Creativity thrives on constraints, so can decluttering make you more creative?
I was thinking about this as I read a piece from the Atlantic (that’s a gift link if you want to read it, too) about monotasking, from the author of the forthcoming book (affiliate link included for your convenience) Inside the Box, which is all about how constraints make us better.
Lots of the examples come from writers, of course, like how Maya Angelou would rent hotel rooms to write, or Marcel Proust lined his room with cork so he couldn’t hear the outside world. Or how Susanna Clarke had to learn to work more gently because of her chronic fatigue syndrome, but she’s still as creative as ever.
It got me thinking, how can constraints like monotasking work for crafters?
Distraction is Deadly
The author of the book, David Epstein, notes that the human mind is meant to be distractable, but we can’t do our best work that way.
“Sustained focus is highly unnatural for human beings,” he writes.
Our brains evolved to be extremely distractible, to attend to any novel sights and sounds in our vicinity. Unsurprisingly, research has found that people instantly become more creative when distractions are removed.
And all of our stuff — be it craft materials, unfinished projects, or clutter that’s made it into our crafting spaces but doesn’t belong there — is distracting us from making what we could be making.
One Project at a Time
Now this is not something that I typically can do, but one thing you might want to try is literally monotasking, that is, working on one project at a time. If you believe that unfinished objects are clutter (and I do) you might find this idea attractive to finish up projects.
When I’m planning a finishing spree I typically work on one thing a day and rotate through to keep momentum going, but seeing a project through to completion before starting the next one is also a great idea.
If you’re a multi-crafter like I am, you might say only one project of each kind at a time, so you can be working on both a knitting and a sewing project, for instance. But if you’re really struggling to get things done, monotasking might be something to try.
Can Decluttering Make You More Creative?
Of course the ultimate limitation when it comes to creating is having less stuff. The process of decluttering craft supplies can of course inspire you to make new things, because it allows you to rediscover things you might have forgotten about or be reminded of things you wanted to make.
But if you couple decluttering with a no buy period, you’ll be compelled to use what you have and that can lead to some creative solutions as you work to use up things and improvise if you don’t have the exact thing you need.
I find it fun to give myself creative challenges that are built on constraints, such as trying to use all the yarn I have on a project, or making a collage only with things that are on my desk. Time limits, color restrictions, picking a project or crafty genre at random, all can give you a creative boost.
And if you believe that stuff has energy (which I do, maybe especially craft supplies), letting things go not only literally frees up space, it releases pent up energy that’s locked in the things you were never going to use anyway.
So if you’re in a creative slump, try throwing something away or filling a box with craft supplies to donate. It will probably help you feel more creative.
I’d love to hear your thoughts: can decluttering make you more creative?
