Many of the creative people I know are also some of the most hard-working, committed people I know. Creative work in almost any area–art, design, engineering, development, etc.–is usually just the right mix of enjoyable and challenging. Because of this it’s easy, as a creative person, to find one’s self completely wrapped up in the work of making things, even at the expense of our own well being.

In a recent newsletter I asked for feedback about some of the struggles we have as creatives trying to balance our work and family life. A huge thanks to those of you who responded! I’d like to focus today on feedback I received from Claire. To summarize her comments, she said that in the busyness of doing her creative work, raising her daughter, and keeping up with stuff around the house, she finds very little time to replenish her creative inspiration, and when she does, she has trouble doing so without feeling a little guilty.

This is something that I have definitely struggled with and something I believe is very common among my fellow creatives. I wanted to go ahead and share some practical ideas that I hope will help you in shifting your feelings about taking personal time, and re-framing the value it adds to your work.

Find creative replenishment in the things you are already doing.

Sometimes, the last place we look for inspiration and replenishment is what we already do day in and day out. Aren’t these things part of the reason I feel creatively drained? While I agree that the monotony of doing these things every day, whether it’s cleaning the house, caring for kids, administrative work for your freelance business, etc. I also believe there are aspects of these things, when looked at from the right perspective, can be invigorating and life giving.

What I try to do is purposefully shift my focus away from the things that are draining and toward the things that inspire me. For example, with my kids there are obvious drains on my energy. Between our rigorous night-time routine and all of the daily transitions that are necessary to get us from place to place I am just about spent. My kids are incessant makers though. There isn’t a day that goes by that pages of drawings don’t fill our art basket and new melodies aren’t introduced to the keys of our piano.

Just the other day, I brought home a new box fan (we use them for nap-times to create white noise) and my 5 year old stared at it in wonder as I removed it from the box and exclaimed “Wow!” when I turned it on. When I slow down enough to take a moment to really look at these things… I feel that same sense of wonder. My 7 year old is making up a song from a melody that he hears in his head… “Wow!” My 5 year old is doing something kind and helpful without being asked, just because he loves his brother… “Wow!” My 4 year old drew a picture of me and, though it looks nothing like me, it gives me a peek into the way he sees the world around him… “Wow!”

When I allow myself to experience these moments from my kids, the newness of the world is restored to me and my heart and eyes are filled with wonder once again. As a maker of things, we NEED this wonder, we NEED new eyes.

Also, though I hate the work of tidying up and cleaning, having a clean house does wonders for my ability to be creative. It’s like when I remove clutter from my house, I’m also removing clutter from my mind.

By changing my mindset I am able to run what is coming into my life through a better filter that helps me to better receive inspiration from what might otherwise feel monotonous and taxing.

The “oxygen mask” principle

If you’ve ever sat through a flight attendant’s safety presentation before a flight, you probably remember them advising you that in the case of a loss of air pressure, oxygen masks will drop down and you should FIRST put on your own oxygen mask, THEN put on your child’s oxygen mask. The idea is that if you don’t take care of your oxygen supply first, you could possibly black out before you had a chance to properly secure the mask for your child.

I feel like this principle applies in our lives, in that when we are not taking care of our personal needs and consistently placing others’ needs before our own, we run the risk of burning out and not being as available or present for the people in our lives. For a person who cares about their children, this can be very difficult. It seems like self-sacrifice is the right thing to do, but in my personal experience, the more I sacrifice my own needs and the less I take care of myself, the more burned out I feel and the less patience I have with my kids. They can sense when I’m feeling thin, and they respond negatively to it every time.

I’m not saying that one should never be self-sacrificial in situations that are more desperate, but we simply cannot sustain living this way indefinitely. Our family and our work is better served by a version of us that is rejuvenated and inspired. Believe it or not you are a limited resource. If you are not allowing yourself to be replenished, you are in danger of running out.

Added value to your work

Though you may not list it as one of the benefits in your client proposal or talk about it to your audience (though here I feel like I can) taking time for yourself should be factored in to the value of what you produce. When you take time for yourself, you are able to offer a better version of yourself to your work and this plays out in the quality of what you produce. When someone hires a professional, the thing they’re looking for the most is a solution to their problem. Your solution’s value doesn’t have as much to do with the quantity you can produce, or how quickly you can produce it as the effectiveness of your solution at solving the problem. Therefore, when a potential client identifies you as the one whose solution is able to solve their problem, they must take you as you are. If part of where you draw your inspiration is the time you spend with your family, and that factors into the value of your work, then they need you to uphold that value in order for your solution to be effective. If where you replenish yourself is on the couch, binge-watching a tv show on Netflix, and that factors into the value of your work, then you need to continue that practice in order to meet your client’s expectations.

I’m being a little facetious, but the time that you take to gain inspiration, to replenish your creative spark is worth something to your work. It’s worth something to your clients. Your mindset should be that your work is not worth as much when you are not taking time for you. It is not as valuable.

Measure your output

This is the paragraph where I say “don’t just take my word for it.” The goal here is not necessarily to produce more/better work. The goal here is not to justify taking breaks. The goal is to remove unnecessary guilt from the practice of taking personal time as it adds value to your work. Only you can know how effective your efforts are at accomplishing this.

I encourage you to try the following:

Don’t change anything just yet. Keep a daily journal and answer the following questions:

1. How much did I get done today?
2. How do I feel about the quality of my work today?
3. Do I feel burned out or energized?
4. How do I feel about the time I spent with my family/managing my home?

Repeat this activity at the end of the week as an overview for that week.
Repeat it at the end of the month as an overview for the month.

Then, change it up. Start allowing yourself more time for replenishment and inspiration and record it as in the steps above

This will give you a better idea about how you feel about what you are accomplishing, how much you are sacrificing, and how well you are taking care of yourself. Again, the goal here isn’t necessarily to achieve the highest output, quality, etc. It’s to find a balance that doesn’t leave you feeling like you’ve neglected a vital area of your life.

In a world where the vital things in life seem to be pulling and stretching us beyond what we are capable of doing, my hope is that you feel permission to be a whole person, to establish boundaries, and to offer the best of yourself without sacrificing any of the things that make you valuable.

I’d love to hear from you…

How do you take time for yourself without feeling guilty? What are some things you do to gather inspiration? What are some unexpected sources of replenishment for you? Feel free to share your answers in the comments below.