Are you a slacker? There are times when you should be.

If you make your living as a copywriter, or if you do any other type of creative work, you probably have moments when you feel burned out and creative ideas elude you.

You may compensate by working even harder, stubbornly pushing your brain to create more and more ideas, but finding that every idea is crap. Your creativity seems to evaporate.

The problem may be that you’re working too hard to be creative and need a lesson in the art of productive slacking. To explain, let me tell you a little story.

Long ago, a young boy walked into the workshop of the town blacksmith and asked to be an apprentice.

The master blacksmith saw that the boy was strong, so he showed the boy everything he knew — ancient techniques passed down over the years from master smiths around the world.

But though the boy hammered harder than any other, he could not shape the iron.

The apprentice asked, “Why can I not shape the iron, Master? What is the secret?”

The Master put the iron into the fire and replied, “Have patience, my son. Have patience.”

Years passed, and the boy grew into a young man, hammering faster than any other, sending sparks flying off in all directions. Yet the iron still would not give under his hammer.

Once again, the apprentice asked, “Why can I not shape the iron, Master? Will you not tell me the secret?”

The Master put the iron into the fire and replied, “Patience, my son. Have patience.”

Years passed, and the young man grew into an adult, working from sunrise to sunset and half the night as well. Yet he still could not shape the iron. Frustrated, the apprentice confronted his Master.

“Why can I not shape the iron, Master? I demand that you tell me the secret!”

The Master, now an old man, just laughed at his apprentice. “My son, I have told you the secret again and again. You must have patience.”

The apprentice left, convinced the Master was keeping the secret from him. But the Master, wise in his trade, calmly put the iron into the fire and stood patiently while it heated.

Then he removed the glowing metal and easily hammered it into the shape of a good luck charm and sent it to his apprentice. For he knew that you cannot shape cold iron. And he also knew the man would need much luck without a trade.

The moral of the story? You can’t rush creativity. Just as you can’t hammer cold iron, you can’t form creative ideas when your brain is tired.

When you feel completely uninspired, it’s time to stop being a workaholic and start being a slacker.

Set everything aside and do something else. Take a walk. Go golfing. Ride your bike. Take a power nap. Anything. It’s hard to do when a deadline looms over you like an angry cloud, yet it’s an important part of the creative process.

The break will allow the cold thoughts in your brain to slowly heat up so that you may begin forging your ideas.

Creative people know from experience that ideas often come during moments of relaxation, when you’re not even thinking of a problem.

And so, if you can, forget about your project for 24 hours or more. Just remember to tuck a pen and a little notebook into your pocket. You may get your best ideas when you least expect — sitting in traffic, in your sleep, even in the bathtub.

Write them down as they pop into your head, but don’t dwell on them. You need to be fresh when you return to your problem later.

Ironically, activity is the best way to rest and refresh your mind. That’s why I call it “productive” slacking.

My personal favorite way of getting away from a project is to work in my garden. It’s active enough to engage my mind and prevent me from ruminating on a problem, but not so active that it wears me down.

Your mind works better when you work it, then rest it, then work it some more. So when your creativity fails you, slack for a while. It refreshes your body and mind. When you return to your work, you’ll find your creative iron hot and ready for you to hammer into a creative idea.

Related posts:

1. 10 easy ways to instantly energize your creative powers
2. Quiz: Are you a creative genius?
3. Which of these bad habits blocks your creative genius?

Are you creative or not?

Okay, that’s a trick question. If you fell for it, you’ve bought into the myth that you either have creativity or you don’t, as if it’s all or nothing. You’re either a creative genius or you’re a dolt.

The fact is, you are creative. Everyone is creative to some degree. The only question is how creative are you? It’s a sliding scale from a little to a lot.

After all, creativity isn’t something you’re born with. It’s not what you are as much as what you do. It’s a learned behavior and therefore can be controlled and improved.

Think of creativity like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. To increase your creativity, you simply need to act in creative ways and do what other creative people do. Not surprisingly, people recognized as creative tend to share common traits.

So are you a creative genius? Let’s find out.

Do you …

• HAVE THE COURAGE to try new things and risk failure now and then? Every big breakthrough starts as a harebrained idea.

• USE INTUITION as well as logic to make decisions and produce ideas? You can’t always rely on logic. You have to listen to your gut, too. It follows its own logic.

