Finding the Salt in Your Creative Diet |
Tracking creative time turns vague intentions into visible progress.
A simple checkmark can build momentum faster than waiting for inspiration.
Data builds discipline without crushing creativity—if used wisely.
Creative growth accelerates when time on task becomes intentional and recorded.
This morning, I stepped on the bathroom scale. Up 1.2 pounds from yesterday. Harrumph! Science tells us that one pound of human weight is the result of approximately 3,500 to 4,100 calories either up or down (Palsdottir, 2023).
There’s no way that I had consumed that many more calories on Friday than on Thursday.
Yesterday, I ate lots of fruit and got in two short walks. But then at dinner, I had French fries with my burger. Not too salty, but maybe just enough to retain a few more ounces of water than the day before.
Artists, writers, and even potters, gardeners, and carpenters have their salty days, too. Those are the days when we wonder, “Where did the time go? Why didn’t I get to that novel today?”
That canvas, that garden plot, or that plank of maple waits to be made into something new.
If creatives follow a fitness plan similar to a physical fitness plan, they can achieve more while also benefiting from the elevated mood that doing art affords its makers (Malchiodi, 2011).
Fitness basics: Consume less. Move more. Be accountable.
Artists of all levels fall prey to distractions. If you’re consuming—just like munching on a bag of chips—you’re probably not creating. Routines help to minimize these interruptions, but they are inevitable in today’s modern world. However, tracking creative yield—like tracking caloric intake and counting steps—is a simple and easy way to optimize output.
Think of this tracking like counting calories. Every increment—every word, every brush stroke, every note, every minute spent tilling soil—contributes to daily production. And the time spent does not have to come in one chunk. For me, short bursts feel more productive. Twenty minutes in the morning. Twenty minutes during lunch. Twenty minutes just before dinner or right before bed.
That’s almost an hour and a half of time spent doing art. And that can manifest in a significant amount of work done.
I often have my students track how many words they can write during a 10-minute beginning-of-class free write. Most easily exceed 250 words. When I assign them to write a four-page essay, I remind them that’s about 1,000 words. That will likely take them less than an hour.
Grab any piece of paper and jot down the time spent on task. How much of that still life can you sketch out in 20 minutes? How much clay can you knead? How many boards can you cut, sand, or stain?
The dieter sees the needle on the scale move only after they begin to track their meals. The investor sees their bank account increase when they start charting every purchase. The creative also sees results when they commit to time on task.
Getting things done feels good.
The calendar inspires concentration.
Having a target date focuses attention and internalizes motivation that otherwise eludes best-laid plans. Case in point: Signing up to run Anytown’s Turkey Trot provides an endpoint. Following a “couch to 5K” supports the daily plan.
Start off slow and keep going.
But how often do creatives bite off more than they can chew?
Going on a trip? Let’s stitch up a whole new wardrobe. Browsing the seed catalog? Imagine the entire front lawn dedicated to a vegetable garden. At the lumberyard? But first, I need a new radial arm saw. Or that jointer I saw a famous woodworker demonstrating.
The saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day” rings so true for us dreamers. We can see it all. We can imagine our week in the Bahamas, sipping a margarita, wearing the newly stitched dress in a bright tropical pattern. We know how to do our art. We don’t know how to manage our time.
There will be setbacks. There will be hiccups. There will be days when the reading on the scale goes up for no apparent reason.
Persistence pays off.
If you want to write a novel, you need to write. But just like my student who can bang out 250 words in 10 minutes, a wannabe author can craft a 50,000-word book draft in less than seven months by writing just 250 words a day. The math is simple.
But there are two sides to the coin. Scholars advise that tracking performance can provide benefits, but they also realize that the unintended consequences of the same measurement can have an adverse effect. Imagine the dieter weighing and measuring every bite, every sip in order to accurately track caloric consumption.
“There must then exist a theoretical condition under which an additional unit of effort or resources would yield equally desirable results in overall performance, whether applied to production, quality, research, safety, public relations, or any of the other suggested areas” (Ridgway, 1956).
There must be a balance. Consider the joy you feel when you sketch a scene, when you throw a pot, when you screw together an end table, or when an author writes a delightful scene—particularly one for which they didn’t plot out every movement but rather allowed the writer’s muse to reveal the details. The magic happens when we regularly show up and put in our time. Nothing can replace it.
Begin with a simple checkmark on a calendar or journal page. No need for explanation. You know what the mark means. From here, you could progress to logging time spent on task.
Counting calories—particularly those empty calories from sweetened drinks and fried food—helps the individual notice what they’re consuming. Tracking movement shows how exercise, even low levels, increases stamina.
A creative’s fitness plan benefits from the same kind of accounting.
A creative’s fitness plan benefits from the same kind of accounting.
Like the extra 1.2 pounds my scale reported to me this morning, it’s just a number that helps me track the journey. But if I want to do my art, to be more creative, to brighten my world with flowers, and cookies, and colorful stories, I need to put in the time.
Malchiodi, C. (2011, September 27). Art and Happiness. Psychology Today.
Palsdottir, H. (2023, April 21). How Many Calories Are in a Pound of Body Fat? Healthline.
Ridgway, V. F. (1956). Dysfunctional consequences of performance measurements. Administrative Science Quarterly, 1(2), 240–247.