When we turn our passions into our business, we often lose sight of fill our creative cups outside of our work. In today’s episode, Sarah Wayte joins us to share how you can find creativity and make time for your creative pursuits! Listen in as she describes how she sets aside an hour per day for creativity and how you can get started with just 10 minutes per day.
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Guest Bio:
Who knew the girl who used a whole roll of film taking pictures of headstones (age 7) and wrote a terrible poem about memories (age 9) would become a photographer and copywriter?
Let that be your inspiration. If Sarah can do it, then really, ANYONE CAN.
Sarah has always been creative, but it took a 20-year paramedic career to work out what she really hated doing and a move halfway across the world to finally do the thing she really wanted to do. She’s nothing if a little slow to figure things out 😉 She previously ran a successful wedding and portrait photography business for almost 8 years alongside her ambulance service life. And Sarah Wayte Creative has been her full-time obsession since 2019.
English-born with proudly Maltese heritage, she’s an introvert with a fiery, passionate heart (and a tendency to wave her arms around while speaking). Yes, she says ‘arse’ and yes, she’ll pronounce words in ways that’ll make you giggle.
She’s a cat-Mum to two, childfree by choice, and wife to a fella who goes with all her madcap ideas. And she’s all about helping you to express your real, honest self through your words and photos.
Today’s episode is brought to you by my Client Hub Template inside the DIY Systems Template Shop. Business owners often have their client information spread across a variety of different tools, making it hard to access the information they need to make critical decisions. That’s why I built the Client Hub Template for Airtable, to take the guesswork out of building your own!
Here are the highlights…
[1:48] Get to Know Sarah
[2:40] Exploring Creativity in Work
[6:05] Why Copywriting
[8:19] Finding What You Love
[9:44] Finding Personal Creativity Outside of Business Creativity
[11:49] Dedicating Time and Priority to Creative Pursuits
[16:07] Potholes in When You Schedule Your Creative Time
[18:21] Pivoting Your Creative Hour as Life Shifts
[18:49] Burnout from Creativity
[21:02] Listening to Your Intuition
[22:30] Finishing Her Novel
[23:35] When Creativity Falls Into Your Business
[29:27] Getting Started with Your Creative Hour
Mentioned in this Episode
Episode 5: Avoiding Burnout with Sabrina Gebhardt
Connect with Sarah
Website: sarahwayte.com
Instagram: instagram.com/sarahwaytecreative
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sarahwaytecreative
Personal/Creative Writing: medium.com/@sarahwayte
Review the Transcript:
Colie: Are y’all tired of hearing me talk about business yet? Today’s guest is going to actually treat us to a little creativity. And I know that that fits in with the Business First Creatives podcast, but I am super excited to have this conversation today. Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Business First Creatives podcast.
Today’s guest is Sarah Waite. She is a fabulous copywriter who has rainbow hair that I am jealous of, but I’m going to let her tell you what else she does when she introduces herself. Sarah, welcome to my podcast. How are you
Sarah: I’m very well, thank you for having me.
Colie: It’s lovely to have you on. I mean, you know, when a lot of people pitch themselves, my answer is usually no. But I was already familiar with you. I was like, Oh, this is going to be a fun conversation. So tell the listening audience what you do in that fabulous accent that you
Sarah: Oh, thank you so much. That’s so funny. I don’t find my accent fabulous. It always makes me laugh when people say that. So yes, you said I’m a copywriter. I call myself a creative copywriter, but I’m also a brand photographer. that’s kind of like how I came to find out about you, actually. So through the photography side of things.
What else do I do? I’m writing a novel at the moment. I co host a creative podcast. I do all the things. I have ADHD. I should probably point that out straight from the very beginning. So lots of different things.
Colie: Okay.
I mean, I feel like that’s what people are telling me right now. Every time. I mean, people. are apologizing for their multi passionate views by saying, just so that you know, I have ADHD. I mean, I think this is the third time I’ve heard this, this week. I sense a, I sense a trend, but no, I did not know you were a brand photographer.
Okay. Your website and your photos make a lot more sense now.
