How to Live Creatively

Dave Irwin
Aug 25, 2017 · 4 min read

Creative Thinking For Personal Development

Most people that I know are creative in some way or another. My fiance is a makeup artist in the film and television. My colleague in my day job is a video game designer in his spare time. I myself run a marketing and graphic design business, where I am ramping up a portolio with spec logo design. I also produce content here on Medium with the goal of gathering content for public consumption and to drive interest in my company. Before I started my business I did a miriad of creative past times but when it came to my career, I would still say that I was not a very creative person. I didn’t consider what I did, in my day job, to be creative. That was a mistake. Most people it turns out are very creative. I came to this realisation during a very routine task. I was making a burgar.

The job I had for many years required me to craft messaging to clients to resolve, or more likely soften the blow, from working in a highly volitile market place. I worked in securities settlement in a corporate bank. I never thought this vocation as being a very creatively fulfulling job. Rose coloured glasses aside, I think line of thinking is a mistake. I didnt appreciate how creative my colleagues and I were as the daily tasks we completed did not align with my personal brand of creativity. I love reading about economics, the analysis of market data and what it means for the wider economy but when I was working in the bank I could not match my day to day actions with my interest in Econ. I could not see the forest for the trees. Now that I have had a few years away from it, I realised that what I did had an impact on the wider world. The work required me to make a lot of phone calls, write up email responses, negociate with local markets, draft data rich presentations and provide clients with updates for the settlements of trades that are currently active or recently settled in the market. While I don’t know if anyone relishes writing business-style email it is still a creative skill. One that is marketable to business around the world. Realising that my previous position was a creative task was something that I would not have believed when I was working for the bank. That is where the burgar comes in.

A few weeks ago, bef0re I decided to start my business, I was home listening to an audiobook and wondering what I should make for supper. So I did what most people would do in this situation, I googled a recipes. Well technically, I searched on YouTube for Best Burgar Recipe and the first thing to come up was a parks and rec sketch for Ron Swanson’s burgar appeared. I decided to give the winning burger recipe a go. Checking my supplies I found that I had everything I needed for the recipe. Meat. Salt. Pepper. Burgers for supper it is. Here is the thing, when I think about making burgars I think about them coming preformed, either frozen or “fresh” from a butchers. It never occured to me that I should just make them myself. Halfway through making the mean I came to the realisation that even the act of cooking this meal was in itself creative. Everytime you make a cook it is slightly different. Recipes are tweeked, spun and deconstructed by people every day of their lives. This eureka moment allowed me to question all of the other creative things that I do with my time.

One of the easiest ways to be more creative is to list the everyday tasks that you complete and then see how you have already tweeked them to your advantage. This could be anything from making food to putting a tiny moat of water around your cats food to keep the ants away, which is also something I struggle with. These creative solutions might feel commonplace but if you were to teach what you know to a relatively young person they may seem like time saving life hacks. There are whole stories, videos, websites and companies online dedicated to these types of life hacks. Creative living is a way of thinking. It is not just about building something new from scratch. Once you have harnessed this creative lifestyle you will realize that it can be applied to other aspects of your life.

The same creativity that inspires me to write these medium posts facilitates my ability to write to-the-point business email. Remembering that I deploy this creativity in my day job allows me appreciate it all the more. We all need to remembet that creativity comes in all shapes and sizes. While your email to your colleague about a specific issue may not compare to the likes of the Mona Lisa in beauty, it doesnt mean you dont employ creative thinking when drafting and editing. Just knowing your everyday actions are creative will help you realise how naturally creative we humans are. Living every day with this in mind will help you appreciate your everyday acts of creativity, allowing you to live the more fulfilling, creative life you always knew you could.

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Dave Irwin

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Designer @ davidirwindesign.com | Graphic Design | Writer | Marketing

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