Episode 6: Daily Habits and Routines

Episode 6: Creative Habits and Mental Health

In this episode, we discuss the daily routines that boost creativity, such as solving puzzles from memory and starting the day with small accomplishments. We explore how activities like exercise, meditation, and journaling enhance creative flow. We also touch on managing creativity-related burnout and the importance of balancing passion with self-care for mental well-being. Join us for insights into fostering creativity through thoughtful routines.

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Okay, welcome to another day. This is day six of the creative work hour podcast entry for national podcast host month. I figured we just start us off with a question, and we can just see where it goes from there. We don't have to stay on topic. But what daily habits or routines Do you have that help you stay creative, and do those habits or routines change when you're highly creative, compared to if you're less inspired? And anyone can just jump on in, if they have a an input on that, well, I'm going

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to pop in. Let's get this going. Um, there's a routine that I do, one is for maximizing my ability to remember things which are important to me in my life. Not as in, oh, those are on a checklist, but to work on my memory abilities. And one of my most important things is I play the crossword puzzle every day, and what I do is I will play it on one device, say yesterday, and then when I open it on the other device the next day, it doesn't know that I did the crossword puzzle. And I try to complete the crossword puzzle from memory or recollection as much as possible. And if you did pretty good. You know, they start difficult on Mondays. It Gets harder by Saturdays, and I can usually make it to around Thursday and complete all the answers that I saw the previous day or new so that both wakes up my mind and builds helps to maintain my ability to remember things. That's probably

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the neatest way I've heard of someone doing a crossword puzzle. Because I always struggle with crossword puzzles, you know, not knowing the word or remembering and why didn't it ever occur to me to look at it and look at the answers and then see if I can re answer it the next day? That's kind of genius, really.

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Thank you.

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I like that. Anyone else? Yeah, for

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me. So I also like writing down things I do keep aside from my daily to do list. But I will also have like a if I have time to do something, list that is on the same notion page that I keep track of, but I would say, in terms of when I feel stuck right, I like to do a project that can bring me from start to end, and the easiest is cooking. So I would just go into the kitchen and I would cook from scratch. So this would be like shopping and grating, and just like cooking, and then I feel like it's very fulfilling when I'm able to finish one project, especially when I'm like, maybe I'm stuck on something else. So it's it's just a way for me to get out of that hate space, but also tell myself that I can do something else that is fulfilling,

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right? There's a book, and I'm not a big reader. I just struggle to retain what I've read. But talk about that link, and it's very easy to read. I think it's called making your bed, and it's a military Marine, and they teach you to make your bed first thing in the morning. And it's that completion thing, that if you accomplish something, it's easier to accomplish more things throughout the day. I love that. Yeah,

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correct, yeah. I heard the Tim Ferris interview with that author on that, and made that the making of the bed the first thing. Make that like one of the must do's every day, which is great and because, yeah, you've accomplished something. You walk, bike and go, well, at least that's in order to rest my life to complete chaos. But that bed is made. And then I have a very set schedule. I get up, I have 500 milliliters of smart water from a bottle that I've had in the refrigerator. That's like the best thing first thing in the morning, cold pH balance water. And then I have my routine of reading newspapers. I'm a news junkie, and I go through five No, just whatever shows up on the scroll they have. They organize that. So I try to get from top to bottom of the scroll of my newspapers, and just like, get a sense of what's going on in the world. And then I just try and meditate for, you know, like 1520 minutes, get my head straight. And then if I'm in a good place, I start reading, like books. And if I get through all that, if I am in a good place, and I do all those things, I am in a great creative space to to answer the question, if I'm where I can do those things, I feel ready, especially the reading, the reading, because most when I say I'm creative, I'm mostly writing. And so if I've been reading, it feels like, Okay, I'm ready to now do my own creating my own words. So that's my routine.

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Do those routines change if you feel more creative, highly creative compared to when you're less inspired? Does one kind of fuel the other? And vice versa. I

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will say that the physical activity I do in the morning, and I like to do something, does get adjusted for how my mind and body are feeling. You know, if I think I need that swift boot, then I'll probably go for a walk or a walk and run. Other mornings I can just ease into some yoga or other more tantric things. So I do vary that

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I know I'm working on my routines. The weekly reviews are incredibly helpful when I stick to them in the monthly reviews. But Basir, one of our members, had shared a journal. It's called a wellness journal. She'd shared this with me and I know you can't see it because we're doing the audio, but this is pretty cool. It's one of the simplest things I've ever seen, which might help me. It starts out two pages per day. You can say weekly self care, like whether you've made time for yourself, things like that. On a daily basis, it's got some mood faces, and you can circle how you're doing, what the weather is like today's appointments, meditations, physical activity, acts of kindness, which I love, self care, lessons learned, what I'm grateful for, affirmations. And this goes along, very similar to what you teach, whaling in their reviews. It's, you know, it's holistic. I'm hoping that if I start to do that, and I can get into the habit of doing it, that will help me, you know, I'm not very good at sticking to things. ADHD runs rampant, yeah.