Sarah: I started out actually as a wedding and portrait photographer back in 2012. I think it was, but when I moved to Canada and I had started doing the copywriting by then, I wanted, I wanted to drop the weddings because I thought, well, I can’t compete with all the amazing Canadian elopement photographers.
There’s just so many of them. But I wanted to keep the photography. I love photography. It’s one of the things that kept me creative while I was a paramedic for so long. So. Yeah, that’s uh, that’s that’s why I still keep the brand photography.
Colie: I mean, Sarah, so you are a paramedic. Tell me about
that.
Sarah: I always forget about that. I Was there I became a paramedic kind of accidentally I always tell people it was never a plan, but I did a very sensible thing when I was younger I lived I lived in a tiny little island called Malta in the middle middle of the Mediterranean and I left home at 19 to go back to the UK because I hated living on a tiny island where everybody knew everybody else’s business.
And I, well, I did everything in my power to stay away from moving back to Malta if I absolutely had to, which meant joining the ambulance service when I was 21. So I did that. I started as a dispatcher for like eight years, and then I thought, I’m not enjoying this anymore. What shall I do? Oh okay, I’ll, I’ll try and see if I can become a paramedic and we’ll see what happens.
So yeah, it kind of happened very accidentally but 20 years later I was still there.
Colie: Okay. I mean, that’s a pretty big chunk of time,
Sarah: It is, yes.
Colie: So you went from being a paramedic. When did wedding photography enter the scene?
Sarah: Around the same time I was training to be a paramedic actually I’ve been doing for so when I first joined the ambulance service I should, I should Go back a little bit and preface this. I was a writer. That’s what I was when I was younger. I wrote stories. I wrote terrible poetry. Um, I had big aspirations of being a writer, probably going to write a screenplay at some point, you know, all of these things.
Then I joined the ambulance service and it was like it knocked writing out of me completely. I joke now and say I basically had a 10 year writer’s block. But in that time I discovered photography. I needed something. I still needed to be creative. I
realized. I needed, yes, yeah, I so needed the creativity.
So I started photography, I just started taking photographs of, of like, trees and flowers and buildings and all of these kinds of things. And when I was on my paramedic training course, there was a couple on the course who were getting married. They had no money. They turned around and said to me, will you photograph our wedding?
And I went, Oh no, I’m not doing that. Terrible, terrifying. If I get this wrong, but they badgered me into it. They basically just carried on going and going. So I said, okay, fine, I’ll do it. Shot the wedding, made a hundred different mistakes while I was doing it. Fell in love with it while I was doing it.
And, uh, promptly set up a photography business whilst I was still training to be a paramedic. So,
Colie: I mean, as people do, you know how many people have photography businesses as side hustles? Hence why this podcast exists. Okay. We’re going to come to the, we’re going to come to the present time. You currently live in Canada. Your website really highlights the copywriting. And so why copywriting? Like why does that in particular bring you joy in relation to all of these other things that you’ve done previously?
Sarah: Oh, that’s a really good question. I don’t know if I’ve ever thought about that before. I think it was while I was doing my, while I had my photography business, I, the writing started to come back. So I started to… I was writing blog posts. I was writing copy for my own website, all the social posts, all of that kind of thing that was starting to become, become a thing.
And then I met, a copywriter who worked purely for the wedding industry. And we, we really hit it off and started talking. She actually gave me my very first copywriting client actually. but it was like, I moved to Canada with the whole idea that I was going to be a photographer first, like for. 80 percent of my business with a little bit of copywriting on the side.
I was going to do a little bit of blogging maybe for some people, you know, all of that kind of stuff. Within the first year I was here, I very quickly realized, oh no, no, no, it’s going to be the other way around. I much
prefer, yeah, yeah, I much prefer doing the writing for people. It’s, for me, it felt much more flexible.
The photography, I am kind of tied to locations. And there’s, there was a whole thing. I mean, I dropped wedding and portrait very quickly because I realized as well, it didn’t, To quote, you know, Marie Kondo, it didn’t give me, it wasn’t filling me with joy, it was just giving me awful nerves every time I went into a shoot, and I hated that.
I really hated feeling nervous all the time. Whereas the writing didn’t. It was something that I could not wait to get stuck into, and diving into new projects. So I knew that was the right thing to do.
