I’ll be the first to admit that the idea of a consistent creative space used to make me roll my eyes. I never bought into the idea that your focus on writing could be aided by having one go to place for yourself when you wanted to write or paint or do anything creative. But as someone who had to get into their creative space even to write this, I’m here to tell those who still might doubt that it’s helpful.
Creative space, obviously, will mean something different to every person. For some, that might mean getting up and going somewhere else. For others, that might mean doing a particular activity. For me, that means putting on instrumental music. Modern music with no vocals. The second a voice comes into the track, it takes me right out.
I found this creative space on accident. In high school, I always wanted to be one of those people who needed music to focus, but I would’ve settled for just being able to put it on in the background. It would always frustrate me when I would go put on top 40 playlists and get too distracted to get anything done. For a while, I gave up and decided that I was just one of those unlucky people who had to work in silence. But then, that didn’t work either. I’d heard about the connection between focus and classical music, but I’m not always in the mood to listen to classical stuff. This only left one option that I wouldn’t even explore until college: modern instrumental. Currently, whenever I am trying to do something I need to focus on, I’ll put on Google Play Music’s Downtempo Instrumentals playlist.
I urge you, whomever is reading this, to go search for your creative space if you haven’t already. I can guarantee that it will be worth your time.
– Sam Boggs
Oakland Arts Review 