Rethinking Creative Living for Changing Times

25 Sept

A recurring conversation with one of my closest friends is about time, time management, and perhaps more precisely, a low-grade, periodic anxiety of feeling behind. We talk about the pressure to do more, be more, keep up and wonder when our work will reach the heights of success we aspire to. But we also discuss the quiet rebellion of resisting toxic productivity, trying to move differently, and trusting our own rhythms and timelines. This becomes ever more necessary when juggling uncertainty, feeling as though you’re in survival mode, or experiencing the dull ache of being away from the studio. Like many artists, I’ve been in many seasons where everything feels stretched, including time, energy, and resources.

When life begins to feel stretched thin, one quiet act of resistance is to deliberately reclaim time around work, responsibilities, and the general pull of life. These pockets are often small; a couple of hours before the house wakes, 30 minutes before the train, a burst of writing before bed, but they’re often the most meaningful parts of the day. Something opens in them. One post-it note can evolve into a flurry of ideas that carries me into the next day. It shifts the day from survival to something closer to living.

Even when it’s just half an hour before heading into an eight-hour shift, that time can change the tone of the entire day. It’s a reminder that meaningful work doesn’t require endless hours, but steady, focused effort, even in small windows. Over the course of a month, that’s 60 hours. Enough to finish the draft manuscript, storyboard a short film, map out an exhibition, or finally begin shaping a creative project that’s been percolating for years. Our biggest work doesn’t need unlimited free time but consistent space, reclaimed day by day, even while holding down a 9–5.

Within the pages of Daily Rituals by Mason Currey lies a powerful testament to this: our greatest artistic work can be harnessed over time in the hidden folds of ordinary days. I dip into it often, especially when that familiar feeling creeps in…that I should be more “on track,” more productive, more like some imaginary version of where I ought to be by now. That book reminds me that writers, painters, and composers across the centuries have made their work around life, not outside of it, in late-night bursts, during lunch breaks, in the quiet hours after putting their children to bed.

Oliver Burkeman captures this tension well in 4,000 Weeks, when he writes, “We’ve been granted the mental capacities to make almost infinitely ambitious plans, yet practically no time at all to put them into effect.” This push and pull between creative ambition and lived reality is something many artists quietly carry. It’s compounded by the fact that many inherited models of what it means to be a successful artist were born in very different circumstances—times when rent was cheap, resources more accessible, and the idea of embarking on a year-long sabbatical solely focused on creative work seemed possible. It may have been simple living, but not inconceivable for a few thousand dollars. Stephen Pressfield’s anecdotes about success often reference a similar tactic.

Yet 2025 paints a very different economic picture for living frugally. The ideal of making sacrifices but getting by on cheap rent has become far less attainable for the average graduate living almost anywhere in the Western hemisphere. A quiet rural setting can now cost upwards of £1,000+ a month before bills, insurance, or even basics like food and materials. Wages haven’t kept pace, and living costs have soared. So I’m making a case for new models of sustaining a creative life, which for many of us may mean holding down a 9–5 long term, or even for a while longer, and this doesn’t need to be viewed or felt as a creative failure. It’s what keeps the creative life afloat. If you’re anything like me, the creative juices tend to dry up when the rent is pending.

If we romanticise the past without acknowledging these shifts, we risk discouraging ourselves unnecessarily. The pressure to “keep up” with outdated models of artistic success can become quietly corrosive. But when we honour the truth of our own time, that most working artists today balance multiple jobs, side hustles, and daily survival, we can open the door to a new kind of legitimacy: one rooted not in escapism, but in resourcefulness.

We may not have year-long residencies in Paris, but we do have pockets of sacred time that we can reclaim and use to stay on the road to where we are going: an hour in the morning, a night after work, the train ride, the lunch break. When used with intention and consistency, these moments inevitably add up. Our creative lives may look different, but they are no less valid. In fact, they may be more radical than ever.

Maybe the question isn’t, “Why can’t I work on my art full time?” but rather, “How do I reclaim the time that will inevitably make way for my best work to arrive regardless?”

Further Reading