Creativity on the Quarter System
Our brains love containers. And containers are everywhere, whether we realize it or not. A pile of paper vs a book? Whammo, container!
We rely on containers for just about everything tangible (silverware drawers, suitcases, command centers) and intangible, like friendships (work friends, ‘best’ friends) or even time (semesters of school, happy hour).
Give your creativity a quarter
You know who else looooves containers? Your creativity.
Our brains can go pedal-to-the-metal for about 90 days before they need a break. School quarters or semesters, the time between holidays, financial quarters — we instinctively understand life in about three-month runs.
When I work with folks 1-1, I have them name their creativity project. My clients often give their projects a time-related name: ‘My Semester of Creativity’ or ‘The Spring I Finally Write My Book’.
Before you start on that goal, create a chronological container. Three months seems to work the best for most folks. Even if you want to write a novel for the next ten years, can you do the outline in three months? Develop the six main characters? Write a chapter?
My creativity quarters
I’ve turned my creativity quarters into a thing. Here are just a few of the things I do:
Color-code my physical weekly planner into four quarters
Come up with tangible tasks both necessary and fun (finish my website, start learning piano)
Plan what intangible needs I want to meet (for example: strengthen my boundaries somewhere)
Start one hard task (exercise at home through my gym’s app)
Take time off at the end of each quarter
A friend was recently commenting about a slightly unusual task I did one quarter a few years ago: find out as much as possible about my family’s nutritional needs, which vitamins and minerals were the most important for us (i.e., magnesium for better sleep), and implement the shit out of that. It was an absolute ton of work, but for the rest of my life, I’ll eat more pumpkin seeds and black beans, and am hopefully sleeping more to have made that task worth it.
Quarterly rewards
I’m writing this at my annual writing retreat that comes at the end of the summer quarter. It coincides with Rosh Hashanah this year, the Jewish New Year when Jews all over the world say good-bye to the last year, cast off old sins, and have 10 days to start the new year afresh.
This is why creativity on the quarter system can be so rewarding; quarters have end dates. Deadlines, whether you want them or not. When the quarter ends, what do you want to have accomplished? What will you give yourself as a small reward?