Colie: and I mean, I also feel like you are another one of those unicorns. And I had a guest, her name is Kate Warwick. She was on recently. And I had this conversation with her in that if you are offering brand photography and copywriting, you can service the exact same client with both. And so that makes it to where you can increase your lifetime client value.
with each and every one of your clients, if you can offer them both. Now, of course, like you said, photography is totally location based unless you’re willing to travel. And if you’re, if your passport, your visa will allow you to work in another
Sarah: That too. Yes.
Colie: But I mean, you have the possibility of like really helping individual business owners because you can, you know, provide more than just one service that they need.
And so anytime I come across people that are able to do that, I’m like, bravo, you have set yourself up very well for your business.
Sarah: It’s just doing the things that I love to do. It’s like, I, I, because when I dropped the weddings and the portraits, I thought, oh, do I get rid of photography entirely and just do it for me as a hobby, because I made my hobbies, my job, this is what I did. You know, I, I write for
Colie: This is what you do.
Sarah: it, you know, I write for fun too.
I re, you know, I take photographs for fun. When people say to me, oh, you know, what do you do outside of work? I go, I write and I take pictures, which is exactly what I do it because I love it. So that’s kind of why I really had to keep the brand photography in there. And then, yeah, it occurred to me, actually, do you know, this is going to work for the kind of people I want to work with across the board.
And it has worked that way. You know, I’ve ended up being able to take photographs of clients, then writing their website copy, then going back and taking some more headshots and stuff for them. So it’s actually worked really nicely as a whole package.
Colie: All right. I feel like that’s the perfect segue into what we’re actually going to talk about today, because guys, before we hit record, Sarah and I did have a conversation about how she has good business skills. So I was like, okay, we’re allowed to talk about the creativity because we don’t need to, we don’t need to focus on the business, but I’ve heard you say it a few times, you know, it fills your creative cup.
And so now that I know that you actually do the things that you sell outside of your job to fill your creative cup, but like, what is it? That brings you the most creative joy outside of the things that you get paid for.
Sarah: Oh, yeah, have to be really mindful of putting my own creativity before my business creativity. for a long time I was focusing in on the clients and getting the client work done because, you know, that’s the one, that’s the thing that pays the bills. And I was getting to the end of the day and.
Thinking to myself, Oh yeah, I can write a bit of my novel at the end of the day, or I can take some pictures at the end of the day, feeling too wiped out, and all I would do is turn Netflix on, feet up, and you know, mindlessly watch TV for the
Colie: love some good Netflix
Sarah: Oh, you know, of all the things, it’s fine, but, and actually, that ends up sometimes being part of filling up my creative well as well, sometimes.
But took some time, and last, last year, I got invited to a writer’s retreat in the UK with some fellow writing friends. It was beautiful. We rented out this giant English mansion in the middle of the countryside. There was like 10 of us running around in this huge building.
Gorgeous. It was, you know, it’s just like… Beautiful. It was, it was like a villa. There was like Roman columns out in the garden. It was beautiful and sunny. We got to spend sitting out on the grass with our laptops typing. It was wonderful, and it made me realize I needed to make time for that stuff. And one of the conversations that came up was about making how to, how to make time for your, for your own creative pursuits and it.
the thing that came out for me was actually prioritizing it in my day. So it’s the very first thing I now do in my day before I look at my emails, before I look at my phone, before I let my clients rule my, my world. It’s for me, the first hour of my day is for me and it’s to do something that I want to do creatively.
Colie: Okay. So it’s the first hour of your day. So that was my first question. Like how much time do you dedicate to your creativity each day? So it’s the first hour. Now, how do you dictate what you choose to do during that hour? Is it something that’s like scheduled or do you just wake up in bed? Before, after coffee, and then decide what you’re going to do for your creative hour, because I got to tell you, I wouldn’t be able to be even a little bit creative if I wasn’t holding my cup of coffee
Sarah: Absolutely, I mean I do, I get up and I do, because I have a little routine, I have to take medications and then I can’t do anything, I can’t eat and order or eat or drink anything for an hour, so that’s my waking up time, I use that as my a little bit of meditation. Sometimes I just go back to sleep for an hour.
