Creativity: How To Turn Lack Of Time & Resources Into An Asset

“creativity was the ability to bring to life an image or idea regardless of resources”

- Chief Boima, Interviewed by Eddie Stats

Eddie Stats has a great interview with Dutty Artz familia Chief Boima and Vamanos from Ghetto Bassquake over at his blog Ghetto Palms for the Fader (linked below). In it came the above quote which Boima mentions in the context of film theory.

I love this idea and it brings me back to a concept that I try to bash my friends and students over the head with all the time.

Creativity is what happens IN SPITE of things like equipment, time and resources. A lot of people I know cling to the idea that as soon as they get this next plug-in, keyboard, piece of software, money, time or whatever it is that they don’t currently have that they’ll be able to accomplish their creative goals.

I am sorry to report that this is absolutely not the case.

If you can’t do it now with whatever you have, getting the next thing is not going to help you. The urge to create something, be it a song, business, piece of software or whatever is powerful and independent of resources or opportunity. I can personally attest to this.

At the moment I am working very hard at my day job at Dubspot, trying to make time to spend with my two sons and lady, teaching myself online marketing, writing this blog AND making a new album. And I’ve got seven tracks done on the album in the past two months or so. I have no time, and no money and very few other resources that people think they need. But what I do have is a crazy, compulsive desire to create things and do things I’m passionate about. So I do things like wake up at 6AM and work for 3 hours before I leave for my day job. Or write music in bed with my lady while we watch nature documentaries (she doesn’t like that one) or squeeze every bit of time out of my day I can by listening to educational material on my iPhone while walking anywhere or taking the train or any number of other tetris-like time maximizing tactics.

In a way I do all this stuff because I’m a little bit insane. I HAVE to do it. I get miserable and un-happy if I don’t make music for a while. And I get bored very very easily, so I’m always trying to teach myself new skills, like at the moment online marketing. Certain sacrifices have been made: for example, I had to stop reading science fiction books for a while, and I no longer have any time to play xbox. But the truth is at the moment I don’t give a fuck about those things. Being creative and making things and learning things is what I do for fun and to relax.

One things that helps me to hold this kind of attitude is filling up the rest of my time with stuff I enjoy less, like working a day job. This creates time compression meaning I have less than maybe 24 hours a week to do the things I want to do and a lot of that time is either before everyone else is awake or while I’m travelling somewhere. The major values of time compression are two-fold. One is that the minute I have two hours to make some music I jump on the computer and make a track at top-speed. I don’t fuck around and sit there with creative blockage or wondering what I’m gonna do. I grind out and express my pent up creativity as fast as I possibly can. Visualize someone climbing a fence to get away from a dog that’s about to bite their ass off.

When I lived in Berlin I had TONS of time. I would go DJ on the weekend and then the rest of the week I would sit at home and try to make music. What I mostly did was play video games and read books and find other things to do beside make music. This was because A) I was constantly at a slower pace, I was used to being relaxed all the time. I was almost never operating at top speed, because I didn’t need to and B) because the thing I wanted to do actually had become my job. I was procrastinating doing the thing I love to do and that makes me happy.

Put something like a day job between you and your music and things change fast. I have made tons more music since being back in New York and working my ass off for money. It’s because I’m working at top speed in a time-scarcity frame of mind that whenever I get a chance to make some music I feel lucky to have it and grind my ass off, and enjoy it, and make and finish stuff.

The second major value of time-compression is something which Tim Ferriss discusses in Four Hour Workweek (reviewed here): being forced into time-bracketing. The basic idea is how when we are forced to do something in a tight frame we suddenly become very focused and fast and get it done. The example is when you were in high school and had six months to write a report and then wrote it in five hours the night before it was due, and still wrote it really well. I think more people do this than not.

By working constantly under time pressure and deadlines you can actually majorly improve your productivity. I find I work REALLY well this way and get a ton done. I don’t fuck around and check my email or twitter in the middle of working, or stare into space or allow myself to get distracted. Instead I WORK LIKE CRAZY and get things done. As I mentioned in my Zen Calligraphy post I like to sometimes use the site e.ggtimer.com and set tight artificial time limits during my work day to push myself into this race against the clock mind state. It’s awesome. Even when you know it’s fake and that you’re just racing against yourself it can really help you to focus.

I’ll give myself say an hour to write something, or impliment something on my blog or research something and then watch as the minutes tick away. This relates to the concept of positive stress Ferriss introduces in 4Hww called ‘eustress’ (an antonym for distress) meaning healthy motivating stress, like you might feel when trying to win a game or surfing a wave and not wanting to crash. Usually I’ll budget myself ten minutes or fifteen minutes of flake out decompress time afterwards to look at email and do other time wasting activities as a sort of reward afterward, which is also great because it prevents me getting too involved in anything that came in there and letting an hour slip by drafting an email or reading an article or something someone sent me that isn’t a top priority.

Do you have any productivity strategies like this that you use? I need more! Suggestions? Improvements? I am I actually insane? Let me know what you think below.

Read the interview with Chief Boima and Vamanos at Eddie Stats’ Ghetto Palms Blog for The Fader.