THIS DIGITAL LIFE

Leonie Corcoran on her commitment to embracing her creative side

What sounds more fun: filling in spreadsheets with data for hours on end or coming up with new and exciting ideas? For me, it’s certainly option t wo. Option one can have a calming sense of certainty, but option two is creative and, well, fun! However, though being creative is something most of us want more of in our working lives, often we feel we can’t do it because of factors beyond our control. It might be because of a risk-averse company approach; intimidatingly aggressive targets; or the sheer length of a to-do list that makes adding anything new feel impossible.

When things are moving at a pace, it’s easy to forget about creativity and tempting to stick with the classic “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach. And that’s not just in work – the todo list at home can be even more intimidating, and though the KPIs might not be related to the bottom line, there’s no fun in an empty fridge and endless piles of washing.

However, without creativity, we’d enjoy nothing new in the crazy world we live in – no electric cars, no artistic plates of Michelin star cuisine (if you haven’t tried chef Takashi Miyazaki’s Ichigo Ichie in Cork, you should – now), and no finger-painted masterpieces stuck to the fridge. And given that the spreadsheets will be consigned to AI in the coming years, we might as well try to embrace the creativity within us. I’m using this as a justification to prioritise making time and space for more creativity in my working life and at home. It’s certainly not a fine art yet, but I’m working on it. Depending on your personality type, creativity can emerge in different ways. For extroverts, new ideas often come from external stimulation: collaborating with cross-disciplinar y teams in the workplace, jamming with artistic friends or attending classes or meet-ups. Introverts, on the other hand, usually hit their creative peak in lower-stimulation environments. Their ideas tend to come from observing the world and spending time in nature. In today’s overstimulated world, lower-stimulation environments are not so easy to find, meaning introverts often have to work to carve out time for themselves.

I’ve found that prioritising this time for creativity – and to process the ideas that might emerge – has the joyful side-effect of more fun. Walking Mutti, our first foster “fail” dog (aka, we adopted him), is not all about Mutti with a dash of fitness for me anymore. Now it’s also about me finding big blue sky thinking as we tromp through the forest. Worthy of dedicated time indeed.

Last night, I had a gem of an idea while playing Pesky Pirates with my four-yearold niece, and another recently while zip-lining with my ten-year-old niece in Farran Woods. I’ll admit, I completely forgot the insight I had ten metres up in the trees because surviving a cargo net scramble took priority, but the Pesky Pirates inspo is golden. Billable hours, I wonder?

Even if you don’t have Energizer bunnies to turbo-charge your ideas – in the form of dogs or children – remember that the lower-stimulation moments are precious too. According to the science of daydreaming (yes, it’s there – you can look it up), these moments provide a type of mental incubation period that can enhance creative thinking, longterm planning, and self-awareness. Psychologists have been studying the concept of “positive-constructive daydreaming” for decades and uncovering the various ways the mind’s wandering is vital to imagination and creative thought.

So mull on that on your next Sunday stroll… and maybe make time for it every day of the week.

“Without creativity, we’d enjoy nothing new in the crazy world we live in.”