How To Create Structure and Routine As A Creative

Discipline makes you an artist.

Creativity is executed through repetition. 

What do I mean by that?

Creativity itself can hit us at any moment, but the idea is only executed when it is revisited. Over and over. And over. And over. You may complete a first draft overnight, but then you have to come back to it to refine it, or package it, or sell it, or create strategy around it. 

The world tells creative people we aren’t able to follow routines, and I’m here to tell you that is false. I know it from my own experience, and because I’ve studied from many creative people. 

Discipline makes you an artist.

Here are my top tips to create structure and routine as a creative person:

I imagine you’re staring down a large project, wondering how you’re going to get it done. Well, that’s the problem. You’re looking at the whole project. You need to start small. 

Map out the steps to achieve the project and organize them based on what needs to be completed first. Get those steps so granular that they can be achieved within a few hours. Then, you just have to show up everyday and complete one task. That’s it. One task a day.

If you put “Write Screenplay” on your to do list, I promise you will begin loathing your to do list. There’s no achievable goal in that and, therefore, you aren’t affording yourself the dopamine hit at the end of a writing session.

But imagine if you wrote “Write Out Character Descriptions” or “Write First Five Pages” instead. Those sound like dopamine fuel. And that rush will make you want to come back and do it the next day.

Once you know your tasks, you can begin assigning deadlines. Each task should have a correlating deadline. That will help you determine your deadline for full completion. 

If you have an external deadline, such as a grant application, a class assignment, a showcase, etc., then use that date as a goalpost. Work backwards to fill in deadlines for those tasks from there. However, working in this way often leads to a more rushed timeline. 

Decide what you want to get done in a week based on the deadlines you’ve assigned to each task. Be sure to fill in all of your work deadlines, if you have a day job, and your personal life responsibilities (down to laundry, dates with your beaux, grocery shopping, cooking). Why? You probably don’t want to write ten pages after attending a family reunion. But, you might have energy to write two pages before you go. 

When you look at your week in totality, you can set yourself up for success. Otherwise, you’ll get to the end of the day, look at your to-do list, and say “I don’t wanna.”

Once you have an idea of what can be achieved in a week, schedule your days hour by hour. I recommend only doing this two days at a time because things come up last minute. You don’t want to plan out your Friday on a Sunday, but start with Monday and Tuesday. 

Note: Scheduling in breaks is a MUST. Otherwise, you’ll beat yourself up about procrastinating. You weren’t procrastinating, you needed a break.

Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, wakes up at 5am and starts writing every morning. When I took his masterclass, I brushed off the idea. Then, I tried it. Because I love a challenge. 5am didn’t work for me, but 6am did. 

The result? Tasks that would’ve taken me four hours took me two hours. No one was messaging me. The gardeners hadn’t started their reef blowers. My mind was still flowing out of a dream state, and hadn’t jumped to an anxious “to do list” mode quite yet. It was calm, still.

I looked up the science, of course. Here’s what I found: Many of us feel most creative in bed, before and after bedtime. Scientists have suggested that’s because it’s a space where we experience the most neuroplasticity: a function of our brain that locates patterns and makes connections based on information. That sounds a lot like storytelling to me.

Try it. If it doesn’t work, maybe you’re more of a night owl. But nothing compares to that early morning quiet. 

I often write really bad sections in a first draft, knowing that I’ll go back and rewrite it before anyone reads it. So, don’t look back until you get to the end. You can fix that typo later. 

We’ve all been told this: writing is rewriting. If that’s the case, then a first draft should be where we spend the LEAST amount of time, not the MOST.

Once you’re at this step, you can take a deep breath. It’s a relief. You’ve done it, the first draft is done! Now, take another deep breath, to prepare for what’s next: getting it right. 

This is where the magic happens. Be sure to break this process down into tasks as well. 

What helps with this is seeking feedback, and planning to address one or two notes per session.

Which brings me to this step. You need someone else to get their eyes on your work, because you’re biased. And if they’re a good friend or colleague, after they read, they’ll start asking you how it’s going. They naturally become accountability partners. 

You don’t have time to waste when an idea is put on your heart, when you’re trying to achieve a goal, or when you want to level up in your career. The time is now. Start fast, take your time making it good. 

If it takes you an hour to write a scene when you’re completely focused, give yourself an hour and a half when scheduling your day. Again, we’re going for dopamine hits so that our brain wants to come back and do it again. If we are behind schedule because we didn’t allot for our natural patterns, we are going to see the day as a failure and give up on our routines altogether.

Additional hack: If you only need twenty minutes for lunch, give yourself forty. Build in extra minutes when you can so that, when you get off track, you have time to recover.

Stay subscribed for bi-weekly tips on how to get your projects done! If you need help on something specific, comment below with your question and I’ll address it in a future article.

Which tip resonated with you the most?