And then I have my, I have my morning routine, which is, you know, feeding the cats. That’s the priority. Otherwise, you know, they’ll gnaw my leg off. Getting myself my, my hot drink, having my, my breakfast, and I’m at my desk by 8am for my hour before I start my working day at nine. So yeah, that’s how I tend to work things, but it’s what dictate, there is nothing that dictates.
It’s all about how I feel. At the moment, I’m writing a novel, so my priority generally is, let’s do an hour of writing, I use like, co working groups and stuff to, to make that happen, but there are some mornings that I think, you know what, I’m just going to read today, or I’m going to journal, or I’m going to, Put some music on or you know something just something creative that for me is sometimes It’s going for a little walk and listening to a podcast those sorts of things It’s you’ve got to fill the well just as much as you as you’re, you know Sending it out into into the world as well.
So yes, it’s all about how I’m feeling
Colie: So, guys, I mean, I’m, I don’t know the episode, I’ll look at it and put it in the show notes, but, you know, Sabrina Gebhardt has been on this podcast several times, and she is always talking about white space. And it just occurred to me that, like, what you’re talking about is one block of hour each day that’s completely blank space for you to do whatever you are feeling creatively that day.
Now, Sabrina talks about how if you have this white space and you end up wanting to do something else, you can. But I’m going to tell you guys to listen to Sarah and it needs to be an hour of whatever makes you feel good in that time period that is not related to your work. So, I mean, you’ve said a lot of different things in terms of what you choose to do in that creative hour.
What happens if the hour is up and you’re still feeling creative? Like, do you give yourself a buffer?
Sarah: Oh Most of the time an hour is enough and I’m good to start my day Sometimes I get into like float like a flow state and if that happens, it’s a, it’s a quick look at my calendar. I’m like, have I got any meetings for the next? No, I’m good. Okay. We can, let’s have another hour. And you know, it all depends on, I’m also thinking about like my deadlines and what client work needs to be delivered and all of that kind of stuff.
So yeah, the calendar does still kind of dictate it a little bit for me. But, if there’s, if there’s a little bit of free space in there, I’m like, yeah, I can shuffle a few things around and let’s go into this now. Cause I’m really enjoying what I’m doing. So yeah.
Colie: and see, it’s interesting because I’m going to put something out there and I’m going to, I’m going to ask you your opinion on it. I don’t think that I could do my 1st hour of creativity in the morning because that’s actually my most productive
Sarah: Hmm.
Colie: So I feel like I am usually waking up and like immediately ready to go.
Like I’ve had some ideas from the day before. And so, I mean, sometimes I’m up at like four 30. It’s
so ridiculous, but my husband gives me coffee by the bedside. So I just literally sit up in bed and I’m drinking my coffee. But usually my brain is most productive first thing in the morning. And so I think that if I delayed that an hour, I actually do think that it would affect my work, but.
What I would love to get back to, which I didn’t do this before, but you’ve given me an idea now, so Sarah, way back when Chloe was actually still in a, in a school, like, before the pandemic, I had actually gotten it to where I turned my computer off at 2 30 every single day. I didn’t go back to work. I turned it off.
I headed to school, sat in the pickup line for, you know, 30 minutes scrolling on my phone. I picked up my child. I came home and we did our thing, whether that was playing together, reading together, going shopping for dinner, whatever it was. But now I’m thinking. If I want an hour of creativity in my day, I think I might flip what you do, which is whenever I wake up in the morning, I do my work because I’m most productive, but then I determined that I have to stop working every day at like noon or 1, and then that’s my hour of creativity in between stopping the work and figuring out how I have to pick up my kid at the end of the day.
Like, do you see any potholes?
Sarah: The only thing I, this is obviously a personal thing for me, I used to try and have my creative time at the end of my working day, and invariably, because I am terrible, I have, you know, I have ADHD, and I have calendars and things that tell me when I need to do stuff, but I always underestimate how long.
things take. And by the end of the day, I’m trying to cram it all in. So for me, it is very much about if I don’t put it at the beginning of the day, it won’t happen. So I think if you’re really good about. Blocking out that time and making sure nothing else encroaches on it, then yeah, go for it, absolutely.
