Why it matters: Creative margin is an opportunity for us to be better innovative thinkers, problem solvers, and executive decision makers. As leaders, we should look for, and encourage, times that all workers (our employees and ourselves) can lean into this “middle space.”
Do you know what it feels like to have two magnets, with the same polarity, push against each other refusing to connect as they should?
This month I’ve started with an apparently widely known practice called Morning Pages.
I was sitting on the bed, with a similarly named Spotify playlist playing in my headphones, curled up and ready to start writing in my newly christened notebook.
“Okay,” I think, “3 pages, it’s not that much so let’s get started.”
Except…… it kind of is.
Giphy
Years ago I would journal regularly, annotating all the things that felt so hard to tell other people- fears, dreams, ideas, lyrics, poems, conflict, actions, and anything else that seemed “worthy” enough to write down.
And then, as some habits go, I ended up not doing this anymore.
Something got in the way of continuing and a single decision became years of deciding. That’s where I was recently, wishing that writing wasn’t such a difficult part of my routine. I love to write, to shape words and ideas into palatable conversations and thoughts. But I wanted back a practice of writing, not just a requirement of output. A means to an end.
A friend of mine told me that she was starting to read through “The Artist’s Way.” This 30+ year old manual helps people start a new habit of exploring their own creativity, through many different activities and reflections, one of which is the famed Morning Pages.
Morning Pages are simple on premise. One must simply sit and write three pages each morning before starting your work. That’s all.
Simple. Ish.
Because, if it’s any indication of how things are going, this morning’s opening line went something like ‘Writing these pages is tedious at best, a laborious practice that seems to challenge if it’s even worth the time.‘ A paraphrase, truly, of the next 3-pages of meandering.
Sitting down to practice having a practice of writing is like two magnets, with the same polarization, being forced toward each other with all the resistance building to a fevered-pitch in order to never connect.
Do you know what happened at the end of my 3 pages, though?
