How to carve out creative time and stop passive scrolling

I’ve easily lost thousands upon thousands of hours to ‘scrolling’ aka passively consuming vacuous, pointless, superficial, poor-quality online content.

My excuse was needing to decompress after a long day in the office. To relax. Veg out. Do nothing. To not use my brain anymore, because I’d chosen to trade my time and energy for money, and I’d left nothing in the tank for my own creativity.

If scrolling is your poison of choice, and you’re losing hours each day to consumption of poor-quality content, then you’re doing yourself a disservice as a creative.

And, if you don’t already feel gross, stuck, blocked and frustrated, you will soon enough.

As a creative, what you give your mental and emotional energy to is crucial. You need to be intentional about what you’re consuming and you need to know when to cut out the crap.

There’s nothing like that feeling of disappointment when you get to the end of another year and realise you didn’t start that special project, or learn any new skills, or engage in your creative hobby in any substantial way.

By becoming aware of how you’re using your time, transitioning to quality content consumption and making better choices when you’re tired, you can get out of the scrolling cycle and honour your desire and ability to create.

This is my time

Get serious with your time. Find a daily planner or electronic calendar with a full day view that works for you and put it somewhere you can check on it often. For example, I like to use an Outlook calendar or a Google calendar with colour coding and keep a calendar widget on my smart phone’s home screen.

Then start dividing up your day into blocks of time dedicated to the obvious things. For example, getting ready for the day, commuting, being at work, working out, errands, chores, personal admin, carer responsibilities, socialising, family time, meal times and getting ready for bed.

Now, here’s where you start to see those precious opportunities for creative time more clearly.

Usually, there’s time you can carve out very early in the morning as soon as you wake up, or late in the evening just before you go to bed. There should be some pockets of time on your days off that you can spare too. Start treating those hours as sacred creative time.

I’m not going to pretend this is easy. You may need a few weeks to transition into using these timeslots productively. That’s only natural and there are a few simple strategies I’ve outlined here to help you along.

Whatever you do, just make sure you don’t backslide into passively consuming other people’s posts, shorts, TikToks and YouTube videos when looking for ways to overcome procrastination.

This is my space

Now that you’ve identified your timeslots for creative work, identify your associated physical creative workspace. It doesn’t matter if this is the kitchen table, an ironing board, half of a desk or the end of a sofa – just make sure it’s a dedicated space that you can use consistently.

If you find you can’t get started straight away, doodle on paper. March on the spot. Talk to yourself. It doesn’t matter. Just get to your spot each day and get used to being on your own, in your own mind.

Get into your own thoughts about your creativity and what you are creating and stay there for as long as possible in your allocated space and timeslot. Learn to let go of external stimulus and start to revel in generating from within.

Some people say don’t use your bed to work. Well, I do because it works for me. I use my first 30 minutes after waking up to write and my last 30 minutes before bed to capture ideas and plan creative pieces. And I still sleep well so, if you don’t think working in bed will cause you or your partner any sleep issues, go for it.

I also use my kitchen table on weekends because I use my study desk when I work from home on weekdays, and I don’t want my day job energy to touch my creative energy.

Luckily for me, I live in a relatively quiet home. But if you have loud adults around you, or a noisy neighbourhood, don’t waste your energy being frustrated! They don’t deserve your attention when you’re creating – you do.

Put on your headphones and find some upbeat music, without lyrics, to eliminate distractions and stay motivated. For example, I love listening to progressive house music on YouTube for peak focus.

Study using real books

Here’s another tip for navigating the transition into blocking out, and actually using, your creative time for your own creative projects.

If you’re really struggling with jumping straight into creative work, read hard copy books related to your creative field and do this proactively by switching on study mode.

Take out your pencils, highlighters and sticky tabs and mark the passages and concepts that resonate with you. Appreciate the techniques the writer is using to convey their ideas and guidance. Take notes in the book itself or in a separate hard copy notebook.

Engage with an active mind, reignite the muscle memory of studying and learning when you were still in school, and stay away from the temptation to check in on social media platforms.