• LIKE TO PLAY, laugh, and have fun? In many ways, these are the ultimate creative acts.

• SHARE YOUR FEELINGS and express your thoughts? People who are in touch with themselves tend to be in touch with others.

• FIND ORDER IN CHAOS and look for hidden meaning? Creative people see patterns in what to others appears to be irrelevant information.

• GET MOTIVATED BY A TASK rather than by external rewards? If you’re just in it for the money, you’re not going to be a fountain of new ideas.

• FIND SOLUTIONS to challenging problems? If you always have a ready answer, you’ve stopped thinking and creating.

• CHALLENGE ASSUMPTIONS and ask hard questions? Creative people are persistent skeptics, taking what others believe with a grain of salt.

• MAKE CONNECTIONS between old ideas to produce new insights? Sometimes the best solutions are simply two old ideas jammed together.

• PUSH THE ENVELOPE in order to expand the boundaries of what is possible? Instead of dividing the world into the possible and impossible, it’s better to merely divide it into the tried and the untried.

• TEST NEW IDEAS and enjoy competing with others? Creative people don’t mind losing, but they love winning and proving themselves.

These are not the only traits creative people share. But they’re some of the most important.

How many did you answer “yes” to? If you think none describe you, you’re probably being too hard on yourself. If you said yes to a few, start working on adopting the others to increase your creativity. If all these traits describe you, stop reading this immediately and get back to changing the world. You’re a creative genius of the first order!

Just remember, creativity isn’t who you are. It’s what you do. You can be more creative simply by acting more creative. Go to it.

Related posts:

1. Which of these bad habits blocks your creative genius?
2. How “productive slacking” can make you more creative
3. 10 easy ways to instantly energize your creative powers

To succeed as a copywriter, you have to wield substantial creativity.

Yes, yes, I know. There are a zillion rules and formulas that copywriters follow to write effective copy. And yes, you can make a living just writing the same copy over and over for different clients. I even know one copywriter (no I won’t say who it is) who has admitted to literally cutting and pasting copy from one project to another to get work done.

But most copywriters find that creativity is an essential tool for writing well. This is especially true today, because there are so many different media and so much innovation in advertising and marketing.

I’ve written about ways to boost your creativity. But today we’re going to talk about some of the roadblocks to creativity.

You see, I believe creativity is something you’re born with. But along the way, we pick up bad habits that block this creativity. And if you want to energize your creative powers, you have to first consider what might be holding you back.

Ready? This might be a little painful. Or enlightening. Or both.

Are you …

Creating and evaluating simultaneously? You can’t drive a car in first and in reverse. Likewise, you shouldn’t create and evaluate. Creating is generating new ideas, visualizing, looking ahead, considering the possibilities. Evaluating is analyzing and judging, picking apart ideas and sorting them out into piles of good and bad, useful and useless. Most people evaluate too soon and too often, and therefore create less.

Avoiding real change? There are two forms of creative imagination: Hunting and Changing. Hunting is finding something that already exists and applying it to your problem. Changing is modifying something you already have and transform it into something new. Both are useful, but they are not the same.

Suffering from the expert syndrome? This a big problem in the copywriting field, where egos often balloon to the size of small planets. I suppose it takes a healthy ego to succeed in this business, but if you think you know everything there is to know, you’ll be blustering more than thinking. And you’ll inevitably make mistakes and miss opportunities.

Wallowing in the novice trap? You don’t know the basics. You don’t have experience. Or you think you’re too smart to spend time with the problem or understand the proven formulas and rules of thumb. You can’t be creative until you know what has been created by others.

Making the one right answer mistake? As a student in school, your teachers probably said they wanted you to think for yourself. However, come test time, you knew you’d better memorize the facts and give the right answers or your grade would suffer. This simplistic right and wrong orientation pervades our society and it’s the very antithesis of creative thinking. Except for simple problems like 2 + 2 = 4, there’s seldom just one right answer for anything.

Going with the first solution? One of the secrets to creativity is playing around with alternatives. Finding one solution is just the beginning. Many advertising writers, for example, write a hundred headlines or more before choosing the one they like best. When you go with the first solution, you’re not creating, you’re just recalling. You are settling for a ballpark answer. Sometimes that’s fine, but if you do it all the time, you will be trapped by your own limited experience.

