How I Find My Best Ideas & Stay Inspired
Housekeeping notes: Don't forget that you have until tomorrow to enter for the city guide app giveaway and you have until Friday to shop my stash!
As artists and creators ideas are our currency.
But that currency does not grow on trees. It is not a low hanging fruit that you can get by giving the tree a gentle tap. Ideas are a treasure we must harvest and climb for and collect.'Where do you get SO MANY ideas' is always the first question a 'non-creative' person will ask me. I sat down and thought long and hard about a few places where I might find ideas and have compiled them for you. But for everyone who's ever had an idea knows that we all are susceptible to go through a drought or even a famine, therefore I've also shared how I stay inspired when inspiration has spirited off to have a saucy affair with someone else (inspiration is kind of a whore).*These words are mine, but Elizabeth Gilbert has a lot more and really amazing ones in Big Magic, so please good lord, if you are interested in this type of blog post about inspiration and creativity go do yourself a favor and read her book.
Where my best ideas come from:
Showering. Truly, most of my best ideas have happened in the shower. Probably because what happens is this: I'm sitting in front my computer/paper/etc and I'm just stuck. I've been trying for hours, nothing has worked and I can't see straight as I've been staring for too long. I realize I'm tired and haven't showered, so I get in the shower. The physical act of standing up, walking and moving wakes up my brain. Then I stop thinking, showering is so mindless. I can just go through the motions of washing and rinsing. All of sudden, with blood flowing again, the release of mental strain and with the effects of a calming, mindless and therapeutic activity everything falls into place and the answer becomes so clear. I sometimes have to get out to write things down they are coming to me so fast. Seriously, go take a shower, especially when you're stuck. And maybe get a shower pen/paper set....Classical concerts. My husband is a classical musician, so we spend a lot of time at these kind of events. They make me crazy. Because! I am such a productivity/busybusy/multitasker that I white knuckle the seats the first few minutes thinking about how I should have brought my knitting, because really all you need to do is 'listen'...wrong! Multitasking is slowly killing me, of this I'm sure. Once I have calmed myself down enough, relaxed and settled in my brain does this amazing thing where it is free. It is free to just drift and focus and unfocus and listen and rest and PRODUCE 1 MILLION IDEAS AT A TIME. I am always frantically typing into my notes app during concerts because I'm so afraid I'm going to lose the ideas. I can also see and feel a painting while I listen to these concerts. The way the music moves, I can see how a brush stroke would move the same. It is an amazing phenomena and all you have to do to recreate your own is to sit completely still, with nothing within reach and listen to a classical work. Here are some good options for you to choose from to try your own experiment.Museums. It is no wonder that in high society (and our current one in America) that it is seen as the 'rich' people who go to concerts, museums and read books because it is true: the people who fill their minds with these things tend to be more successful and smarter. But not because they are any smarter or different from you and I, they just have figured out the secret to a mind exploding with ideas! Recently I was in a museum, in an exhibit on New Zealand Butterflies, and as I was looking at how intricate and unexpected the patterns, colors and markings where and I was instantly inspired (which is how I wrote all the nature prompts for this prompt pack) that this was the perfect color palette and markings to create an art journal page. From there the ideas spiraled on and on and on. Not only does learning and seeing these new things refuel me, but it will subtly give me new ideas. I have a random folder of photos on my phone (that are all terrible photos) but that I snap when something is interesting to me or gives me a great idea or has a great pattern on it, etc that I can come back to and use later.Collections. I keep collections in two ways. Pinterest and physical. I have boards on Pinterest that are just of patterns I like or color pallets. I see a lot of things during the day between social media, blogs, real life and more, so to collect it all to be used at a time of actual work I will pin the images that inspire me and curate them very specifically onto a board. The definition of a collection is a group of like items specifically chosen, not a random pile of stuff. I learned that just having a 'DIY' type board was too broad, I needed a specific board with only color pairings to help my brain focus when I am looking for something specific. In real life, I have a board (you can see it above) where I collect my favorite paintings, color pairings, etc so that when I need inspiration I can see it quickly and asses which colors, strokes, marks, shapes, etc will work well that I already like. It's like a real life pinterest board!
