Rick Rubin on Creative Habits

If you want more creative inspiration, develop your creative habits.

Here are three insights from music producer Rick Rubin for setting up habits and routines that consistently support your creative work. These are all from his book, The Creative Act.

Organize your life to allow for creative space.

Space in your schedule to create doesn’t just happen. To guard consistent, extended time for creating takes disciplined effort. “Discipline and freedom seem like opposites. Discipline is not a lack of freedom, it is a harmonious relationship with time. Managing your schedule and daily habits well is a necessary component to free up the practical and creative capacity to make great art.” (135)

Rubin even says that organizing your life is more important than being efficient in your work. Your focused efficiency in life can open the space to be creatively messy.

Find sustainable creative rituals

“Find the sustainable rituals that best support your work,” Rubin writes. These might begin well before your creative time starts, by “looking at sunlight before screenlight, meditating (outdoors if possible), exercising, and showering cold water before beginning creative time in a suitable place.” (136)

Your rituals must be sustainable. Don’t overdo it. “If you set a routine that is oppressive, you’ll likely find excuses not to show up.” (136) Start with just 15 or 30 minutes of creating a day. One day you’ll look up and realize you’ve been creating for two hours. The slow accumulation of work and consistency will build momentum.

Every artist’s rituals will be different. Trust the process. Trust your process. And your routines can look different from day to day, depending on the creative phase that you are in.

Don’t waste creative energy on practical choices

Sometimes having too many choices can be a barrier to consistently doing your work. “The more you reduce your daily life-maintenance tasks, the greater the bandwidth available for creative decisions.” When to work, what to wear, these are all choices that can be put on automatic pilot. “Albert Einstein wore the same thing daily: a gray suit. Erik Satie had seven identical outfits, one for each day of the week. Limit your practical choices to free your creative imagination.” (137)

There’s a very good reason to spend time setting up intentional habits in your work and life: will will make more art, consistently, over time.

Which creative habit do you need to set up this week?