How to Make Space and Time for Your Creative Life
This week’s dialogue uncovered a meaningful question: How do we make space for our creative work? And today’s post explores exactly how to best answer that question for yourself.
August Theme: The Creative Life
Big Question: How do we build a creative life that works for us?
Week 1: Making Space
The Question Behind the Question
This month we’re exploring The Creative Life, and this week we’ve been exploring how to make space for the creative lives we truly want, which prompted Monday’s question: Do writers need to protect creative time like an appointment?
Surprisingly, the responses I received on Substack and across social media this week were almost unanimous, with only one or two outliers. Nearly everyone who responded to polls and posts agreed that ‘Yes, creativity needs boundaries.’ AND ‘No, creativity should stay flexible.’ meaning that they ultimately agreed that ‘A mixture of both.’ is necessary, with the outliers’ responses leaning heavily toward the importance of maintaining a writing routine that has a consistent schedule.
When I originally posted this question to guide this week’s dialogue, I had anticipated a lot more back and forth about whether writers need to protect their creative time like an appointment. Mainly, I had anticipated that a lot more people would suggest that scheduling writing appointments is akin to killing their creativity altogether and that they preferred working whenever inspiration struck instead. But no respondents did. Not a single one.
Some respondents did indicate, however, that while they agree that protecting their creative time via appointments is essential to building the creative life they want, they still struggle with how to do so on a consistent basis when they factor in all their other commitments and responsibilities.
So, it seems then that the real question worth tackling this week may not be whether we should make appointments for our creative time but how.
But before we tackle this week’s ‘question behind the question,’ it seems essential that we first give ourselves permission to take the time we need to create, because no one else will see our creative time as sacred and worth protecting if we don’t permit ourselves to see it that way first.
Permission to Make Space for Your Creative Work
Sometimes making space for creative work in a divisive world that doesn’t like to openly admit how much it needs and values creative work can feel excruciatingly difficult, both on a logistical and emotional level. And during our most vulnerable moments, when we probably need to create most, living in such a world can often make us feel foolish, entitled, or selfish when we try to make space for our creativity. But rest assured, the world does emphatically need your creativity, your writing, and your art, and you are not alone.
Whenever you’re hesitant to give yourself permission to make space, and appointments, for your creative work, remembering some of the following wisdom will help.
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” — Alice Walker
“What you should be confident about is that you are a legitimate human being with the right to be and the power to create.” — Eric Maisel
“Your story matters. Your voice matters. Do not let anyone silence you, or tell you that you do not belong.” — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“In a time of destruction, create something: a poem, a parade, a community, a school, a vow, a moral principle; one peaceful moment.” — Maxine Hong Kingston
“Space is a doubt: I have constantly to mark it, to designate it. It is never mine, never given to me, I have to conquer it.” — Georges Perec
“Don’t leave you to go find your point of view and your story. You are all you have been given . . . this is who you are, and from where you ought and need to write.” — Bret Lott
“The only privilege a writer has is the privilege of a front-row seat to history, and the only duty is to bear witness faithfully.” — Salman Rushdie
“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.” —Audre Lorde
“The rest of it—and perhaps the best of it—is a permission slip: you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.” — Stephen King
How to Make Space for Your Creative Life
Once you’ve granted yourself permission to make space for your creative work, the next phase is figuring out how to make the space you need as a unique and individual artist and human.
While most of us writers and creators can use the same motivations to grant ourselves permission to make space for our creative work, how we practically do so in our everyday lives will vary from person to person.
So, what follows includes four steps you should take to help you determine the exact way you can make the space you need for your unique creative work, your unique creative life.
🧠Step 1: Shift Your Mindset
If you’ve ever told yourself that you’ll ‘find the time’ to write when you can, here’s your opportunity. But it requires you to shift your mindset from treating your writing time as something optional to treating your writing time as something important that you want to prioritize the same way you would going to the gym, going to the grocery store, or going to a medical appointment. While it doesn’t sound all that fun or whimsical, designating specific time slots in your days and weeks to write signals how much of a priority you’re practically willing to make it. This step is essential in making space for the creative life you truly want.
“A writer must find the time as a chemical need... This is not selfish; it is a necessity of life.” —Madeleine L’Engle
“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not.” — Octavia E. Butler
If it’s easier, conduct an audit of your calendar and daily schedule to see where and how you can practically prioritize writing without making it stressful. Even if it seems simple, just going through the following motions may help rewire your brain to consider your writing time as more of a priority and less as something you can indefinitely postpone or treat as optional.
