Discovering the 10 Minute Creative

Do you ever feel like you don’t have the time to do the things you WANT to do? Like it might take hours to get into a hobby or a craft or an art project, time that you don’t have?

I used to feel that way - that nothing was worth doing because I didn’t have hours upon hours to dedicate to an activity. After repeated months of not getting anything done that would bring me joy I knew something had to change. So instead I discovered the habit of becoming a ten minute creative. 

The ten minute creative embraces the constraints of time and uses them to their advantage. It is a something over nothing mentality that embraces incomplete as in progress. This approach is about using what we have to our own advantage. 

The benefits are still as strong as if I had hours to dedicate to craft - my mind is clear and my body is calm after a ten minute session of art or writing. This is a meditative activity without direct meditation. My mind is on fire with ideas at the same time turning to calm waters, settling down from the hectic nature of work and parenting and life. It doesn’t take much time to add some color to the canvas and feel the restorative effects. This could be possible for you too. 

Here is how it looks for me: lately I have been playing with acrylic paints on canvas with an abstract style. I often only have the energy or time for 10 or 15 minutes of playing with paint, so I came up with a plan. That plan is to select one color and one paint brush to make progress with that day. And then I paint for 10 minutes and clean up the brush and any leftover paint. 

I leave more colors to the days I have more time, and even on the days I have more time I still limit to the one color almost as if it is a planned process. This is just the creative rhythm that I’m working with. Some days I don’t even need the full 10 minutes. The design requires simplicity or small amounts of work and the satisfaction for that small amount of work is immense because I can see the difference in what I created and how it changed from what it was just moments before. 

Why would I recommend this 10 minute creative approach? First off, getting started is easy when you only have one thing to get started on. It is easy to find 10 minutes to do something creative, compared to an hour or more. Something creative is decidedly better than nothing creative. It is a way to introduce more play and fun into the day. You are left feeling with a sense of accomplishment. And who doesn’t want more of that?

Of course more time on creative endeavors is an excellent goal! For all of the benefits that ten minutes can bring, 30 minutes or 60 or 90 can bring even more. So if you have the time, go for it. Especially if you want to be excellent, for it takes time and practice and repetition to be excellent. If you’re a hobbyist creating abstract art to add color to your living room, practicing your craft can bring results that are uplifting beyond the activity itself. 

Another benefit is that you don’t have to worry about mistakes in 10 minutes time. Any mistake becomes a part of the piece, or the attention of the next 10 minute window that you have available. No need to stress. Either combine into your piece or take the next 10 minutes to adjust from what you’ve done. 

Progress won’t be quick, so it takes some patience to see the transformation of my canvas. Sometimes it takes a few days before I can sneak away, and I come up with ideas for what happens next in that interim day or a few. If you can expect to take the baby steps, it will amaze you to see what you accomplish 10 minutes at a time. The alternative is never getting that hour to get started and nothing happens at all. It might take a month to find a free hour. Alternatively, if you find 10 minutes twice a week you achieve 80 minutes worth of progress over that same month. And all that progress comes each time with the benefits of practicing creative endeavors each and every time. 

Having the space between the sessions allows me to come up with ideas that I never would have thought up if I was sitting in a chair trying to think of what comes next. I practiced in my mind how to make the brush strokes and decide between different colors - should it be white or yellow as an accent? (For this piece, it was yellow and I loved it.) 

You can decide for your artistic endeavor how you break down your activities into smaller chunks of time. What CAN you do in just 10 to 15 minutes, including set up and clean up? Keeping things ready to go can certainly help reduce set up time. If they aren’t something you can leave out, get creative about HOW you can get your set up process quicker - maybe that becomes a game all on its own. Maybe you speed set up and clean up if you don’t have a dedicated space. The point is, look for opportunities to say yes to this creative endeavor instead of wishing for an hour. Take the 10 minutes and do something, anything, for your creative self!

Let yourself focus on finding one ten minute slot at a time. No need to schedule everything out, but if you are able to get in a routine that always helps. Just focus on figuring out when your next ten minute session is going to be. Even just one a week still has restorative qualities. Start with just ten minutes at a time and see where each day takes you.