Why Your Creativity Needs Boundaries to Thrive

The first few years after I decided to take my creative writing seriously, I couldn't overcome the nagging feeling that my fiction was simply a glorified hobby—like knitting or fishing. Plenty of people helped reinforce that. I'd be at a party filled with people who worked sensible office jobs when someone would find out I was writing a novel and tell me they'd been meaning to take up the hobby themselves—if only they had more time. But it's hard to justify carving out time every day in your busy schedule for "just a hobby." Music wasn't just a hobby for Lou Reed. Creative work is hard. An interview with Godin appears in the book, Manage Your Day-to-Day, put out by 99U. 1. Setting aside time every day to do creative work keeps your momentum going. Cal Newport, a writer and professor at Georgetown University, calls these periods of uninterrupted creative work "daily focus blocks." 2. Most of us compulsively check email without stopping to think about it. 3. 4. 5. Related: