Managing Energy, Not Time

Often when we give a talk or a seminar one or more participants come up to us afterward and say something like this: “Hey, I loved your program and creativity is important, but I don’t have the time to be innovative or creative.”  Ever feel like that yourself?

Let’s face it, even when we are not busy completing tasks, attending meetings, responding to emails, taking out the garbage, walking the dog or taking care of the kids, creativity and thinking out of the box so-to-speak, falls by the way side.   It seems that we just don’t have the time.   

Well, when it comes to creativity and innovation time, in our opinion, has nothing to do with it.  What we really need is to manage our energy. Energy is the force we need to keep our neural networks of ideas firing-up properly and sustaining the creative process.

Energy is the vigorous effort of our mind, body and spirit combined that gives us the capacity to create.  Without the proper amount and level of energy, it’s really hard to feel stimulated and be in the right state of mind – this sets the stage for creativity and innovation.

The other day our team got together after a long day’s worth of work and we decided to “brainstorm” new brand concepts and strategies for our company.  Because it was late, we had a little more than an hour to dedicate to this effort.

Problem is…nothing happened. But we had a whole hour yet we were stuck. We were distracted, preoccupied and just plain old tired. In short, our vibe – or energy – wasn’t “right.”   Even after a few shots of espresso, tea and ricotta cookies, we just didn’t generate exciting, new ideas for our brand.

So, even though we dedicated the time, we still couldn’t generate the results we wanted because our energy, our vibe was off. So, we decided to abandon our brainstorming efforts and suspend our creative process for another day – the next day as a matter of fact.

We met mid-morning and in the span of 30 minutes – less time than the day before, we generated hundreds of possibilities, whittled them down to our favorites and began to prototype some of them immediately.   What was the difference? Our energy.

Even though we had less time, we were able to produce better and more quality ideas.  The trick to our success the next day was that we allowed ourselves to get into the right creative state before we dove into our brainstorming task.  In fact, we first took a brisk walk as a team and chatted about the day ahead while at the same time staying present with the fresh air and beautiful landscape around us.

When we entered our brainstorming space, we started with a quote to center our thoughts and energy. The results were amazing. So, the next time you or someone you know (and maybe that someone is yourself) says “I don’t have the time to be creative.” Think again.  Consider your energy as well as the energy of the people you are with and implement some simple strategies to help get into the right creative vibe…

– Jeannine