Sometimes there’s too much going on in a single day to feel like you have time to be creative outside of work. I like to bookend each day with some form of exercise and social time, plus dog momming, and it doesn’t always leave time for much else (I don’t know how you actual parents do it all).
I was listening to one of the latest episodes of The Happiness Lab podcast by Laurie Santos, a psychology professor at Yale. It’s called “A New Hope” and discussed a term called “temptation bundling” — or allowing yourself to indulge in a personal temptation only when you’re engaging in an activity that actually benefits you.
Example: You habitually binge-watch Neflix shows. To allow yourself this pleasure but transform it from a time-suck into an activity that helps you reach other goals, you only allow yourself to binge-watch Netflix when you’re riding your stationary bike at home. So (a) you give into and enjoy your temptation, and (b) you fulfill your goal to exercise more.
I had trouble pinpointing a daily guilty pleasure that feels like a time-suck (TV-watching tends to be more of a social activity for me, and it doesn’t feel excessive), but I did notice that my increase in freelance projects outside of my day job has made me feel short on creative time. When am I supposed to brainstorm for these projects? When do I allow myself this extracurricular pleasure?
The answer: bundling creativity and exercise. I’ve done it before but hadn’t consciously made it a point to treat it as a habit. Because I feel like a crazy person when I sacrifice my exercise time on a given day, and because my dog needs a walk every day, AND because I’m really into some creative, extracurricular projects these days, I decided that, any time I need a focused creative brainstorm session, I’d combine it with walking the dog, riding the stationary bike at home or going on a fast-paced walk by myself. I just type all of my thoughts into the Notes section on my phone and email it to myself as soon as the 30-ish minutes are up.
The beauty of it: I’m executing an act of self-care but I’m also able to focus on the concepts I need to think through. I knock out a personal need and a work task at the same time, so I feel doubly productive and fulfilled. And it’s not mindless multi-tasking. Rather, it’s a strategic pairing of two needs that don’t really distract from the other, with a productive outcome. Let’s call it exercise-creativity bundling.
What needs can you tackle when you’re on the move? Try it.
