Creative Focus Is An Art (so here are my top 7 tips)

Creative focus is a modern skill and an art in itself. So if you’re feeling like your creative attention has gone a bit rogue – don’t worry, you’re not alone.

(but you are in the right place)

Creative distraction is super common – especially for artistic people.

So these are my top moves for solving my own focus issues. I hope they help you too.

Let’s get it.

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What Is Creative Focus? (and why should I care?)

But first, definitions.

There are two ways to define creative focus: creative work focus and creative project focus.

Creative work focus is the ability to be productive and complete tasks each day or week, bringing you closer to meeting your main creative goals.

Creative project focus is the ability to choose and stick with a specific thing or goal (and not get distracted by newer, shinier objects).

These two terms go hand in hand and bounce off each other in many ways.

And learning how to manage them is a skill – one that’s totally worth it.

Why Should I? (the benefits of creative focus)

• Reach your goals quicker

• Become more productive

• Develop more creative discipline

• Improve the quality of your work

• Find your flow state more easily

• It’s highly engaged, active practice for building your skills

Recommended: Find Your Creative Flow State (6 ways)

How to Improve Your Creative Focus (7 things I do)

Everything is a blank canvas and creative opportunity sits around every corner, waiting to be seized.

Trust me, I know how it is. But I’ve finally found a focus routine that’s working for me.

So here’s what I do.

1. Stop Trying to Do Everything, Everywhere All At Once

Too much is too much. So my advice?

Stop trying to do everything everywhere all at once (and yes this is a nod to the movie – which is great! Highly recommend).

And I get it, it’s hard to push pause on the stuff you love. I mean, who wants to put their creative vision on hold?

I love music production, filming, art and blogging. And I can’t imagine stopping any of these things.

But each thing has its own goals and set of skills. While I see them all coming together eventually, I can’t do them all at once.

It’s too much.

So I’ve been focusing my energy on one thing at a time. This year, for example, it’s been music production and blogging.

I’ve only recently started adding some more video stuff into the mix (albeit slowly).

So you don’t need to abandon your passions. But you do need to organize and prioritize things.

Because having only one or two core projects at a time is incredibly helpful for creative focus.

2. Break Down Your Project

Once you have a creative project focus, it’s helpful to break things down.

Because looking up at a big mountain and wondering how you’re going to reach the top is intimidating (and a recipe for creative distraction).

Luckily, there’s a solution to this problem. It’s reverse engineering your goals into bite-sized steps.

For this, I start by first identifying my core macro goals for my creative project.

Makes sense.

Then, I break that big goal down into smaller, shorter-term goals.

Then, I break down each of those shorter-term goals into even smaller nano goals.

This way, I can easily focus on the day-to-day nano stuff, which feels lightweight and simpler.

Lower stress does wonders for creativity.

And I know these things add up to my larger macro goals.

It’s all about keeping the bigger picture in mind.

3. Have A Big Picture Mindset

Remembering the bigger picture is always helpful for me.

It’s so easy to get lost in the apparent minutiae of daily nano steps towards your dreams. You know how it is: you’re plugging away, putting yourself out there, day by day…

And no one seems to care and nothing seems to be happening.

But rest assured, things are happening – just behind the scenes, and ever so subtly.

Serendipity and hindsight work in funny ways and we often don’t see the dots connecting or the lightbulbs illuminating until they’re right in front of us.

So a deeper trust in the process helps me.

A big picture mindset means zooming out and appreciating the process.

It keeps me creatively focused (and generally, just happier).

4. Gamification Works

Simply put, gamification works.

I used to think this was just a trend or largely ineffective, until I actually tried it myself (go figure).

For the past year (2023), I’ve been doing a song-a-day challenge. The goal? Write one song everyday for one year.

It’s gamified the whole songwriting process by adding accountability and a daily challenge.

I’ve developed better discipline, improved my songwriting and music production skills and yes, boosted my creative focus.

So if you’re looking for a way to “hack” your system, consider doing a challenge or adding some gamification elements (such as rewards) to your creative work.

5. Dress the Part

This one may be a bit controversial.

But dressing the part (of the artist) helps me tremendously.

Of course, creativity doesn’t require a certain type of clothing or “look”. But it can be a nice focus hack.

After all, we all have an image of a creative persona. You know, that type of person we see ourselves as (in ideal circumstances) and the people we look up to or aspire to be more like.

Embodying these personas (through dress) is a great way to improve focus, boost motivation and feel more inspired.

We can literally step into the role, like an actor. It’s sort of like creating an alter ego – it’s effective stuff.

So the first step is to identify your artist persona and then embrace them through fashion. Maybe that means picking up some new drip at a local thrift shop.

Or maybe it means just putting on some pants.

I don’t know why, but fashion always unlocks a fresh creative spark for me.

(probably because fashion is art – it’s a strong form of personal expression)

6. Leverage the Power of Music

I may be a bit biased on this one, but music sets the stage to life.

I mean, I think most everyone can agree on its power to shape our experiences.

From the way we cook a meal to how we focus on a creative task, music is a backdrop to everything and dramatically influences how we perform tasks.

I know that I put more care and patience into my cooking with some light jazz or Erykah Badu in the background.

And I feel way more inspired writing a new blog post when there’s some epic creative focus music filling my room.

So if you’re struggling with creative focus, turn on some music.

Sink into the melodies and let it spark your motivation and attention.

Hot Tip: Create a personal focus playlist. Here’s my chill music YouTube playlist if you want to check out what I’ve been vibing to lately.

7. Stack the Deck

Stacking the deck means creating the context that best supports your creative focus.

And it works.

Because surrounding yourself with more artists, creatrepreneurs and like-minded people will naturally improve your own creative focus.

This makes sense.

And if Jim Rohn was right about becoming the average of the five closest people in your life, then this is something worth your time (beyond just improved focus).

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