Make It Convenient
Make It Convenient I love playing the guitar. When I was in a band and played almost every night, I definitely got my fill of music. It seemed like the guitar was in my hands all the time, and I was writing songs in every spare moment. As I got older, changed career paths, and moved into leadership, those moments of creative expression through music took a back seat. In fact, there were long stretches of time when I didn’t pick up the guitar at all. About a year and a half ago, I decided that I wanted to reincorpo- rate music into my life. I had the desire to write songs, but whenever the mood struck me, it seemed like too much of a hassle to go all the way to our basement, take the guitar out of its case, and bring it back up to my home office where I could write. So I decided to hang the guitar on my office wall so that it was always within reach. (I did the same thing with the mandolin my family bought me for Father’s Day.) Now, I often find myself picking up the guitar to noodle while thinking through an espe- cially difficult problem. And in the year since I hung it in my office, I’ve probably written twenty-five or thirty songs. The lesson is that if you want something to happen more often, make it more convenient. Surround yourself with easy access to things that inspire you, that help you express yourself, or that stoke the fires of your imagination. Eliminate unnecessary barriers to creative expression. Put the tools you need in convenient places. QUESTION How can you adapt your environment to make creativity more convenient?