Being too logical? Copywriting is a practical profession, but trying to be sensible and rational all the time will strangle a creative idea before it’s born. The brain is not a computer, after all, it’s a vastly complex organ designed to process emotion, intuition, language, symbols, dreams, and all manner of illogical data. That’s what it does best. Confining yourself to what’s practical is limiting and, frankly, illogical.

Sticking slavishly to the rules? Most copywriting rules are actually just guidelines, not laws written in stone. There are three levels of creative mastery in copywriting: 1) The Novice, who doesn’t know the rules. 2) The Hack, who has learned the rules, but is trapped by them. 3) The Professional, who knows the rules and, every now and then, breaks the rules, or even comes up with news rules, when it’s appropriate.

Cowering from the fear of failure? Most people remember baseball legend Babe Ruth as one of the great hitters of all time, with a career record of 714 home runs. However, he was also a master of the strike out. No one wants to make mistakes or fail. But if you try too hard to avoid failure, you’ll also avoid success. It has been said that to increase your success rate, you should aim to make more mistakes. In other words, take more chances and you’ll succeed more often.

Trembling from the fear of ambiguity? Most people like things to make sense and seek neat and tidy solutions to problems. Unfortunately, writing is not neat and tidy. There are some things you’ll never understand and some problems that you’ll never solve. Most great creative ideas emerge from a swirl of chaos. You must develop a part of yourself that is comfortable with mess and confusion.

Lacking confidence in yourself? A certain level of uncertainly accompanies every creative act. A small measure of self-doubt is healthy. However, you must have confidence in your abilities. Much of this comes from experience, but some will come from familiarity with how creativity works.

Allowing others to discourage you? Even if you have a wide-open mind and understand the need to make mistakes in order to learn, most people around you will not. They will tell you in various ways to conform, to be sensible, and not to rock the boat. Ignore them. The path to every victory is paved with predictions of failure.

Trapping yourself with functional fixedness? This is a common human shortcoming. A person suffering from functional fixedness sees a wrench as a wrench and nothing else. A creative person sees a wrench as a wrench, but also as a hammer, or a lever, or a weapon, or whatever else is needed at the moment.

Running away from complicated problems? If you like to solve problems quickly, it may be hard to sit down and spend time working on something elusive. We all have to work on a schedule, but rushing to an acceptable solution inhibits your ability to find a good solution. You think that the problem will take too much time or effort. So, you use a formula. Or you ignore the problem altogether and do nothing.

Living inside your comfort zone? The mind needs fresh input to remain fresh. It is helpful to venture outside your specialty to see things from a new point of view and to acquire new ideas. Sometimes the most important things to know are the things you think you’ll never need to know.

Telling yourself you’re not creative? Everyone is creative. Some are better at using their gifts than others. Some are more open and free in their thoughts. However, every human being on the planet has vast, untapped creative abilities, including you.

Related posts:

1. Quiz: Are you a creative genius?
2. 10 easy ways to instantly energize your creative powers
3. How “productive slacking” can make you more creative

Whether you’re a freelancer or employee, being a successful copywriter has a lot to do with your creativity. Creative thinking helps you solve problems, overcome obstacles, and find new and better ways to use your skills in a productive and financially rewarding way.

You don’t think you have creative abilities? Nonsense. Everyone is creative to some degree. The only difference between those we call “creative” and everyone else is that creative people use and develop their creative skills. Often this is not a conscious effort, but a natural result of their personality and upbringing.

So it’s not a matter of “becoming” creative. It’s simply a matter of “energizing” the creative powers you already have. To a great extent, this means replacing the bad habits that are holding you back with good habits that make you a more creative and productive thinker. Here are some suggestions:

Learn your craft. You can’t be truly creative in any field until you master the tools of the trade. Robert Irwin, an artist and MacArthur Fellow, spent two years, working up to 15 hours a day, painting the same picture over and over again to understand his work better. You don’t have to go to such an extreme, but you should certainly read the books, attend the seminars, and get as much experience in your field as possible. Talk shop with your colleagues. Surf the Internet. Keep your skill sets sharp and up-to-date. This knowledge will be the fuel for your creative fire.