I think it’s, if that’s, if that feels like a more creative time for you. I know some people, I’ve got a friend who is a complete night owl. She works until like 3, 4 o’clock in the morning in her most creative time. is in those very early hours, just before she goes to bed. So she, that’s when she does a lot of her creative stuff.
For me, it’s just like, there’s no, nothing good is going to come out of me at that time of night, you know.
Colie: mean, Sarah, I would be, I would be completely useless. Now. I will say I did used to be a night owl and then at some point it just flopped. So I think this is a good time to put out to everyone. Guys, just because your hour of creativity works at one time during a season of your life doesn’t mean that you need to pivot.
So, I mean, if you are using your first hour of your day, like Sarah does, and it’s working really well for a couple of months, like you’re really enjoying it. And then all of a sudden you’re waking up. And you’re not feeling very creative and you’re like, okay, but this is when I need to do it. Remember, things can always
change, like nothing is set in stone except for dying and paying your taxes.
I mean, those are the only two things that are you, you are required to do, but I mean, doing it in the middle of the night. Yeah, I don’t think I could do that. I was actually having an argument with Chloe recently. She wants to take a dance class. That’s 7. 45 to 8. 45 at night. And I just looked at her and I said, who do you think is going to take you to that? Cause it’s not going to be your dad who sometimes falls asleep at like 6. 30. And so now you’re asking me to, and I’m like, if I’m waking up at 4. 30, Like, I don’t want to be sitting outside a dance studio, waiting for you at 8. 45. So. I do think that you have to take your own temperament. I do think that you have to take your own schedule into account, and you just have to make sure that whatever schedule you land on is good, both for your creativity and for your business.
Because if one is working really well and the other one isn’t, you’re going to have alignment issues. And eventually you’re going to get to the point to where you are burnt out on your business. Or I mean, can you be burnt out on creativity, Sarah? Is that a
Sarah: Oh, sure, absolutely. You know, I didn’t write for 10 years in the ambulance service and I’m pretty sure that was a burnout thing. But, I do think… Especially now, now that I have this system that I’m using, that I work with, I find because I’ve got, I’m doing my creative hour, I am actually way more productive in my business when the mornings I don’t, you know, the mornings that I get, get up and think, Oh, I just going to have my coffee, get to my desk and get straight to work.
Other days that I struggle with timing and, Motivation and just like brain fog Always happens. So if I when I start my day with the creativity, I just everything seems to flow much better I get I get I just I just produce better work, which then makes me think well, then I’m doing this for my clients, too So I’m obviously gonna be doing better work for them.
Mm
Colie: I mean, and it’s really great that you noticed that. You noticed that on the days when you don’t give yourself your hour of creativity, that it is affecting your work. Because I feel like that would be more motivation for some of us that are like, You know, we’ll just skip it today, but no, if you skip it and it does actually negatively impact your work, that means you’re just pushing some of that day’s work to the next day.
And then what happens is like this snowball effect where, you know, things just keep piling up and you’re not meeting your deadlines or things like that. Sarah, what’s the best thing you’ve ever done during one of your creative hours?
Sarah: oh Oh my goodness, I think it was actually, it comes back to my novel that I’ve been writing. I’ve been writing it for about a year, but I was writing a different novel before that. And one particular morning I sat down to write this novel that I’d been, that I’d been all in, you know, with like my research and everything.
And I sat there and looked at it and went, I don’t want to do this. I want to write the novel that’s been sitting in my head for the last 10 years that I haven’t written yet. So it was a big flipper. I literally took one. pushed it to the side and went, I’m writing this new novel today. This is what I’m doing.
So that was a bit of a wake up moment. I was
going to
Colie: mean, it sounds amazing
Sarah: It was fantastic. Yeah. I was, and I’ve, and I’ve stuck at it as well for a year, which, you know, when you’ve got ADHD, that’s pretty
impressive. So yes.
Colie: Yeah. I mean, I feel like that brings up a different point that isn’t really related to creativity or business necessarily, but I feel like a lot of us don’t listen to our intuition. Like you sat down that day and you, and I’m sure that there were, there were other moments before where you were like, Hmm, I’m stuck on this part.
