I felt like I had not one creative bone in my entire body. Was I fully relaxed? 100%. But I had absolutely no motivation to write or even (to my horror) read! Instead, I found myself just wanting to be immersed in vacation and in the present moment. I found joy in listening to the local news in the morning to hear what the weather would be like and what was important in this new neck of the woods we were in. I wanted to read the local paper like I do at home, looking for fun things we could do to fill our days.

It ended up being one of the best vacations I’d ever had, even though I barely did a single thing I typically do to let out my creative self.

Then, I returned home to something I’d never had after a vacation before: 4 whole additional days off before I had to go back to work! I did this on purpose, something I wanted to try now that I have the most vacation days I’ve ever had in my corporate career. I took a few additional days off before we left to prepare and a few days on the tail end to slowly embed myself back into society (now that I’ve done it, I can say that I highly recommend).

When I got home I figured, ok – so what that I hadn’t done any blog writing on my vacation? Now that I was home, I could use those extra days off to write. Genius!

But what did I find instead? That strategy of taking a few extra days off ended up being great for my stress level, but not so great for my creativity.

Although I had planned to write every day when we got home, when it came down to it, I couldn’t do it. No matter what I did or how much I tried, I just couldn’t bring myself to write.

In typical Mrs. Dink fashion, I panicked. My mind went wild. What was wrong with me? I was worried I had lost my writing mojo.

Then, Monday hit. Back to work, back to my routine. I typically write in the mornings before work, so I reluctantly gave it a try. And BOOM. Words went flying off the page!

I couldn’t believe it. But then again, now that I’ve reflected and processed, maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised…

Was this why, in college, I got much better grades when I was in volleyball season than during the off season? During volleyball season, I was so busy that I had to have routine. In order to get everything done and stay on top of my schoolwork, I had to be intentional about every part of my day, from planning when I ate meals to when I did my homework. Perhaps I just thrive in this routine structure?

So, regardless of how it all came to be, for the first time, I consciously realized how important routine is in my life journey. How important routine is for me as a creative being. As a human, I thrive on routine, and I learned that routine fuels my creativity.

Taking this lesson forward…

I believe this learning lesson will be instrumental when it comes to downshifting from full-time work, and perhaps is even a reason I’ve been resistant to downshifting. I think I might be a bit scared and uncertain, because deep down I know I actually do better with structure. So the thought of having additional days off leaves me with a restless feeling – how will I fill these days?

But then I have to remind myself that this is exactly why I’m experimenting as I go along my journey. I’m taking steps now to figure out how I might want to spend my days. This is the exact reason why I just completed the hospice volunteer training.

Knowledge is power. Now that I know how important routine is in my daily life, for not only my creativity but also my all-around happiness, I can be prepared. I can now be confident that if I simply decrease my hours without filling them with anything (at least in the long-term), I will likely be unhappy and unsettled. It may take me awhile, but I know I’ll need to find a new routine when I downshift.

And maybe, hopefully, routine will get even more powerful when that routine involves things I really love! Hence why I was so keen on not waiting any longer to complete the hospice training, so I can start to figure out NOW how I might want to fill that time. It’ll help me be more confident for when I do downshift.

Learning that routine fuels my creativity also makes me more confident that, for me, full retirement simply isn’t the answer. I now know I will have to fill my days with something. I just have to figure out what that something is, and that is exactly what I’m trying to do with experimentation.

I have so many ideas for how I might spend that time, something I call my Financial Freedom List, but there’s no way to know for sure if I’ll actually like doing any of them. So, for many of the things on that list, I can do experiments now, while I still have a 9-5, to see what strikes my fancy.

The more we learn about ourselves and our identities outside of work, the more we figure out what routines may work for us when we’re not working full-time, the easier it will be to transition away from paid work when the financial time comes. For many of us on our journeys to financial independence, it can be scary to think about downshifting and leaving our working lives behind. But doing this work first may make it feel even more “right” when it comes time to downshift, or help us know for sure when it’s time to make the leap.

And at least for me, I know I could use all the help I can get!

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What about you? Does routine fuel your creativity, or are you the opposite? Do you crave the ultimate retirement, with days filled with nothing to do, or will you need routine? Have you been experimenting? I’d love to hear from you!