Ryan Maloney explains how to beat creative resistance by blocking 45 minutes to two hours each morning for your work, no exceptions. Tell your brain the window is limited and non-negotiable. The reluctance fades, the work gets done, and you'll want to keep going tomorrow.
Chapters
Let's talk about getting in the flow state to create stuff, get stuff done. This middle block, let's call that 45 minutes of time. When you're in it, you're feeling good, you're, you're in the zone, you're getting stuff done. But your brain, before you get in that zone, doesn't want to get in that zone. You don't want to work out. In my case, I'm talking about creativity. You don't want to draw, you don't want to make stuff. But when you can get yourself to do it, it feels so good. And actually, your brain doesn't want to stop because after you stop, you just think about, I need to do more. So this time block for me is pretty much right when I wake up in the morning, 45 minutes to 2 hours, pure personal projects, flow zone. Very rarely is there a day that I actually want to do that work. This brain is like, no, we got better stuff to do. Clients, emailing, all this stuff. Got to— shh. Non-negotiable. Sit down, do the work for 45 minutes. And here's the trick. You tell your brain that you are only allowed to do that work in that time. You are not allowed to do a minute more. And your brain will get upset and it will actually make you want to do the work tomorrow.