I have this weird desire to be creative. Not just in the sense of doing arts and crafts or doodling in my spare time but really investing time into creative projects to make something I'm proud of. This has always been difficult for me and I think there are lots of reasons behind this (though sometimes I think I'm making excuses). The two big reasons are not knowing what to be creative in - which for me oscillates between wanting to dive deep into programming and build web apps or going further into filmmaking and storytelling. I still haven't found a way to approach both of these passions and so find myself in a mode of paralysis. But that conversation will be for another post. The other reason - and the one I want to write about today - is about finding time to be creative.

There are lots of online influencers who talk about being disciplined with your time and that if you really want something then you'll find the time to do it. "Motivation is a myth" says Ali Abdaal and honestly I used to buy into all of this online mumbo jumbo but slowly I'm starting to realize that the whole side hustle culture of the online world doesn't really fit with how I want to live my life day to day. I think the outcomes from doing side projects are great - make creative things, enjoy your work, and maybe even profit from it one day. But practically speaking putting time into something creative is just hard - especially after working a full day of internal medicine residency.

Even as I write this, it's currently 2:18 AM and I'm only awake because I start night shifts in the cardiac ICU tomorrow so I'm trying to switch my sleep schedule. I worked from 6:30 AM to 3 PM today, came home, took a nap, and am now back up with a shift tomorrow from 7 PM to 9 AM the next day. I say this not to humble brag (yeah, residency is a lot and the culture of humble brags in medicine fascinates me - also a topic for another day) but to say that when I come home these days I'm just drained and don't want to put in the time to be creative even if I have the time.

Creativity takes effort, real effort. I think it gets easier once you are in the zone and have pushed past the initial activation energy to start doing your creative work. But that activation energy can feel like Everest after you've worked for 12+ hours in a given day.

That's all fine but sometimes I think back to when my schedule wasn't as packed as it is now. The final months of medical school when all I had was time and my excuse for not wanting to be creative was that I had just spent so much time doing medical school and I wanted a couple months off to literally do nothing but sit at home and play NBA 2K22 on my PS5. It was a glorius time but part of me wishes I had spent it also coding (which I did some) or making films (which I did not).

My fear is that I only want to be creative in theory, that the practice of creativity is too difficult for me because it takes a lot of effort and is very often an unguided and unstructured path. As someone who went to medical school and is on a path of medical training, I don't do so well with unstructured paths (which does make me sad).

The other piece to this is that I don't think enough about the compounding effects of time. When I think to be creative, I want to go all in - spend multiple hours doing something and then have it done. I find it hard to think of creative projects as multiple week endeavors because I'm too focused on getting to the outcome rather than learning from the journey. Ten minutes a day of writing or coding is probably better than not doing anything for a month and then coming back to it. You lose skills, you forget things, you go back into tutorial hell (where I feel like I reside per my YouTube algorithm recommendations), and you don't feel like you're making progress.

I know all of this at a fundamental level.

And yet I find myself not wanting to put in the time. Maybe it's fatigue from residency. Maybe it's not really wanting to put in the hard work to become creative. Maybe it's not having structure. Maybe it's wanting to spend my time doing nothing and playing PS5. Maybe it's not creating an end product that I can share and get the dopamine hit of people actually liking it (which is why I think I've enjoyed making TikToks more and more because there is instant gratification there).

Writing helps this process and one thing I'm learning is that creativity is about enjoying the process. Truly enjoying the act of creation. I think if I can get to that state then putting in the time, no matter how little it is, will be much easier for me. There is no clear cut way of how to do this, but at least I know (maybe?) how to get to where I want to be.