An Overly Structured Productivity Routine is Killing Your Creativity
The importance of a messy day to your brain.
“Productivity” is a word we hear a lot. Our bosses tell us that we must be “productive” to receive a payment, in schools our teachers say that we must be “productive” to learn, even in our house we must feel “productive” to have everything in order.
But how are we productive?
Like many other people, I’ve tried most of the advice we commonly see on the internet to be productive, to Pomodoro Timer, to-do list, time blockers, turn off my phone, and accountability partner. However, there came a moment when I realized that doing all those strategies was only moving me away from the most powerful way to be creative. And it reaches a point where being too organized began to affect my way of thinking.
Want to read this story later? Save it in Journal.
While it is true that reducing decision fatigue does free us to spend more of our limited cognitive load to solve analytic problems, reducing our distractions can be counterproductive in cultivating creativity. Creative people are actually more prone to distraction due to a reduced filter of outside stimuli. By letting in more noise, they’re exposing their brain to more information.