Take ten minutes to free write about all the reasons you want to write and how you feel after each writing session without stopping to edit yourself or reconsider what you’re writing for the full ten minutes.
List your top three non-negotiable daily obligations (e.g. work, school, kids).
Add your writing time to this list.
Make room for your obligations, including your writing, on your calendar (see next step)
Write down specific things you will say “no” to this week to maintain your writing slot on the calendar (e.g. scrolling social media after dinner, answering non-urgent evening emails, sleeping in, watching television, etc.).
Journal Prompts for Deep Reflection
What is the hidden cost to my mental health, my joy, and my sense of self, if I keep treating my writing as an afterthought?
If a friend told me their creative dream was just a “silly little hobby,” how would I defend them? And why do I struggle to offer that same defense to myself?
📅 Step 2: Prioritize Your Writing Time on the Calendar
Stop ‘carving out time’ from other negotiable tasks for your writing. Instead, give your writing its own timetable and designation on your calendar.
“A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.” — Annie Dillard
“I look at the clock and I say, ‘Okay, I’ve got three hours.’ I block out everything else.” — Maya Angelou
Doing the following may seem rudimentary, but you won’t want to neglect this step if you’re serious about making space for your writing and the creative life you truly want. Again, just going through the following motions may help rewire your brain to consider your writing time as more of a priority and less as something you can indefinitely postpone or treat as optional.
Open your calendar program or a paper planner.
Determine specific blocks of time this week or next week that you will write, even if they are only 30 minutes long. When doing this, do not look for ‘open gaps’ in your days. Instead, focus on where you want to make writing part of your regular routine moving forward. Maybe you will wake up an hour earlier to write some mornings, or write for an hour instead of watching television or scrolling social media each night, or write during a lunch break…
Color-code these time blocks in a bright, distinct color, then label them something like ‘Essential Creative Work.’ Do not label them with things like ‘Writing?’ or ‘Free Time.’ Labeling them as fixed entities with strong, clear titles will imply their importance when you see reminders for them, opposed to appearing as tasks that are optional and less serious.
Time-Setting Prompts
If my writing time was similar to time I allotted for a VIP client or close friend, what time would I schedule for them on a Tuesday, and what boundaries would I set to ensure I’m not late?
Describe what an ideal, uninterrupted 60-minute writing session looks like, from the exact minute the clock starts to the minute it ends.
🗣️ Step 3: Communicate with Others
Set hard boundaries and stop apologizing for taking up time and space to write. But at the same time, remember that the people in your life cannot respect your writing time and space if they don’t know they exist. You need to explicitly communicate your availability while simultaneously refraining from apologizing for making space and time for your writing.
“Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.” — Zadie Smith
“You have to use your entitlement... Entitlement means you have the right to be there, you have the right to speak, you have the right to write.” — Cheryl Strayed
To better communicate your availability, tell your household things like, “From 7:00 AM to 8:00 AM tomorrow, I am working on my book. Unless the house is on fire or someone is bleeding profusely, please assume I am not in the building.” Or mark your essential writing time on shared calendars so others in your home know when not to disturb you.
Also, put your phone on ‘Do Not Disturb’ and set an automated text reply that says something similar to, “I am currently writing and away from my phone. I’ll get back to you after 4:00 PM.” After a while, people will learn when you will and won’t be available.
Boundary-Setting Prompts
Draft the exact, polite yet uncompromising script you will use when someone knocks on your door or texts you during a scheduled writing session.
Explore the guilt you feel when telling someone “no” so that you can write. Where does that guilt come from, and how can you reframe it as a healthy boundary? Write about this until you feel more comfortable setting the boundaries you need to set.
🧑💻 Step 4: Designate a Literal Workspace
Anchor your creative intentions with a literal space for your work. Doing this will ensure you never have to wonder where you will work each time you have designated on your calendar to work. If you don’t have a room you can designate, then designate a corner of a room or a chair at a table or counter in a room.
“A woman must have… a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” — Virginia Woolf
“The space can be humble... and it really only needs one thing: a door which you are willing to shut.” —- Stephen King
Claim a room or one specific chair or corner. Never do household admin, scroll social media, or pay bills in this spot. And don’t pick a spot on your bed or on a sofa where you usually relax and or watch television. This space is strictly for creating and writing.
Create visual and other sensory boundaries. Use a small desk divider if needed, or a specific desk lamp that you only turn on when you sit down to write, or light a candle in this space each time you sit down to write, or … decide what other visual and sensory boundaries best suit the space you’re designating for your writing to keep it distinct from other spaces.
Complete a ritual to do when you enter this space. When the writing lamp turns on or the candle is lit in this space, for example, your brain will receive the sensory cues it needs to understand that you have entered your workspace and are ready to write and create.
Space-Building Prompts
Look around your living environment. What room, physical corner, table, or alcove can you completely conquer and claim as your creative space?
Design your dream workspace using words. What does it smell like? What is the lighting like? How can you bring two elements of that dream space into your current reality today?
Reflection on Making Space for a Creative Life
It should come as no surprise that I am a proponent of making space and time every day to sit down and write, as I did coin the following tagline for this publication: One draft. One dialogue. One day at a time.
But why I do this is simple.
I don’t write every day to achieve arbitrary word counts, or to compete with other creative ghosts or myself, or out of a sense of some misguided obligation.
I make time and space to write every day, and encourage others to do the same, because I genuinely believe that it’s a life-changer, and that it offers my life a deeper sense of purpose. It has made me more self-aware, observant, empathic, and allows me to connect with others and the world around me on a much more profound level. And, if you ask me, there’s not much else more important than that right now.
I also genuinely believe that making space for a creative life is much more of a mindset and emotional issue than it is a logistical one. But once writers like you and I grant ourselves full permission to unapologetically take up space and create, we’ll all be better off in the long run.
Dialogue Wrap-Up: Making Space for The Creative Life You Truly Want
Making space for your creative work requires you first grant yourself the permission you need to take up space, both literally and figuratively.
Stop apologizing for taking up the space you need to create.
Based on this week’s dialogue, it’s evident that most writers want to prioritize their time to write yet often struggle with how to make time to write in their everyday lives. And that this struggle is rarely due to logistical concerns but involves concerns that are more emotional and oriented around misguided or unhelpful mindsets.
Once writers grant themselves permission to take up space to make the space for their creative work, the rest of what they need to do to build the creative life they truly want gets a little bit easier to understand and do.
A shift in mindset can allow you to understand the hidden costs of not writing, so you no longer see it as optional or something you will ‘find time’ for later. This mindset shift will then let you do the practical work of determining when to write on a routine basis, allowing you to treat your writing time as a top priority, not as something you can indefinitely postpone.
At the same time, it’s important to remember that the people in your life cannot respect your writing time and space if they don’t know they exist. So, it’s imperative that you clearly communicate the space you need for your writing to others.
Designating a literal workspace for your writing is also essential to ensuring that your writing time is kept sacred, and that you’re able to consistently show up with the right mindset to write. Whether you designate a chair or an entire room, making this space for your work is a sign that you’re making your writing a priority.
This week’s dialogue allowed us to explore and understand how we can practically make space for the creative lives we truly want to live, helping set the stage for next week’s dialogue, which will be centered around how we can develop and sustain the Creative Habits we need to continue building the creative lives we truly want to live. I hope you join that conversation too!
An Invitation to Reflect and Discuss How We Make Space for Our Creative Lives
I invite you to join this week’s Dialoguers chat to share how you have, or currently are, making space for your creative life.
Whether you join to share your responses, ask more thought-provoking questions, or connect with other writers and support their work, we look forward to your contributions and insight!
Continue Exploring The Creative Life (August Series)
This week’s Posts: Making Space
Writing Prompts for Making Space in Your Creative Life
A Day Alive in the Lakeside Library
Do writers need to protect creative time like an appointment?
Reading Notes: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
My Ideal Yet Practical Creative Life Scenario
Go more in depth with this month’s theme with The Creative Life Writing Collection
Every prompt, draft, and dialogue begins a conversation, but some of those conversations deserve more of our time and attention.
If today’s post sparked an idea or practice you want to explore further, The Creative Life Writing Collection offers a guided month of prompts, craft exploration and techniques, reflection, and customized reading recommendations for writers who want to go deeper.
And if you want to explore past themes, paid subscribers also have access to the full archive, including previous writing prompts, discussions, and reading lists, as well as full access to the community chat and Daily Drafters Exclusives writing collections.