Appearance and Appurtenance Tactic #1: Designate a Creative Space
Establish a consistent place for pursuing your creative interests.
Posted 5/1/20 | Updated 4/3/23
Studio. Ashgrove, Queensland, Australia. Architecture by Marc & Co. Interior design by Vanessa Cribb for IndigoJungle Interior Styling. Landscape design by Stephen Clegg Design. Photography by Alicia Taylor.
WHAT TO DO
Establish a consistent place at home for pursuing your creative interests.
WHY DO IT?
A well-defined idea space can actuate divergent thinking, increase motivation, reinforce routine, and jumpstart productivity.
WHY DOES IT WORK?
Remember Pavlov's famous experiment with dogs? The one where the Russian scientist repeatedly rang a bell right before serving food to his canine subjects, until the dogs merely had to hear the clang to start salivating at the prospect of their daily repast?
In one respect, at least, we're like those dogs: expose us to a stimulus in close proximity to an event often enough, and we'll be conditioned just like them to automatically associate the one with the other. Scientists call this classical conditioning.
Now imagine setting aside a space in your home for your creative endeavors. Maybe it's a comfortable corner where you write. A home office from which you run your creative business. A woodshop in your garage where you assemble furniture.
Do this routinely, and your brain begins to subconsciously associate these surroundings with the activities routinely performed in them, to the point where you have only to step into the space for it to automatically trigger a creative mindset.
Sounds a lot like brain priming, doesn't it? It should, since both actions involve linking a sensory input to a change in behavior or mental state. But there's a difference. The Pavlovian experiment showed that a connection can be forged between almost any sensory stimulus and an outcome if you repeat the stimulus enough. A buzzer or a piece of music or a pat on the head-none of which connotes food-would have conditioned the dogs as effectively as the bell. Brain priming, by contrast, appears to play off existing associations stored in our brains, some of which are absorbed through cultural influences and some of which are hard-wired in, but all of which have a thematic connection to the response.
Another benefit of a defined locus of creative activity applicable to you at-home creative professionals is that it establishes clear boundaries between work and domestic life. That's hugely important in the era of constant communication and information access. Without a line of demarcation between the personal and the professional, we're prone to blend the two. The danger in doing so is that our brains aren't engineered to jump back and forth between distinctly different tasks and activities, or to labor around the clock. Fall prey to either temptation, and you could find yourself vulnerable to mental exhaustion, reduced attention spans, lower productivity, heightened stress, and diminished happiness.
Finally, a regular time and place for your creative work means you won't have to expend precious mental energy deciding every day where and when you should get down to business. You can invest that energy into solving the creative problems on your plate instead. Incidentally, you can apply this productivity hack to almost any recurring daily activity, from getting dressed (Steve Jobs' uniform of turtleneck and jeans) to taking meals (writer Patricia Highsmith's habit of eating eggs and bacon every day for breakfast).
Does all this mean your imagination shuts down the instant you exit your creative workstation? Not in the least. The machinery of your imagination simply shifts into the background, where it operates no less powerfully. In fact, it's because the wheels are still turning in our heads when we're not consciously trying to be creative that we get some of our best insights while outside the precincts of our regular idea space, a paradox I'll explain in subsequent tactics.
HOW TO DO IT
Scan your home environment to decide the optimal location of your creative space, if you haven't already settled on one. Here are four types of environments that lend themselves to the purpose:
- Detached spaces. Spaces inside an enclosed structure separate from the main residence, though still located on property. Examples include accessory structures placed in the landscape, on the roof of an apartment building, or connected to the principal residence by a covered walk.
- Enclosed spaces. Rooms inside the home that can be fully closed off from adjacent areas, such as libraries, studies, offices, music rooms, sewing rooms, and playrooms. Avoid bedrooms, if possible; their function as sleeping quarters can conflict with idea formation (#25).
- Subordinate spaces. Areas fully dedicated to creative activities but which open to a larger adjoining space. These include alcoves, dormer recesses, the hollow under staircases, and loft mezzanines.
- Hybrid and flex spaces. Spaces that mingle creative activities with other domestic functions. Think kitchens, a piano floating in a living area, or a spot at the dining table.
Fig. 1: Daily routines of famous creatives from past and present. Infographic adapted by Podio from Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey (2013).
Establishing the location of a generative microenvironment is just the first step in the process of turning it into a powerful tool for outputting ideas. Consider these pointers as you begin to give it shape:
Use it religiously.
As most creativity coaches will tell you-and as the habits of history's greatest geniuses attest-a regular routine combined with a consistent locus of activity are key to creative productivity (Fig. 1). Witness Beethoven, who went straight to the same work table in his home on waking every day-after first counting out exactly sixty beans for his coffee. Or the architect Le Corbusier, who kicked off his morning work sessions at home with forty-five minutes of exercise, then stormed into his Paris studio precisely at 2:00 pm to terrorize his employees with the fruits of his brilliance. Or George Bernard Shaw, who built a small writer's hut a short walk from his house in the country, where he could escape unwanted callers by having his wife tell them he'd gone to London.
Reveal its purpose.
An idea room should look like a place where creativity happens. Find ways to display your work product, whether in the form of sketches, mockups, storyboards, a copy of your best-selling book, awards, pictures, musical scores, or anything else that inspires you, to boost self-motivation and confidence. Keep the materials and tools you use in your work close at hand.
Furnish to your needs.
Whenever possible, select furnishings and equipment, construct built-ins, and install features specifically designed to satisfy your requirements. Besides providing practical advantages, these appurtenances concretize your commitment to a creative life.
Zone work areas according to activity.
Maximize productivity by subdividing your space to suit varying task requirements, both physical and cognitive. Author and artist Austin Kleon's garage home office contains a digital desk, an analog desk, and a separate reading area.
Segregate the personal from the professional in your digital environment.
Just as creativity can suffer when the line of demarcation between home and work is eroded in physical space, so too can it be squelched when the line is blurred in digital space.
Avoid the problem by setting up separate user accounts on your computers or for your online services. Place all your files pertaining to your creative self under one login, and everything else under another. This will make it slightly more burdensome to bounce back and forth between them. An alternative option for both Mac and Windows users is to maintain multiple desktops, restricting those applications or documents opened for creative work to a single window.
Don't let limitations of space or place hinder you.
Not enough room at home for a permanent setup? Try using props to transform everyday into imaginal space. For instance, rather than merely plunking your laptop onto the dining table and immediately wailing away at the keyboard, slip a pad or placemat that you don't use for meals underneath the machine at the start of each working session. Place a bud vase, a statuette of an inspiring figure, or other totems of creativity alongside. Tuck everything away when you're done. Or simply do your knitting in the same easy chair every day. Like Pavlov's bell, the recurring association of consistent visual cues with creative behavior will signal your brain that you've entered idea mode.
You road warriors can avail yourselves of similar techniques. Take along one or more easily transported items from your creative space on your travels, then pull them out in your hotel room, remote office, or wherever you've set up camp to re-connect psychologically to your regular creative environment. Charles Dickens did this assiduously while on book tour, sometimes re-arranging the furniture in his temporary digs to more closely emulate his study at home.
Treat the entire home as an idea lab.
Assigning a specific place to imaginative work is an important step in the process of building a creative home, but keep in mind that idea origination is a whole-house phenomenon. Apply the techniques presented in this book to other areas of your home besides the one you've committed to the purpose.
©2020 Donald M. Rattner. All rights reserved.
My Creative Space: How to Design Your Home to Stimulate Ideas and Spark Innovation
Donald M. Rattner, AIA, is the author of My Creative Space and the principal of Donald M. Rattner, Architect. more