Keeping a learner’s mindset and reading books on creativity, skills-building and broader self-actualisation are crucial parts of a creative’s journey. If this helps to prime you for your own creative work, you won’t be wasting your time.

Rest your mind

What if you’re just too tired to use that early morning or late evening or weekend time slot to create or study? Then rest physically. Sleep in or get an early night.

And if the body is willing but the mind is fragmented or overwrought, that doesn’t mean you can crunch on mind candy.

Let your mind go where it needs to, but don’t generate new lines of thinking on things you need to do, or how annoyed you are with someone.

Meditate, if you can. Or go for a walk in nature. Or do some mindful housework. Or knit.

Don’t reach for the phone. Don’t find something to watch on Netflix. Just breathe and do something less demanding with your hands.

You may have been pushing hard mentally at work. Or you may just need a mental break from everything life’s throwing at you. Time off from creativity is fine, and necessary, as long as you’re truly resting your mind.

Use well-made content for creative fuel

No doubt you’ve spent many valuable hours consuming well-made content, including movies, TV series, documentaries and online articles. This is essential for every creative.

I still rewatch Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige, Inception and Interstellar because they’re some of my favourite films. I still Google Jay McCarroll’s final collection from Season 1 of Project Runway, because it’s so fresh, authentic and fun. Tarsem Singh’s striking, symbolic music video for Lady Gaga’s ‘911’ has been living rent free in my mind since 2022.

Revisiting and seeking out elevated creative works that entertain you, while feeding your mind, heart and soul, is time well spent.

But I also encourage you to not waste time with creative works that give you the ick. Life’s too short to make yourself watch an entire avant-garde art house film that’s creeping you out.

A smart creative doesn’t follow the crowd. A smart creative follows their gut. And it’s your job to find what resonates with you on a deeper level. Find the art that reaches into your soul and moves you. Feast on that.

But I just wanna watch this one show

Okay. A fun episode of a popular TV series, or a couple of YouTube videos from your favourite lifestyle vlogger, are fine for 30 minutes or so.

But, if you’re going to give this kind of content your precious time, put a limit on the amount of episodes you watch each week, schedule it in as a special event, not a past time, and engage with it actively.

As you kick back and relax, ask yourself:

-        why is this tv show or vlogger so popular?

-        what techniques and stylistic elements is the production using that appeals to me?

-        what are the storytelling tropes and emotional hooks they’re employing to suck me in?

Let this inform your creativity.

Educate the algorithm

Yes, you still need to spend time on social media. It’s a great way to build an audience, participate in conversations around your interests, and see what new creative trends are developing.

And you should definitely get online to share your creative journey. So many other creatives out there would love to know about your thoughts, your work and your process.

But it’s very easy to get distracted by poor-quality content once you’re online posting or responding to comments. This is where you need to educate the algorithm.

You have to curate. Tell the algorithm what stimulates your mind and takes you to an elevated mental space that inspires your own thoughts and reflections. Follow high quality content creators only – the ones that take their audiences seriously by creating smart posts that link you through to insightful articles. And follow people on a similar path to you, so you feel a sense of community.

Respect your intellect. Respect your time. Show the algorithm you’re taking yourself seriously as a creative and be ruthless with who you’re letting into your headspace.

Ignore the noise and create

There's so much power in ignoring noise. If you're pulled to creating, you're here on Earth at this time to lead by expressing the highest ideals of humanity. So back yourself and filter out the nonsense.

You deserve quality books, articles and posts to fuel your creative fire. And you deserve quality rest. 

Carve out your creative time, find your physical creative space, reactivate study mode to help you transition into creative mode as needed, and get to work. Use whatever tools, tricks and reminders you can to stay on your creative path.

There’s so much out there keeping your beautiful mind occupied and distracted. But what about your truth? Your insights? Your hopes and dreams?

Fight for the space to think differently. To create your own art. To share the secrets of your brilliant soul in this brief lifetime.

Thanks for reading. I hope this helps.