Simple Ways to Be More Creative Every Day

How to build a creative practice no matter how much (or little) time you have.

Raise your hand if you’ve thought to yourself at any point in the last couple years, “I wish I could be more creative.” Or, “I wish I had time to make stuff.” Or, “I want to be creative but I don’t know what I’d make.”

I’m willing to bet quite a few of you raised your hands.

The thing standing between most people and a creative practice isn’t time, though time is the reason they’ll give you.

When someone says “I don’t have time to be creative,” what they usually mean is one of three things: I don’t know what I’d even make. I don’t think it counts if I’m not good at it. Or I’m not sure I’m a creative person – and I’d rather not test that theory.

These are not time problems. They’re permission problems. Identity problems. The belief that creativity is a trait distributed unevenly at birth, belonging to painters and writers and people who make things for a living, and that everyone else is just an appreciative audience.

It’s a very convenient belief, in a way. If you’re just not a creative person, you never have to find out whether you could make something worth making. You’re off the hook before you even try.

I say this with sympathy because I’ve done it too, even as a Certified Creative Professional™. That I have no business learning fiber arts, or illustration, or watercolor painting. That I’m a graphic designer, and I need to stick to my purview – the computer. But that’s obviously ridiculous. And long before I was a graphic designer, I was a kid who loved drawing horses and a pre-teen who sewed her own Halloween costumes, and a high schooler who fell in love with blending colors with paint and water.

None of those things ever made me any money, or even got shared with anyone half the time. But they brought me joy. They kept my hands and my mind busy. They gave me the satisfaction of knowing that I created something from scratch. They were fun.

A few ground rules for starting a creative practice:

• Your “creative practice” doesn’t need to be rigid, documented, or frequent to be beneficial. You don’t need to have a strict routine, start every single day with handwritten morning pages, or create a body of work

• Leave your perfectionism at the door. You’ll drive yourself crazy trying to immediately be good at everything, or trying too hard to make something perfect. The goal here isn’t to create a masterpiece, it’s to exercise your creative muscles and get your brain moving in a way that scrolling on your phone can’t.

• Creativity comes in a lot of forms. You don’t have to paint a masterpiece or draw something in a sketchbook to be creative. Cooking a new recipe, creating a collage, or even writing a journal entry all count. It’s a pretty simple litmus test: Are you creating something? Amazing, you’re being creative!

• Remove the barrier to entry. If you’re feeling stumped, try a guided art journal, or creativity prompt cards. It’s always intimidating to sit down to a blank page, whether metaphorical or literal. Using something that removes the indecision is the perfect antidote. More on these later!

• Make room to play. Get silly with it! Experiment! Make random paint splotches on a page or doodle something without picking up your pen. This is meant to be fun and relaxing, so don’t think too hard about it.

So before you build a creative practice, there’s a question worth considering: what form does creativity actually take for me?

Not “what should I be doing?” Not what the person you follow on Instagram does, or what your most creative friend does, or what you think would look good in a photo dump post. What have you made in the past, if anything, that felt satisfying? What do you watch other people do and feel pulled toward? What do you do when you’re procrastinating that involves making or arranging or building something? Even if it’s just doodling in the margins while you’re on hold with customer service.

This matters because a lot of people attempt creative outlets that don’t actually fit them, conclude that they’re not creative, and stop. They try morning pages because they heard about it on a podcast, or they start a sketchbook because they follow someone who sketches, or they attempt to write a novel because they love reading – assuming those things are related. They’re only sometimes related. Loving to read doesn’t mean writing is your art form. Loving beautiful ceramics doesn’t mean making them is what you need.

So before you go all-in buying craft supplies for something, make sure it’s an activity you actually want to do, or it’ll sit untouched on your desk for months. Ask me how I know.

Creative ideas, based on how much time you actually have to spend.

If you have fifteen minutes…

• Starting with a guided art journal, like The Daily Play by Brittany DeSantis, or some prompt cards, like The Endless Art Challenge Deck by Megan Roy, can give you some easy, low-pressure ideas to get creative, quickly.

• There’s a series of books called 15 Minute Art with a wide variety of types – painting, drawing, watercolor, pastels, etc. They have easy-to-follow tutorials for a large variety of illustrations, based on the author’s art style. They’re super cute, and fun to flip through and pick a random page to try.

