How to be simultaneously productive and creative

Between the Mad Men era of creative freedom and rebellion against traditional structure and C-suite disciplined productivity, it’s easy to misconstrue that the two cannot and should not cross. Productivity and creativity are mistakably seen as mutually exclusive lines of thought. However, after a deep dive to uncover the top tips and tricks to both productivity and creativity, there is common ground for proper alignment to implement what we’ll refer to as “productive creativity.”

The Process

Productivity Says: Set a system to achieve your goals

Creativity Says: Give yourself the freedom to play, not just work

The foundation of effective productivity is to set a repeatable system or process that bites away at your goals bit by bit. For example, running a marathon is a goal, but training five days a week for five miles each day is the process to reach the goal. That’s productivity at its finest.

However, if you only allow yourself to work within a process – it may end up maddening. Allow yourself time to run free without needing to hit exactly five miles for that given day. In an office, this can be done by setting aside time with no goal in mind, no deadline to hit, and just allowing yourself to express yourself in whatever way you see fit.

The Struggle

Productivity Says: Invite struggle and lean into it

Creativity Says: Embrace constraints

The struggle in the pursuit of productivity is the very thing that breeds more productive habits and patterns in the long run. By leaning into struggles, we learn to overcome them and better adapt in the future, resulting in more efficient systems.

In parallel, creativity calls to embrace constraints to lead you outside of thinking within a singular train of thought. Embracing constraints allows one to remove the limitations of a box and run with a new thought process to overcome the very constraints that were set to prevent the creativity it manufactured.

By merging the inevitable struggle of new processes and constraints, you lead yourself to overcome creative block and develop a more effective system over time.

Just Ask

Productivity Says: Ask for help on things you don’t understand

Creativity Says: Ask new questions

Increased knowledge stems from the willingness to admit you lack it in order to learn it. Or as Francis Bacon stated, “a prudent question is one-half of wisdom.”

Productivity begs us to ask questions for things we don’t understand. This guides us to not guess in our choices but to understand and expand on our knowledge to better apply productive action.

In a similar fashion, creativity flows from asking new questions. While productivity can increase by asking questions, we get creative with new thought processes by asking different questions to the same barriers and constraints.

Decisions

Productivity Says: Make data-driven decisions

Creativity Says: Try something new and borrow ideas

Research and data are pivotal in implementing productivity that will last. Without it, we are shooting in the dark to develop a system that may not last. By developing data-driven decisions, we can remove the variable of failure exponentially with proven results through research.

On the other side of the coin, we should always be looking to expand our mindset to try something new within those decisions. If we limit our decisions to what we believe is right, we are fooling ourselves and limiting ourselves to a single world view. However, if we hold to developing decisions backed with data, but open ourselves to new methods of going about those decisions and implementing them, we can highlight both productivity and creativity.