Stop managing your time. Instead, manage your energy

Creativity doesn’t often answer to the clock. From chronotype to workload, employees must advocate for their most productive times.

It’s a familiar scene: After a day of work meetings, calls to extinguish spontaneous fires, and inbox navigation, it’s finally time to sit down and think creatively for a big project.

Unfortunately, your brain is still swirling from other tasks, and out of the corner of your eye, you can see another alert from your Teams app. All the while, you know in order to do successful creative work, you need breathing room and mental clarity to reach that great idea.

In the complex and interconnected environment of today’s professional world, workdays are more prone to distraction than not. An employee only has 85 minutes each day of undisturbed focus time, according to the time-management tool RescueTime. This sort of personal time is essential to creative work that thrives off a lack of constraints.

Growing workloads also squash creativity. In a recent Gallup survey on worker engagement, respondents reported waning enthusiasm and involvement because of confusing expectations and blurred team authority. With companies frequently downsizing and subsequently leaving posts unfilled, workers easily see their plates brimming with tasks—frequently including duties outside their original job. Burnout follows easily.

To wit: When workers are expected to be creative, the need for boundaries is even more pronounced. 

Getting to a place of open-minded creativity starts with identifying the obstacles—whether external disruptions or personal biology—that sap your energy for precious brainstorming time.