Reading Notes
7-9 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended
Topics and Themes
Balancing flexibility and structure in work; Time management in the creative realm; Designing a life with both creativity and engagement with the world.
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I originally wanted to teach guitar for a silly reason: I wanted to have a job in-between touring stadiums. I know... reach for the stars, right?
In my mind, I didn't want to be out of a job during the months I wasn't rocking the free world. Thankfully, after my dream of being a rock star died, I learned that teaching offered me a chance to dig into my own happiness in a much deeper way. That, and it made my life a whole lot more fun.
For starters, teaching privately meant that I could teach anytime of the day. When I first began building my teaching practice, I was strict with having a 9-5 schedule. I soon wised up that I could restructure my hours to avoid rush-hour traffic (totally amazing in a city like Austin).
About two years into teaching, my Dad mentioned that if I charged more, I could work fewer hours and the clients would get better. I honestly thought he was full of shit at first. Have you ever heard saying “The older you get, the smarter your father gets?” Of course, Dad was right. I charged more, I worked fewer hours, and the students got way more dedicated. With these changes, I felt like I was getting away with murder in my work-life.
The importance of scheduling out creative time
I had an epiphany after I made a greater number of adjustments like these to my work life: If I can structure my teaching schedule so elegantly, how do I wish to structure my off-hours? How do I wish to structure my time away from teaching to be the most creatively fulfilling? Of course I wanted to create new music, but I found myself stymied by the luxury of having too much unstructure time. It's like Twyla Tharp says in her book The Creative Habit: If you want to ruin creativity, throw as many resources at it as possible.
At that time, I had another massive luxury of a separate office where I taught and recorded music. I wanted work to be totally seperate from my home life. The trouble was that all of my recording equipment was at the office. If I wanted to create music, I had to drive there. Going to that office to "be creative" didn't quite work for me.
I silently chastised myself about this for years. Then, the pandemic happened. Yeah... the separate office had to go. There was no was I was going to pay two rents during one of the worst economic periods of my adult life. I moved all my teaching and recording equipment to a spare room in my house. I had to make it work, somehow.
After some tweaking of the acoustics and adjusting to the idea that students will come to my home, my office began to feel super comfortable. But even after I settled into the new situation, I still felt like I wasn't structuring my creative time as best as I could. I had this annoying suspicion that I could have finished off a bunch of old projects earlier if I were a bit more ruthless with my schedule. After reading Deep Work by Cal Newport, I knew I finally had the answer.
Cal Newport teaches at Georgetown University and is a well-known author who has long offered excellent advice on creative productivity (in other words, how to get our most interesting work done without giving up on our responsibilities in the world). He has long advocated for doing what is most effective in one's life to reach the goals we dream of reaching. In Deep Work, he presents a very compelling case to schedule uninterrupted time to focus on the things most important to us. In his view, the idea of deep work comes to life when we schedule out the time to work, engage, struggle with, and solve hard problems that we want to solve, and without any interruptions.
The AM/PM Creative Routine
Reading Newport's Deep Work inspired me to structure my time outside of teaching. And what came out of it? I call it the AM/PM creative routine. Here it is:
The AM part of the equation is this: I wake up at 5:30 AM. The silence in my neighborhood encourages me to be super creative. I quiet my phone. I refuse to check email. I practice music. I work on finishing albums. I focus on creative projects that I intend to finish.
Once 12 PM hits, I shift. I begin to see the world beyond my head, engage with the people in it, and be completely present in my interactions. I shift to the PM part of my day. That’s why I teach in the afternoons and evenings. I ended up choosing Sundays through Wednesdays, from 2 PM to about 8PM to teach. During this time, I am totally present to the outside world.
In short, the AM/PM creative routine (for me) looks like this: 5:30 AM to 12PM: Create excessively. 2PM to 8PM get my extrovert on. It works for me.
Making your own version of the AM/PM Creative Routine
If you've made it this far in this article, then congrats! Here's where this'll get really applicable, for you. Let's go over how you can make your own version of an AM/PM creative routine. First, you need to ask yourself one simple question:
When am I most creative?
Why start with the creativity, rather than the work-life? I’m assuming you don’t want to have a job forever, right?!? It’s my strong belief that we need to give priority to our most creative moments on our schedules.
If you know when you are most creative, put that time on your calendar. Schedule it out. Block it off. Do not let anything get scheduled during that creative time. It's not time to check email or get engaged with sending messages. It's sure as hell not time to answer to a boss's silly needs. That's your scheduled time to just create. Guard it with your life.
Once you've given that creative time the priority it deserves and scheduled in on your calendar, the next step is to schedule your work-life around it.
If you're annoyed with that last sentence I wrote, I don't blame you. Everyone's situation is different. I recognize that. Keep in mind that that no work situation is final. You are not stuck forever, in exactly the same circumstance and exactly the same job. Chances are good you have far more flexibility to schedule around your creative times than you think you do.
A close friend of mine, an unbelievably creative man, works in the IT department of a major university. He was taken aback by how easy it was to get his employers to accept his proposal to work from home. Now, without a daily two-hour commute, he has far more room to schedule out his many creative pursuits. He has more balance. You probably have more flexibility than you think you do with the "PM" part of the equation. Just tease it out. The solution will come.
Wrapping Up…
There are times for myopic creative exploration. These times need to be spoken for on our schedule and deeply protected. Similarly, there are times for engagement with the forces of the world... times for extroversion and presence with our families, friends, and professional colleagues. That also needs a little bit of structure, too.
I need a well-maintained balance between both mindsets to get to where I'm going (aka, the toppermost of the poppermost, as John Lennon mentioned before the Beatles got to be huge). Clearly, it's my strong belief that the introverted creative exploration and the external engagement with the world need balance for me to have any chance of happiness and success. It’s what I value.
If you value that balance too, then be sure to schedule time to create as well as when to engage with the outside world.
