How to Avoid Feeling Stressed in Your Creative Space

Anyone who works in a creative field knows the value of having a dedicated space in which to do your work. Whether it’s music, writing, design, coding or something else, an appropriate space is an enormous enhancement to your creative workflow. When you’re really in the zone, you can just sit down, and the ideas immediately begin to pour out – it’s almost like you don’t even need to think about it. It’s great – unless you’re not in the right frame of mind.

Creative work can certainly be enhanced by having the right physical space in which to work, but having an amazing workspace doesn’t matter if you aren’t in the right headspace. When you sit down to start work, you’re not going to get much done if you’re stressed about deadlines, worried that your work won’t be up to par or simply distracted by the mess in the corner that you’ve been putting off cleaning. 

So, how can you avoid feeling stressed in your creative space and ensure that you can always sit down to work with a clear head? The answer is simpler than you might think. Here’s how to do it.

Get Your Workspace in Order

If you’re fortunate enough to earn your living in a creative field, you know firsthand how much more productive you can be when you have a workspace dedicated to your craft. It’s really hard to do anything creative, though, if you’re breathing stagnant air and looking at a mess all day. Did you know that clutter actually causes stress and anxiety? It also increases the likelihood that you’ll do things like browsing the web or checking your social media feeds instead of doing actual work because people tend to pursue escapism when they feel stressed or anxious. Here are some quick ways to make your workspace a room where you actually want to be.

• Get the clutter out. If your room is cluttered with things that you actually use for work, install some inexpensive shelving or get some plastic storage bins. Cover unused items with a blanket or curtain. Making your workspace look cleaner doesn’t have to cost a lot of money.
• Dust the room from ceiling to floor.
• Open the windows to create cross ventilation. If your workspace doesn’t have windows on more than one side, place bags of activated charcoal in the room or consider buying an air filter.

Get Your Computer in Order

These days, almost every creative endeavor involves a computer. Although it’s important for your workspace to be clean and free of clutter, you’ll spend the majority of your time looking at your computer and not the room – so you should put at least as much effort into making sure that your computer is free of clutter and ready for work.

• Clear out old applications that you don’t use and get unnecessary items out of your start menu or dock. Remember that games have no place on a work computer unless making games is actually what you do for a living.
• Create folders to organize the items on your desktop. Seeing a cluttered desktop every time you start your computer almost definitely ensures that you won’t be as productive as you could be because it’s a constant reminder of the things that you could be doing but aren’t.
• If you need the Internet in order to do your work, exercise self-control when it comes to looking at non-work content like sports sites and social media feeds. If you don’t need the Internet for work, add rules to your home router to keep yourself on task.
• If you don’t have separate computers for work and personal use, create a second user account on your computer that keeps distractions out of sight. Here’s how to do it on Windows and on a Mac.

Get Your Mind in Order

Getting down to work isn’t just a matter of making sure that your workspace and tools are right; you also need to get yourself into the proper headspace for creativity. If you aren’t feeling creative when you start work, don’t just sit there hoping that things will sort themselves out – take a few minutes to clear your head. Here are a few ways to do that without resorting to going to your favorite time-wasting websites.

• Spend a few minutes meditating. If you’ve never meditated before, it’s easy – just download a free guided meditation app for your phone. A few minutes of mindfulness can really be helpful for clearing your mind and getting yourself ready for work. If you enjoy the experience, you might even consider adding a meditation cushion to your workspace.
• Go outside and take a walk around the block. A little exercise and some fresh air can be great for clearing your head.
• Puff on a Geek Bar for a few minutes to provide a little extra stimulation.

Get Your Tasks in Order

The last thing that you ever want to do when you sit down to work is spend half of your time trying to figure out what you’re actually supposed to be doing – and the way to avoid that is by making sure your tasks are organized before you even begin. An easy way to organize your tasks is by treating your email as a funnel for incoming tasks and creating text files and folders on your desktop to organize them. This is one reason why it’s such a good idea to remove everything from the desktop that isn’t related to work. Here’s a simple method for keeping your tasks organized.

• When you receive a new task in your inbox, decide whether you can complete it in five minutes or less. If you can, do the task immediately unless you’re already busy doing something else. If you can’t complete the task right away, create a text file for that task on your desktop.
• Create a folder on your desktop for recurring tasks. Suppose you’re a programmer, for instance, and you need to commit your changes to a repository every Monday morning. When you’ve completed that task, drag it into the folder for recurring tasks and drag it back out to your desktop at the start of each week.
• When you complete a one-time task, delete the text file.
• When you’re not sure what to do next, just look at the text files on your desktop. Choose your next task either by doing the thing that’s most pressing or by selecting something that you can complete quickly.