• Play with color. Whenever I’m stumped or feeling creatively blocked, I love to grab paints, my iPad, or some pastels, and just play with creating color palettes, blending colors together, or doing a color study. It’s fun, stress-free, and sometimes you accidentally make something cool.

• Free write. One of my favorite activities in the creative writing classes I took in college was to set a timer and just write down literally everything that pops into your head for five, ten, fifteen minutes. Even just writing “I don’t know what to think about” over and over for a few minutes almost always sparked some idea. Whether you want to write something creative, or are trying to generate ideas for a new project to pursue, this can really help get the thoughts you didn’t even know you had out of your brain.

If you have an hour…

• Make a new recipe. Cooking and baking absolutely counts as being creative! If you’re a sweets person, you won’t go wrong finding a recipe on Sally’s Baking Blog. If you’re looking for a more savory idea, I love Half Baked Harvest’s recipes, or the classic Joy of Cooking cookbook.

• Make a collage or vision board. I used to spend hours looking through old magazines and cutting out bits and pieces to make collages for my walls, locker, binder covers, etc. It was so fun, and low-stakes, but still feels productive and creative.

• Take a photo walk. Take your camera (or phone) for a walk around your neighborhood or yard and just snap photos of anything and everything that catches your eye. Close-up details on a building, a pretty cloud, the way the sunlight filters through the leaves, etc. It doesn’t have to be anything groundbreaking, but it helps train your eye to see things in new and interesting ways.

If you have an afternoon…

• Do a paint-by-number kit. These have really gotten popular again in the last couple years, in a new and trendy way, and I think it makes perfect sense. It’s a low-pressure, low-stakes way to get artsy. You can zone out, listen to an audiobook or podcast or whatever, and just paint inside the lines until you have a cool new piece of art to hang up. I love the ones by Galison, they’re so trend-forward and cute. This Kitty McCall one is currently sitting on my desk waiting for me to dig in.

• Take a class in something you’ve always been curious about. Last year, I took a botanical watercolor painting class which met for three hours every Wednesday, four weeks in a row. All we did was sit there, chat occasionally, listen to music, and paint the beautiful fresh flowers and stems that the instructor brought in. It was a great way to get creative with guardrails, and it felt good to be in an art class again. No matter how small your town is, I guarantee there’s a community center or arts center that offers classes for adults.

• Have a craft party. Sometimes it’s easier to get creative if you have an activity planned out with a group of people. Either take a class together (hello paint and sips!) or plan out an easy craft, get some girl dinner staples, and make it a party.

• Go sketch at an art museum. Have you ever noticed how many people are sitting at an art museum with a sketchbook (or sometimes an entire easel)? You can easily go in for a few hours, find a painting or piece of artwork that calls to you, and sketch or paint it out. Copying famous works of art is a time-honored tradition in learning how to make your own, and it really gets the creative juices flowing.

If you have a weekend…

• Knit a scarf or hat. I love knitting, and I love knitwear. A match made in heaven. I learned to knit from a Klutz book purchased at the Scholastic Book Fair when I was in elementary school, and I’ve loved it since. You’d be shocked by how far you can get with some super basic stitches too. Lauren Aston Designs has a great “learn to knit” tutorial on their site, and tons of beginner-friendly knitting patterns. You can also get a project kit if you don’t want to mess with figuring out how much and what kind of yarn or needles you need! This one comes with everything you need to make the perfect chunky beanie hat.

• Sew a pillow. I promise that learning to sew is not as scary or hard as it seems. I love Rosery Apparel’s Youtube channel for easy yet on-trend sewing projects. I followed her tutorial for a ruffled pillow cover and it did take a while, but I did it in a weekend and it’s super cute!

• Punch needle kit. Another fun craft that ends with a cute piece of decor or an accessory is punch needle. I really like the tufted look of the end product, plus punching holes with what is essentially a giant hollow needle feels very cathartic. I desperately need this corgi-themed punch needle kit.

• Create a miniature room or house. Last year I bought a dollhouse, which I’ll admit is currently sitting unused on my floor, BUT. Someday! I will finish putting down the tiny plank flooring so that I can hang the tiny curtains and arrange the tiny farmhouse bed frame just-so. Etsy has a plethora of miniature kits and furniture – my favorites include this tiny Smeg fridge I purchased for my kitchen, and pretty much everything from this shop. If you want to make your own tiny things, Geneva Vanderzeil is the queen of miniatures, and she has a super affordable course all about dollhouses.

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Further Reading

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