I don’t know where I’m going. Maybe this isn’t the right story for me to tell right now. I mean, you probably had some like internal mumblings, if you will. And that was the day that you just decided, you know what? Today’s the day that I’m going to listen to that, and I’m going to start this new novel, but I feel like often we don’t listen to that intuition.
We think that we have to keep on doing the same thing that we’ve been doing. Maybe because it’s part of our business and it’s earning us what we need to do, or it’s part of your household. And, you know, those things have just been doing that way forever. Like, I mean, I laugh when people ask me about household chores.
I’m like, no, my husband did not marry me to clean this house. I don’t do dishes. I really don’t clean. Like, I don’t, I don’t take out the garbage. I don’t do any of that. I do cook. And so, if, if things weren’t working and I was like, Oh, but you know, I’ve always cooked. Like, maybe we shouldn’t change, but like every once in a while, guys, you just have to listen to that little voice inside of you that’s telling you to do something different.
So, Sarah Creativity, your novel, what are you going to do? Well, first of all, how much more? Do you think you have to write in this novel that you’ve been working on for a year? Like, when do you think? And of course, I’m not gonna hold you to this, but when do you think it’s gonna be done?
Sarah: So my plan, I think I’m about three quarters of the way through and I’m hoping to finish the first draft by the end of this year. That’s my, that is my plan. So yeah, I’m very
Colie: so you’ve got one quarter to go.
Sarah: I have, yes, and I know where it’s going as well. It’s just like, I’m on the, like, I can see as I’m writing. It’s on the downhill straight and I can see which characters I need to kill off.
And, you know, all the things I need to do. So, yes. Ha
Colie: I like it when characters die. I mean, that’s a really bad thing to say, but I do. I mean, so when the novel is done, okay, so let me ask you a different question because You’re writing your novel now, and you see that as like your creativity now. But when the first draft is done, is working on the drafts, like editing, is that still going to be considered your creative activity?
Or does that become like a business activity, even though it’s not currently making you money? Like, is there a point to where the activity that you have considered to be creative falls into the business category?
Sarah: Ooh. You, you are good with the questions, Colie. Oh my goodness. I guess, yeah, I guess it really does. Do you know, I’ve gone into this though, thinking about it as soon as you say to people, Oh, I’m writing a novel. The first question is, Oh, you know, when are you going to get it published? Who’s going to publish it for you?
All of these questions. And I’ve gone into it thinking, trying not to think about that part. I’ve, I’ve, I’ve shut that
Colie: That’s what’s kept it creative. Okay.
Sarah: out. I’m writing this for me. It’s a story that I’ve wanted to write for, for over a decade. It’s been there in the sort of in the background. And so yeah, at the moment it’s all about, I just want to say that I first drafted a novel and when I get to the edit part, I mean I’m going to take some time off from it because any writing I need to have a little bit of space between the actual writing part and then the editing part.
So yeah, I’m going to take probably a month or so off from it, then go back in and read it as a reader. to see what I think. It’s going to need a whole lot of work, you know, at the moment I’m just doing like the bare bones of getting the story down, then I can start doing the creative stuff. So I’m hoping it will stay creative for quite a bit longer yet.
It’s probably, if, you know, if I do start looking at potentially talking to an agent or publishing or editing, all of that kind of stuff, then yeah, maybe it’s, that will change, but I’m hoping by then I’ll have something else creative on the go, you know, just like some other, other pursuits that I can fill that time with.
Colie: So someone in the listening audience is like, okay, this is for me.
I could really benefit from an hour of creativity each day. What suggestions would you make to them in order to find that first activity that they can start with? That will ease them into the hour of creativity to make sure that they can keep it going, because I would imagine that your activity can’t just be like a one day thing, because then you do it and you’re like, okay, well, shit, I don’t have anything to do tomorrow.
Sarah: Good point, absolutely. I think it’s about exploring though. For me, creativity, a lot of it is just about Trying things and see what happens. I mean, the reason I became a photographer was because I started painting first and I realized I was a terrible painter. But I had this, I had these images in my head and I just hadn’t found the right medium yet.
