I occasionally write about ways to make time for creative activities and share how this quest is going for me. Those posts are about units of time – minutes and hours in a week where you can intentionally pursue creative work that fills your cup.
This post, however, explores a different angle. It’s about how time pressure affects creativity – how the nature and quality of time impacts how creative we actually feel.
A million years ago in a former work life (circa 2002), I spent much discussion time with my colleagues dissecting a Harvard Business Review article titled Creativity Under the Gun authored by Teresa Amabile and her research colleagues. Here is an online copy you can check out.
The researchers analyzed thousands of diaries kept by study participants to understand how people experience time pressure. From this, they discovered what they called the pressure trap. There’s a perception – and I’ve been guilty of this – that time pressure always unleashes creativity.
Welp, no.
“Don’t be fooled into thinking that time pressure will, in itself, spur creativity. That’s a powerful illusion but an illusion nonetheless,” the authors wrote.
How Time Pressure Affects Creativity
Amabile and her team posed this question as a result of their research: do you feel like you’re on a mission or expedition rather than a treadmill or autopilot? (Here’s a graphic I created. Feel free to save for your reference.)
On a Mission?
Time pressures in these situations can still be stressful but also invigorating. I can think of many times in my day job or my children’s writing when I’ve felt excited about the work and its potential, even with intense deadlines. Maybe it’s a project team that has really clicked and is getting the work done while still having some fun. Or being in the zone with an interesting book project. Or being involved in a volunteer activity that blends time pressure together with satisfying results.
On an Expedition?
I actually like deadlines, so I’m not as good with low time pressure. Although writing this blog post makes me realize I have a couple of book projects in expedition mode right now. The concepts are marinating as I’m keeping an eye out for content and inspiration. The only time pressure is what I manufacture. I haven’t worked in organizational settings successful at achieving expedition time for employees. It was part of that 2002 debate within my organization. We wanted to intentionally protect time for teams to explore ideas. We even piloted a bit of this. But it was in an over-the-top busy nonprofit network of clinics and hospitals. I remember a doctor reflecting about how the structure built on patient volumes and revenue targets didn’t allow work time to try innovative ideas. We made some modest progress despite the challenges, but I’d be surprised to hear it was sustained for the long term.
On a Treadmill?
Experiencing extreme time pressure but with more chaos than productive results? Yeah, I think I’ve spent way too much time on the treadmill (and reaped no health benefits!). I bet you have, too. In my world, this tends to involve work or home projects where we underestimated the resources needed and/or likely challenges. I’ve said yes to a couple of commissioned book projects like this. And I’ve been involved in several work projects that started off feeling like we were on a mission but then dissolved into chaotic messes where it was hard to make progress and everyone couldn’t wait to jump ship.
On Autopilot?
Some of the things I have to do to support our daughter with her social services feel like autopilot time-sucking tasks that rob me of creative energy. New (often redundant and confusing) forms that need filling out to keep her eligible for support. Being bombarded with correspondence that could be critical but you’re not sure because it’s so poorly constructed that you end up curled in a fetal position. I work for the government. I understand the government needs updates. But no, she hasn’t miraculously recovered from her well-documented lifelong disabilities. Okay, I’ll dig out a bank statement from eight years ago to try figuring out if she was overpaid by $80 one month to understand how that’s now jeopardizing her ongoing eligibility. These examples can spill over to the treadmill category if there’s an urgent deadline. But the reality that there will always be something needing my response makes me feel like I’m on autopilot with it.
Since it’s been more than a hot minute, I poked around online to see if anyone has studied how time pressure affects creativity since 2002. Turns out another research team published their work in the Journal of Organizational Behavior in 2023. Here’s the abstract. They studied work settings and apparently how short-range and long-range planning activities can help or hinder creativity. I didn’t buy the full article, but I like their categories of radical creativity (novel groundbreaking ideas) versus incremental creativity (minor but practical improvements to existing practices). This speaks to my interest in everyday creativity and creative problem-solving, not just big innovations.
And I’m glad to see how time pressure affects creativity is still a topic of interest.
What Can We Do About It?
Knowing how time pressure affects creativity is the first step so we can be intentional in taking charge of protecting our creativity energy.
Here are four ideas. I’d love to hear more suggestions.
Create meaningful urgency.
I acknowledge that we don’t always have control over imposed deadlines. But sometimes these are self-imposed (guilty on that front). Or we can ask questions to unpack the sense of urgency in ways that clarify the meaningful aspects or even reshape the time pressures.
- At work: I’ve experienced many aggressive deadlines that came from an executive just wanting to see progress before truly understanding the work scope and needs. Sometimes more dialogue uncovers the meaningful urgency and that can put you on a mission path. Sometimes not. It all depends on that person’s (or executive team’s) leadership style.
- In my writing life: Urgency can come from external deadlines based on how publishing works. Or it can come from personal excitement about an idea. Sometimes this is mixed with worry about being scooped on the idea. I try to be mindful about the time pressure-creativity matrix and identify how I can avoid the dreaded treadmill or autopilot modes.
Concentrate without interruptions.
Many of us are master multitaskers (guilty). Sometimes this is fine. But sometimes we need focused, quiet time to think without distractions.
- At work: I got comfortable a long time ago with scheduling focused project time on my calendar. And I make it look like a formal meeting so someone won’t automatically schedule over it. (I’ve seen colleagues fail at protected time by calling it “desk time” or “please don’t book.”) Sure, I have to shift this around sometimes. But it elevates the importance of uninterrupted time for the sake of quality work.
- In my writing life: I’ve been learning to prioritize what children’s author Julie Falatko calls deep work. Watch her short Substack video about this. During these times, I don’t watch webinar replays that I need to catch up on. I don’t toggle back and forth between my email. I ignore the always-present to do list looming in the background. I go on a story mission or expedition.
Concentrate collaboration activities.
I’ve seen several commercials or memes lately with the phrase “could have been an email” to poke fun at our excessive meeting culture. Group work can be incredibly valuable, of course. Or it can be a waste of time and contribute to autopilot or treadmill frustrations.
- At my current work: The autopilot meeting culture has actually improved. Meetings have gotten shorter and generally more focused. What’s become more challenging due to budget constraints is bringing people together, especially in person, for deep work time on a problem. That involves taking employees offline from direct service time with customers and can involve travel for some. The resource challenges are forcing us to figure out how to construct effective virtual collaboration that feels focused and productive.
- In my writing life: I actually need more focused collaboration with other children’s authors, agents and editors. A good brainstorming session with a small group about a story idea is worth its weight in gold. This is on my list for more creative problem-solving.
Leverage your tools of the trade.
What tools and processes can make your work and personal life flow more constructively and feel more satisfying? Don’t neglect these.
- At work: Using team norms and project management practices can help an initiative from becoming the thing everyone dreads. I know firsthand how much effort this can take – and I know how rewarding it can for everyone be when you pull it off.
- In my writing life: A biggie is about staying organized. For example, I’m striving to improve how I keep the research organized for my nonfiction projects. An easy way to deflate creative excitement is to spend hours trying to reconcile citations and construct a bibliography. There are several excellent tools now available to help authors. This can fall into the category of being a time multiplier. If I invest some time upfront, it will pay off in dividends as the book progresses. Here’s another blog post where I wrote about this.
What Does Your Time Pressure-Creativity Matrix Look Like?
Spend a few minutes reflecting on this.
- What activities are giving you the most satisfaction and why?
- Anything fit neatly in the treadmill or autopilot quadrants and why?
- What strategies could shift your experience to something more positive?
And I’d love to know about other strategies that help, or if you encounter other studies on how time pressure affects creativity. Drop me a note!