A friend of mine recently finished all of the licensing requirements in order to become a therapist. The last seven years of his life have been devoted to completing his education and passing exams related to his career choice. Now he is facing a question many face at this point in their career: What do I do with the free time I now have?
I have found it helpful to have a creative outlet. Over the last few years, my outlets have been printing various things on an old printing press, photography, editing old family videos, and writing on personal finance issues.
As the we, I realized there are a few questions to ask before embarking down a creative path in order to get the most out of your creativity.
External Feedback
First, how important is external feedback? Do you need others to ooh and aah over your talent? For some, this is very important. For others, it isn’t. I need some sort of validation from others that what I’m doing is of a certain quality level.
Time Commitment
Second, how much time do you have available? In Malcolm Gladwell’s (of Blink and Tipping Point fame) most recent book, Outliers, he examines what makes people truly excellent in a field. One of the things he found is that it takes about 10,000 hours before someone is an expert in a particular field. If you were to commit two hours a day on weekdays and five hours over the weekend to a particular task, Gladwell believes you could master it within about 13 years. If it were your full-time job and you worked fifty hours a week at it, you would be able to master something in about four years.
You should take a realistic inventory of what your time commitment can be toward this project. I believe it takes at least five or six hours a week for a year to figure if you have the knack, penchant, and desire to delve further into a craft. This is a commitment of about 275 hours.
What art are you drawn toward?
I heard a story once of a child whose parents hammered on him to learn piano. All of the lessons he learned were classical. He had a natural ability to play, but getting him to practice was a daily struggle for his parents. When they started letting him play the music he wanted to play, he thrived. When you figure out what to create, you’ll be more successful if you start with an art form you really enjoy looking at. If you enjoy looking at sculptures, get some clay. If you enjoy photographs, pick up your camera and start posting to Flickr or another photo sharing site.
Where will you create? (Or, how portable do you want to be?)
Some creative pursuits must be done outside (nature photography or plein air watercolors). Others must be done at a specific location (letterpress printing must be done where there’s a press). And still others can be done anywhere (writing simply requires a laptop or even a pen and paper). If you feel cooped up after being inside for 90 minutes, learning an instrument that requires you to be inside (such as the piano) might not be for you.
Defining Success
Ideally you will have some sort of measure of your progress as you move along. Let’s say you’re taking up writing as a hobby and you’re going to do it on a blog. At first you may define success by the quantity of posts you put up. Your goal may be to write three posts each week. If you need some sort of external input about your progress, you will probably turn to some gauge of quality.
How you go about measuring your progress is up to you. For a blogger it might be the number of page views, visitors, or repeat visitors. For a musician it may be the ability to get through a complex piece of music without mistakes. Over at The Simple Dollar, Trent has a goal of solving a Rubics Cube from any position in less than three minutes. Although not creative per se, it’s certainly a clearly defined measure of progress.
Cost Commitment
Finally, think about the cost of what you’re getting yourself into. Don’t make any significant investments in equipment or materials until you have shown yourself you have the dedication to stick with your new craft. If you’re learning to play the piano, don’t go buy a Steinway. Buy an electronic keyboard. (Or rent a piano if you must have the real thing.)
Closing Thoughts
Whether through words, art, music, or knit socks, developing and exercising your creative muscles is a great way to express yourself. The hard part about creativity should be what to create, not how to start creating.
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