Make things as easy as possible to stay as creative as possible

I’ve been dreaming about owning a teasmade for weeks, watching them on eBay and thinking how lovely it would be to be woken from a nap or first thing in the morning to the sound of a fresh pot of tea being brewed, a pot of tea that I don’t have to get up to make…

My dream has come true

Well, this week my dream came true. I’m now the proud owner of a 1960s Goblin teasmade. It’s a little older than me. My model was manufactured between 1960 and 1966 (I was manufactured in 1967), it’s a beautufully creamy white and comes with a silver kettle and an art deco-esque white china teapot that makes me think of Clarice Cliff. It’s perfect.

More perfect still is that I don’t need to get up in the morning to make my first cup of tea of the day…

Saving just a little energy for something more important

I always look forward to my first cup of tea of the day, but it usually is a groggy effort to get it made. Now I wake up and there is a steaming pot of tea beside my bed. Don’t underestimate what a difference this makes to my morning.

Now I can wake up gradually, my thoughts slowly forming as I come too. I can ponder about what I can use my energy for for the day (rather than having to already used some of it up). I can relax. This gentler start to the day means I can be more creative later.

Reducing friction

Making some changes to the way we live (like buying my new teasmade) can make a big difference to how creative we can be. By finding ways to make things as easy as possible for ourselves we have more energy left over for our Important Work, whatever that might be.

It’s all about, what the inspiring Patrick Rhone calls “reducing friction” (you can listen to Patrick talking about the idea in this episode of his podcast, Enough).

Reducing friction is all about looking at the things we do every day see if there are ways to do them differently (or perhaps not not even doing them at all!) to streamline how they are done in order to save some of our time and energy for something else.

Little changes

If you would like to reduce some friction in your days then start small. Think about the things you do everyday and ponder about how you could change one or two of them to make things more efficient and thereby saving some time and energy (even a little saving mounts up over time!).

Some things you might think about:

1. Organise you clothes so that you can easily find and pick things you want to wear each day with little thought.
2. Spend some time thinking about the food you need for the week so that you can easily prepare a meal rather than have to wonder what you have in to eat every time it’s a mealtime (cooking in larger quantities when you do cook can make a big difference so you can get two or three meals for the time and effort of cooking one).
3. Slowly reduce clutter so you have less “stuff” to deal (it can be so exhausting constantly looking at piles of clutter!).
4. Gradually create a place for everything so that you don’t need to waste energy of deciding where to put something (or wondering where to find something). Train your family to put things away too!
5. Make a start with streamlining just one room or one area of your life. Perhaps making a start with your morning routine or your bedroom and then use some of the freed up energy for working on other areas. There’s no rush.
6. Buy a teasmade