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But I also think it's fine that we, maybe we fall off the bandwagon, but we come back to it. For me, I on good days, I would be very diligent with my journaling, and then there are some days, maybe certain season I'm really busy, and I don't but I do realize the difference when I am journaling or spending that quiet time with myself in the morning, it does make a difference in clearing the head. So I would feel bad, too if I fall off the bandwagon, but I tell myself, it's okay, just get back to

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it. Right? Progress, not perfection, right? Practice, not perfect. I've heard that saying somewhere before. You heard it here. First, Anybody else want to chime in with what they eat?

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Um, I'll, I'll just say that I'm also like this as much as I would love to have a routine that would just stick, it would be automatic, my brain doesn't really like the idea of habitual things. So I can externalize routines, but it'll always be an effort to do it, unless my environment or something can get you but I will say that too, in regards to the whole getting stuck situation, I like to think of it if I want to create something unique then. Or how do you create something unique? Unique up on it. So I, for example, last night at our group, I was depressed and not really feeling like creating anything, and I just started doodling on a path. I took out a piece of paper that I had, what I do some with. I've got a pen that I hadn't used before, and I just started doodling, not intending to create anything. And that led me into creating a nice little postcard stationary creation that they liked a lot. But I had to, I couldn't sit down and say, I'm going to create art now I have to just kind of sort of, I, to be honest, I think of it as seducing my brain into saying, Hey, come on over here today. Look what we can do over here. Because otherwise it'll just kind of go into that contrarian space and be like, No, I don't feel like doing anything. Go away. So, which is weird to say to yourself, that's

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Ray you you really hit something on the head there, and it's something I've been toying with a lot, and that's the mental health aspect of creativity. And how do we balance and take care of ourselves and our mental health while we're being creative? And when I say that you're thinking of creativity is a good thing, but for me, I can hyper focus sometimes, with the ADHD, in an unhealthy way, something will take my interest, and then, you know, days will go by. I won't eat, I won't get up to go to the bathroom, things like that. So what about mental health and creativity? And if there's anyone else who experiences that, when creativity comes it maybe comes on and takes over, or is that just me? Oh,

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there are, there are. I could think certain things, if I'm in flow, I'm also really in flow, and I can forget to eat sometimes. But I also realize, but that if I go on a little bit longer than that, like, maybe, like days and weeks, I will experience burnout. So it's like, instead of being very passionate about it, I'll be like, I'm so tired of it. Oh, it is. It is hard to peel myself away, but it's a good reminder to just like, yeah. Maybe even though everything is going on so well, now maybe it's better to just take a break so that I can come back to it. Yes,

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I. Also will sort of factor burnout into the plans. Like, yeah, I definitely know that I and this is something relatively recent, but I would be like, Okay, I see this project I can probably expect to take over my brain. I know that it's going to make me really, really tired and stuff like that. And so I both will have my partners. I'll set up my environment and be like, Okay, I have this time that I'm working and then I'm done. I have this meal already planned, or I have this book or music or activity or workout or something that I know is going to is going to help me get through that, and I just accept that, yeah, I'm going to have, I'm going to have some burnout, and that's okay, that's part of that. That is part of my refreshing refresh, anything. And maybe burnout stops being the right phrase, right? Then it's more a matter of, you know, it's time to recharge, recharge,

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refocus. Yeah, like, good stuff.

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I'm, yeah, I'm kind of in that weird spot where I am at my best. If there's a hair more on my plate than what would be comfortable. And sometimes, you know, nervous energy can build up from that and actually wind up scribbling fractals. I don't know if you've ever seen that, but I've seen other people like me do that before. You just want a piece of doodle paper, and you're just doodling, or, like I said, you know, drawing fractals. That kind of it's like having just the right level of white noise going on. It's not too quiet, it's not overbearing and distracting. And when I am at that right level of white noise, I am almost invincible in my creativity,

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that works really well for some people, one different kind. There's not just the white noise, there's and I didn't know this until, you know, fairly recently this pink noise and green noise and brown noise. Well, this is great stuff. Any more thoughts on that? If not, we can kind of knock it on the head for today's installment. Thank you everyone. I hope you guys tune in to tomorrow and let us know what you think. You can contact us on social media. There'll be some links in the show notes. And how do you handle your routines? Do you have a routine for your creativity? Let us know. Be interested to hear Thank you very much, and we'll see you next time.