Get off auto pilot. Don’t allow yourself to settle into a rigid pattern. It’s easy to get comfortable with your tried-and-true formulas. Question your own expertise and the advice of the experts. Stop looking for just one right answer. Don’t settle for the first idea. Set aside the ordinary way of working now and then. Borrow good ideas from others, but try out your own, too.

Loosen up. Sometimes the best ideas don’t immediately square with what you “know” works best. And many good ideas seem outright crazy at first glance. To maximize your creative output, come up with lots of ideas first, then figure out which are best and how to make them work later. Creating and evaluating simultaneously is like driving with your foot on the brake.

Stop avoiding failure. Long ago, while I was still in high school, I took a summer driver’s education class with a friend who was nervous about driving. With a death grip on the wheel, he sat bolt upright, swerved back and forth on the road, slamming the brake at every intersection. He was so fixated on not making a mistake, he couldn’t concentrate on driving. Likewise, if your work process is built around the idea of avoiding failure, you will be unable to concentrate on doing the work. You will certainly not realize your full potential. Instead of avoiding failure, strive for success and accept the occasional failure as part of the learning process.

Focus on important problems. You probably know people who focus so hard on the little stuff, they can’t get anything done — freelance writers who obsesses about the type of notebook paper they use or graphic designers who spend hours fiddling with an almost invisible detail in a Photoshop file. When you focus on trivia, you will generally get trivial results. And this will only discourage future creative thinking. There’s nothing wrong with being a detail person, just don’t lose sight of the big picture. Tackle the big issues first. That’s where the real results come from.

Find new uses for old ideas. Some say that there are no new ideas, just new uses for old ideas. There’s a lot of truth in that. We all collect certain techniques for doing our work. And usually, we’ll use the techniques over and over in the same way. If you do a little photography for your clients, you might use one camera lens for product shots and another for portrait shots. But you could experiment by switching to see what happens. By allowing a little cross pollination of what you know, you can discover great new ways of doing things.

Learn about the creative process. If you’re a salesperson, you learn how to sell. If you’re a boxer, you learn how to throw a punch. If you’re a surgeon, you learn anatomy and surgical techniques. So if you’re in a creative position, shouldn’t you should learn how to create? Read books on creativity and problem-solving. Scan newspapers and magazines for stories on how businesses solve problems in creative ways. Ask people about how they solved problems. Your mind is your most important tool. Learn how to use it.

Keep your head clear. You need information to light your creative fire, but too much will dowse it. Knowing too much is just as dangerous as not knowing enough. Trivial issues take on more importance. Indecision sets in when you have too many alternatives. Gather information at the beginning of every project, but then set it aside before you get hot and heavy into the creative process. A fresh mind produces fresh ideas.

Break down false barriers. When someone asks you for ideas, do you find yourself always saying the same thing? Your ideas may be good, but who says these are the only ideas or the best ideas? Back up. Think things through from the beginning. What are you doing? What is the goal? Why do you do things the way you do? You may find you simply do things out of habit, not for a logical reason. False barriers are barriers you can’t see but that are blinding you to alternate ideas. Ask yourself how you would normally do something. Then look for other ways.

Set the conditions you need to create. For most people, this means comfortable lighting, pleasing sounds and colors, plenty of space to spread out and work, information and equipment handy, and no distractions like endless phone calls or people dropping by. But the right conditions vary from person to person. Beethoven poured ice water over his head. Kant wrote in bed. Balzac drank cup after cup of coffee. Hemingway merely got up at dawn and sharpened 20 pencils. Find what works best for you.

Are you starting to feel more creative? Can you feel those creative juices starting to flow? Good. You’re on your way to becoming a creative mover and shaker.

Here’s a little assignment to help this good feeling continue: Every day do something different. It doesn’t matter what it is. Move your desk to the other side of your office. Wake up an hour earlier. Read a book on welding or candle making or stamp collecting or anything you know nothing about.

Over my desk, I have a little sign that reads, “Do one thing different.” Sometimes, that’s all it takes.

Try these ideas and you’ll find yourself seeing things differently. Thinking different thoughts. Coming up with new ideas. Many a career has been built on a single great idea.

Related posts:

1. Quiz: Are you a creative genius?
2. Which of these bad habits blocks your creative genius?
3. How “productive slacking” can make you more creative