- This video is sponsored by Professional Photographers of America. The way we talk about creativity tends to be very black and white. Like you're either a creative
person or you're not. And if you want to be
creative, you just do it. You just sit down and let the
ideas pour out of your head. There's no special trick to it whatsoever. And the reality is it's
just not nearly that simple. Creativity is a muscle that you can train and grow and condition, and that's exactly what I
wanna talk about in this video, sharing a few different habits that I've incorporated into the way I work and that hopefully you get
can some advice from it and incorporate into your own process to do creative work more efficiently, and quote, unquote, be more creative. You may notice my scenery
is a little different today. Weather is exactly the same as usual, but normally I would be
recording a video like this out in the mountain, somewhere on a trail in the middle of nowhere. And I like doing that, I like shooting in the mountains, I've gotten kind of good at it, I've gotten comfortable with it and I kinda know what
to do when I show up, which is not the case here. But having that kind of
change from the usual routine that you're used to and the
usual environment you're used to can also be very kind of
creatively stimulating or creatively inspiring, which
is the case this morning. This is an environment that
I don't usually shoot in, don't typically try and
get good footage of, and as a result, I'm getting
a lot of different ideas to what I normally have
when I go out on a shoot. And the same goes for your
creative process in general. It's beneficial to have
a routine that you like and that you're used to, but it's also very good
to break up that routine every once in a while. I almost always start my work
day right around 10:00 AM and then go until probably
six or seven in the evening. It's boring and consistent,
and I like it that way. And because I've gotten
so used to that boring, consistent routine, that helps
me to do consistent work, it's that much better
when I upset that routine, go out at 4:00 AM to shoot a video or stay up until 4:00 AM editing. Doing something like that
just makes the process that much more exciting
when I need it to be. Regardless of whether I'm
getting up at 4:00 AM for a shoot or just sleeping in and
having a nice chill edit day, I'll make sure to keep track of it all using a pretty detailed
calendar or schedule. And this is something
that I'm fairly confident I would not get anything
done at all without. It takes a lot of stress
out of the process, like when I'm going
into a really busy week where I have an impossible
amount of stuff to shoot and edit, then I can kind of map it out and then look at that and chill out, knowing that I will in fact survive it. It helps me ensure that
I get everything done, but also that I don't try to get too many things done at once. It's just a very simple tool
that can help to give you a lot of clarity and control
over that creative process. That schedule is also letting
me know that it's time to get the hell out of the
rain and get something to eat, which sounds like a pretty
good idea, this is miserable. So I've come to this beautiful coffee shop to tell you about the
importance of finding ways to enjoy the process. So for me, when I have like
boring tasks to knock out like some emails or some
invoices or something, I'll just make sure to go to
a coffee shop for a few hours to knock those out. And that just makes the
process a little more fun and enjoyable. Some people will take that to the extreme, like renting out an Airbnb
when they have like a big edit to crank out, just to be in that different cooler environment while they're editing. I don't do that. You probably won't want to either. But it's important to
find something like this. You know, some little
boost, a little bit of fuel you can throw on that creative
fire when you need it. Throughout this video,
you've watched me disrespect and frankly jeopardize the
wellbeing of my camera. And that is not out of the
ordinary for my videos, but it does bring me to
the sponsor of this one, which is Professional
Photographers of America or PPA. It's a great resource
for both photographers and filmmakers alike. It's a monthly membership
of which I'm a member, and I wanna tell you
about why you might want to become one as well. Starting out with my favorite part, which is up to $15,000
of equipment insurance for stupid people like me, who do stupid things with their camera. For real, though, you get
full replacement coverage with a flat $350 deductible, or you can repair your equipment
with a flat $50 deductible. They also provide data recovery services, which are useful for pretty much anyone, but absolutely indispensable if you're doing like
wedding or event work, also customizable contracts, so like proposals and model releases and cancellation letters,
copyright transfers, you name it. You'll also get discounts at a lot of different equipment vendors, copyright and marketing
resources, the list goes on. A lot of this video has been about like staying on top of things creatively, and this is a great
resource for just that. So if you wanna learn
a little more about it, there'll be a link in the
description of this video with some more information, and you can also use that link to sign up and get a nice little
discount on your membership. So all that being said,
the sun is coming out. The rain has stopped. This poses no risk to my camera, so I gotta get out of here. Another really easy,
but really important one is to be organized and write things down. As someone who works in a creative field, your ideas are everything, and you cannot afford to let anything slip through the cracks. So make it easy to write
anything down at any time, no matter where you are. And when you have an
idea pop into your head, make sure to write it down. Get it out of your brain and onto paper so that you don't forget it. My favorite place to do
this is in my notebook. I find writing stuff down on paper just helps you remember
it a little bit more, makes more of an impression
and is a little more organic, better way to like flesh
out a creative idea, but that's not always a practical option, so I'm no stranger to writing things down in the Notes app on my phone, or in a situation like this, even just recording a quick
voice memo to save for later so that I don't forget that idea. And don't worry about
this being organized yet, it's just important that you write it down because just by writing it down, you make yourself much
more likely to remember it in the future, and you also
give yourself an opportunity to kind of flesh that idea out a bit more, develop it and find some
new ideas within that idea. And then the next step,
when you do have a chance is to organize those ideas. And this usually happens for me when I'm taking them from a
physical to a digital medium. So going through that notebook, picking out the good ideas
and kind of reordering them, flushing them out into something
that actually makes sense in a digital document. And finally, now that we're in
kind of the after hours here before the sun goes down, I wanna tell you about how important it is to make sure that you're working
on some passion projects, some work that's not client related. And these projects give you an opportunity to experiment with new
ideas and challenge yourself creatively in ways that
you just usually can't with client work. Earlier this year, I set a
rule that each video I made needed to either make me money or be something that I
actually wanted to make, and that could challenge
me a bit creatively. I wasn't gonna make like
a color grading tutorial just for the hell of it. And the results of that has been videos like you're not talented
and the geotag video, these topics that I'm a
little more interested in and that allow me to try out
some new things creatively. Now this can also be a bit of a tough one because making room for a passion project can sometimes mean having
to decline paid work, which is not always an
option for everyone. Not everyone is in a
position to just do that because they feel like it. But to whatever degree
you're able to make room for some passion projects, in addition to whatever
paid work you're doing, it will have its benefits for you overall. And finally, it is so important
just to take some breaks every now and again, 'cause
no matter how much you enjoy what you do, if you spend
every waking second doing it, you're going to burn out sooner or later. So put the camera down, go
for a hike, get some sleep. Because if there's anything
I hope you take away from this video it's
that doing creative work is about way more than just sitting down and grinding it out. So I hope you enjoyed this one. Thanks again to PPA for sponsoring it. Thanks again to you for watching it. And I can't wait to see
you in the next one.