How I stay inspired:
Quit. Think. Push. Whenever I am totally stuck/hating/just can't with a project, I allow myself to quit. I put everything away and just stop with no promise to return. This allows my brain to totally free myself of the guilt and anxiety that is coming with this project. Then I think. I ask myself questions like: will I be completely devastated if I don't finish this? Why do I want to do this? What purpose will it serve? Do I even still like it? What needs to change about it? How can I make it work for me? I just let these questions ramble around until I find answers. Then I just let the project sit on my mind as I go about my life. I slowly let other sources of inspiration help me rethink and create a new approach to the project. Then, when I have fully found a way that makes me excited and that I can actually commit to doing, I will decide to restart. Then, I set a push goal for myself. I will challenge myself to finish the whole project in a weekend or a day.Perfect example: My Project Life. I am so over this project. I just am. So I quit. I put everything away and did not set any kind of intentions to return. I freed my brain of this stress. Then I thought. When I look back at old albums I know I will immensely regret not continuing it. So I began thinking about how I could change it to be better for me, but couldn't immediately think of a way, so I just let it sit in my brain. I scrolled pinterest, instagram and read blogs as normal. Slowly things started to click for me. I read this post by Laura and knew that was the answer. I decided to switch up my album sizes to 9x12, restarted my albums to fit around the school year and am only committing to put in 5 photos a month. Then I can add in special events as I am excited about them and can focus on scrapbooking big trips, etc. But that has taken me 6 months to decide on and I am fine with that. I needed the break and I needed time to truly come up with a realistic plan. Now I have set a push goal for myself. My husband is going to be out-of-town for a week, so I'm going to push myself to completely catch up this year, using my new system, in the course of a week. Quit. Think. Push. (not recommended for delivering children or IDK maybe)Clean. Sort. Purge. This one is obvious and everyone says it because it is so true. So I'm saying it too. When our space is cluttered and disorganized our minds cannot focus to begin a new task, especially when uninspired. So I will keep my hands busy and clean. Then I will reorganize, seeing all my supplies and rearranging them in a new way tricks my mind into thinking things are different and new. When I reorganized my Project Life cards by color I was able to see them not as kits that must stay together anymore, but supplies to be used as I pleased and matched the project I was working on. And then purging. I think this is the best one for me. When I truly decide what I really like I can be inspired to use those things and free that burden of 'well I have this stuff but don't like it and feel bad for not using it....'.Back to my original inspiration. Whenever I am stuck, I remember why I started. For project life, it's because I found Elise's blog and her Seafoam Edition. So when I'm stuck, I go back to her archives and get myself grounded again on what was the original style that I loved and can reset. I also have a very few people whose stuff I always love. Instead of scrolling Pinterest for hours, I go straight to what I know is good because this is alway cohesive and focuses me. If I just looked at my Pinterest board, there are 100's of different styles and I would get overwhelmed and confused. Go back to the basics.Limits & Constraints. I like problem solving. I like puzzles. I like challenges. Whenever I don't know what to do and I'm looking at my giant stash, I will give myself a limit or challenge to use on 3 items or 1 color, etc. This becomes a puzzle or problem to solve, not a 'what should i make with 8 million items?!'. Limit and restrict yourself and see how far you can go!Habits. Real talk, just like grow up life you just have to make yourself do stuff. Last year I set a habit to work on some kind of craft project every day and I did and not only did I make the most stuff I've ever made, but I grew so much in my skills. I set a time and had a routine (and an alarm) to work each day. This year I am working in my art journal every day. Even if I don't know what to make, I am still working on something and making begets making, so sometimes just showing up is enough to eventually invite inspiration to come back and join me for a chat. I'll be sharing a lot more about how my habit is going in my newsletter later this week, so be sure you're signed up.