Creatives, Pay Yourself First!
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There’s a well-established financial concept known as “pay yourself first.”
The idea is that to properly save for wealth an individual must first put aside a small portion of their income. That slice is often suggested to be 10%. Using the remaining 90%, the individual pays the mortgage, the bills, and buys groceries. But the “mine to keep” money must come off the top. If it doesn’t, there will never be enough to go around, and the individual will stay perpetually poor.
Paying yourself first is a tough concept to grasp for some folks. It’s even harder to comprehend when you’re broke. However, I will tell you that it’s key to the early stages of wealth building. I’ve been there and it works.
An interesting thing about this principal is that it is adaptable to the artistic process as well. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing a non-fiction book or a literary masterpiece, you must creatively pay yourself first.
Let me explain.
Burning the Creative Midnight Oil
Years ago, I wrote at night. Around 9 p.m., I’d sit at my computer and put my imagination to work. The problem was (like most folks) I already had a full day at the office. It looked something like this:
6:00 a.m. – Get up, eat breakfast, read several newspapers.
7:45 a.m. – Head to the office
5:00 p.m. – Leave the office and go home
5:30 p.m. – Workout
7:00 p.m. – Eat dinner
9:00 p.m. – Be creative
10:30 p.m. – Lights out
Like anyone, my schedule flexed throughout the years. The above is only representative for a given period. By the time I put my fingers on the keyboard, I was tired. I knew I needed to keep the daily writing habit—all writers do—but must it feel like a freakin’ grind?
During the era of my evening creativity, I wrote about a hundred short stories that were hurried, disjointed, and uninspired. I also managed to finish three books that never saw the light of day. Some of the problems in those tales were young author errors, but I believe it was something bigger than that. I’ll explain in a minute.
When people are mired in a problem, they often don’t see what the root cause is especially if they think things are okay.
Success is Simple—Do What Successful People Do
I was in a writing group when another writer mentioned that she’d recently conquered her creativity issues. She fixed them by getting up earlier in the morning to write.
“Ugh,” I thought. “I don’t want to do that.”
Writing in the morning sounded as appealing as going to the gym first thing. Screw that. I did that in the Army.
Mornings were my quiet time when I could read three newspapers The Spokesman-Review, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Writing and sweating in the gym were for after work.
Did I really need to read three papers? No.
Did it make me feel successful? Yup.
Was I acting successful? Not even close.
But feeling successful took a hell of a lot less work.
So, I ignored the advice of my friend and watched her produce interesting new stories while I slogged through my late-night cram sessions. I wanted to believe I was smarter than the next person—that I had it all figured out.
But I didn’t.
This period of self-delusion continued until I read The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. I’m not going to review the book here because I’ve already done that in the Lifestyle Design section. But when I stopped reading those three morning newspapers, I suddenly found a block of invigorating writing time.
My mind felt fresh and ready.
My imagination brimmed over with new ideas.
I felt excited to be at the keyboard.
And why not?
All my creativity hadn’t been polluted with worthless media content.
All my creativity hadn’t been wasted on a day’s worth of decisions.
All my creativity hadn’t been used up making money for others.
I enjoyed writing in the morning so much I started getting up earlier. Now, I get up at 5 a.m. (sometimes before that) and can’t wait to get to my computer.
Which brings me back to my initial point of “creatively paying myself first.”
Every day, I tap into my imagination long before anyone else can. I’ve written so much over the past several years it boggles my mind. My skill as an author has jumped by leaps and bounds over where it was before.
Email is the Mind Killer
Recently, a friend told me he was having trouble with a new manuscript.
“I feel daunted by it,” he said.
That was a surprising revelation. He’s an accomplished author who knows his way around a thesaurus. When I asked him what his writing schedule looked like he said something along the lines of, “I get up, check emails, watch some YouTube, then get started.”
I recommended he stop doing anything else in the morning except write.
Don’t get me wrong; emails are important. I love them, but they will send us down a rabbit trail especially if there is a bad one. Emails can wait for a couple of hours until we get our morning writing done.
YouTube is worse than emails because it’s candy for the brain. All social media is this way. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on YouTube and started watching a video on how to find the best Amazon Keywords only to end up on the channel of Cowboy Kent Rollins learning how to make fried mac n’ cheese.
My friend listened to my story about changing habits and he started writing first thing in the morning. No emails. No YouTube. And guess what he told me? One week—17,000 words. Holy crap. That was insane!
Because he’s an experienced author, his results may not be indicative of the average writer (ha, I’ve always wanted to say something like that), but the proof is on the page. The guy is killing it now and sold on writing with a full creative tank.
So, Creatives—pay yourself first!
Don’t wait to invest in yourself at the end of the day. Only artistic leftovers remain then. Invest early when your imagination well is full of new ideas.
Don’t let others get the best of your originality. If you’re only working with the scraps of your inspiration, how will you reach your potential?
When I hit the end of day, I’m mentally spent. My mind feels worked out, pushed to the creative limits.
Then I go to sleep and wake up—excited to do it all over again.
