All work and no play makes Jeannine a very, very dull girl.  I learned this the hard way about a year ago.  Busier than I had ever been since starting my company, I was on the verge of burnout.  I was really having difficulty making decisions, I was irritable and becoming resentful of work.   Never mind that I finally had the workload I had been waiting for, I was overwhelmed.  Even though I loved the work I was doing, in my mind, it was keeping me from spending time with family and doing other things I enjoyed.  I felt empty, not unlike when I became a new mother.  You know that feeling when you just don’t have any more of yourself to give?  Yeah, that’s it.  In reality, I needed to step away from the work and refuel.

 Joan Allen as Georgia O’Keefe in the biopic movie of the artist.

"Of all human activities, creativity comes closest to providing the fulfillment we all hope to get in our lives," –Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

It took me two weeks after I had “unplugged” to realize that the demands of my business were killing my creativity, and in return, my work had become pure drudgery.  I had lost my creative mojo – what’s a girl to do?  My solution was to get lost in volumes of fashion magazines and read fashion blogs until my eyes were crossed.  The result?  The Stylish Planner – yes this blog you are reading now is a result of some serious soul searching and diving back into a passion that I had forgotten.  I still experience burnout from time to time, though not on the same level as before.  Here are some tips for finding your creative mojo:

1)  Change your scenery.  Work from your favorite coffee shop, park or even your front porch.  The new sights and sounds will invigorate you.  In an article entitled, Working in a Cubicle or Cube-kill?, Joey Reiman talks about literally thinking outside of the “box” – or stepping away from your workspace in order to foster creativity.  Our work environments, no matter how lovely, can actually stifle our creativity.  He also names several places where we sometimes do our best thinking, a few of which might surprise you.

2)  Take a long weekend.  Whether or not you are able to get out of town matters less than actually taking the time away from your work.  Turn your phone off, shut down the computer and leave it that way.  You’ll be surprise at what your mind works out on its own just because your freed up some “space” in your brain.

3)  Pick up that forgotten hobby.  It doesn’t need to relate in any way to what you currently do, in fact, the less your hobby has to do with your work, sometimes the better.  Play the guitar, work on your scrapbooks, paint or sculpt.  Pursuing creative passions creates a sense of fulfillment that we don’t usually experience in our everyday work.

4)  Work it out:  Go for a brisk walk, run, or pull out your favorite exercise video.  An increased heart rate clears the mind and gets the creative juices flowing.

5)  Journal:  While making the effort to physically step away from your workspace, you may find that your mind is not cooperating.  Keep a journal nearby and write out your thoughts and ideas to your hearts content.  This way you won’t forget what you were thinking about, and there is something therapeutic about writing it all out and I find clarity in having my thoughts down on paper.  But don’t allow yourself to act on your ideas until Monday or the return from vacation, etc.  Trust me – the end result will turn out better when you give yourself the time to think things through carefully and weigh your options.  Bonus:  depending on what you do in your work and how your blog is structured, your journal entries could serve as future blog posts if they are relevant to your work!

In an interview at Princeton University, Albert Einstein was asked how he spent his day. He responded that 20 percent of his time was spent teaching his students, and 80 percent was spent looking out his window.  Here’s to the dreamer in all of us, and to fueling our creativity!