My rituals for creative work and productivity

First I feel a strong resistance. Then I decide to do something else, probably sorting e-mails or doing the laundry. Then I open the fridge, stare at what’s inside and close it again. Afterwards, I try again.

Creative work can be relatively easy once you started your task, but getting into a productive creative state is often really hard.

In this interview, my former professor Stephan Sonnenburg talks about creative rituals. He says, to be creative, we need to break out from the ordinary and set out towards new ideas. Having certain rituals allows us to get into a creative flow. These rituals consist of three phases: a disconnection from ordinary daily life, a changeover/transformation, and a re-integration in our daily life which gets transformed. In constrast to routines, this is a conscious procedure, Sonnenburg says.

After reading the interview, I thought that rituals can be really powerful, almost like a switch that you push to trigger a desired reaction. Isn’t that what everyone wishes for?

The right ritual can work like a trigger for a desired reaction. It can mentally transport you from one place (the ordinary life) to another (a creative state).

I thought about my own rituals for creative work and reflected if they work well or what I could change. In the last months, I focused mainly on factors happening during the…