I’ve been directing creative in one form or another for over 40 years. Let that sink in. Before cell phones, the internet, or personal computers, there was me – pitching concepts and writing scripts, just as I do today. Except now, I have a cell phone, Wi-Fi, and a MacBook Pro. I also have gray hair, spinal stenosis, and local, regional, and national awards in every creative medium.

And I have, as always, very little interest in “think pieces” littering LinkedIn about things you can do to maintain your creative “edge.” Visit a museum, exercise, explore nature, start a journal. That all sounds like a lot of work just to get better at work. Everyone seems very invested in helping me “keep my creative juices flowing.” (BTW – is that even a thing? I don’t need to be “juicy”; I’m a creative director, not a turkey.)

I’ve built a long career in the business of creative, so of course I take it seriously – but I don’t spend an ounce of thought on how I actively “cultivate” it. I rely on a more passive pursuit to sustain my creative inspiration. It’s my foolproof method of feeling creatively alive, and it’s not for everyone. But if you want to know, this is what I do:

Nothing.

Not a thing.

In order to re-invest, re-energize, and re-engage, I recline. For example, I find a couch, put on a James Bond movie I’ve seen 345 times, let my eyes glaze over, and enjoy the fun. I can kill a weekend better than anyone. Not that it’s a competition, because competing would be doing something.

Psychology Today says, “Sometimes doing nothing is the best something you can do.”

A guy with an important-sounding, hyphenated name writes, “Doing nothing is a great way to nurture our imagination. Slacking off may be the best thing we can do for our mental health.”

And as someone said Albert Einstein once said, “Creativity is the residue of time wasted.”

Some people are wired to always be doing something. Fortunately, I don’t suffer from that affliction. It takes a special kind of discipline to have none. Spending my childhood watching TV is how I learned to write and tell visual stories, so watching TV now isn’t time wasted, it’s time spent honoring my origin story.

But you do you. If museums top off your tank, great – and good luck parking. For me, nothing refuels my craft like the art of doing nothing. Athletes rest between games. Why wouldn’t creatives? 

So the next time someone asks what I did last weekend and I say, “Not much,” what I’m really saying is, “I worked all weekend.”

Enough already, Jonathan Markella