And then I picked up a camera and it was like, Oh, here we go. This is, this is, this is what I wanted. so yeah, that was experimentation that got me there. It’s the same with, with writing, you know, I’ve tried short stories. I’ve tried writing poetry. Not very well, you know, ad, but, but it’s, it’s.
Colie: mean, I’m not, I’m not a poetry girl either
Sarah: yeah, I love poetry, but I love reading, you know, and I get, like, Rupi, Rupi, Kaur, I can’t remember how you pronounce her surname, but, uh, this fantastic poet, when she reads, I’m like, Oh my goodness, I could so do that.
And then, no, I can’t, I cannot do it.
Colie: then you’re like, no, I can’t.
Sarah: but it is very much about experimentation. You know, I’ve, I’ve done things like I’ve tried knitting and I’m a terrible knitter. So I’ve moved on to, I do macromania, which is. It’s almost like a meditation for me. I go into a trance just knotting pieces of yarn together and something comes out of it and I realize I feel like I’ve slept for the last four hours while I’ve been doing it.
So, it’s about, for me, it’s, it’s not necessarily about what you do, it’s how it makes you feel at the time and it’s getting into that creative flow state is the best feeling, whatever that is. Whether it’s a piece of paper and you do some collaging or, you know, cutting things out of magazines or. Just paint.
I’ve got all sorts of things. I have a draw full of MacBooks that I rip up occasionally and do things with, and it’s, yeah, I, I go very much by feelings and just creating for creating sake is, is basically it. Yeah.
Colie: I’m so glad I asked you that question, Sarah. I used to be a, I used to be a knitter.
Sarah: Ah,
Colie: I would have never, I would have never considered that
Sarah: it’s so creative. Yeah.
Colie: that ridiculous? So Chloe, when she was a baby, I cloth diapered her. And one of the things that cloth diapers will tell you is, you know, sometimes you have leaks.
Well, you put them in knit pant so that it can, like, keep it all in and after spending like 60 on a pair of knit pants, I was like, I can do this. So then I started knitting diaper covers. I started knitting the, you know, the. The wool pants, if you will, so that I could stop spending 60 on the pants. And of course I ended up spending that much money on the yarn.
Cause I like the really expensive yarn, Sarah.
Sarah: of course.
Colie: So I was knitting her these pants that when you think about the cost of the yarn and the amount of hours that it took me to create them, I mean, it was way more than 60, but I did have fun while I was knitting that. And I guess another activity that I wouldn’t have really considered, but like cooking.
Sarah: Oh, so creative. Yeah. Yeah.
Colie: And unfortunately, no one in my house likes to eat the things that I like to eat, like they don’t eat Mexican. They’ll sometimes eat like Thai food. If I disguise it, mostly like Chinese. Like, I, I live with two people that if they could eat McDonald’s every day for the rest of their life, they would if they could eat chicken nuggets and fries specifically.
I mean, Chloe is just like her daddy, but. Maybe I need to think about an hour of creativity or experimentation, if you will, to try out like new recipes and bake some. I didn’t do the baking really during COVID. I mean, I worked on some cakes, but like, I wasn’t one of those people that got starter bread. I just
Sarah: Oh no, no. I started baking literally in the last year because I discovered actually, I want to be gluten free. So I had to find a bunch of gluten free recipes and now I like baking. So there you go. Yeah.
Colie: Yeah. Is there anything else that you want to share about your creativity hour, like something that you did that didn’t work very well, or just any other advice that you have for someone who knows that they need a little creativity in their life, but needs a little push to get there?
Sarah: So I think when I first started, having some creative time, I went through a phase of thinking, I have to get up at 5am to do this. This is what I need to be. Up at five, so I’ve got lots of time and I very quickly realized I am not a 5am girl. It’s just not. me. I cannot do it for love. I’ve tried so hard, but also the thing I’ve, learned is, so I’ve had to learn like what my wake up pattern is.
And for me, it’s very slow. I come to, I come to life very, very slowly. So I’ve embraced that and I’ve figured out how to build that into my morning routine, but my morning routine starts the night before I’ve got really good at my bedtime routine, to help me. Get better in the mornings. I know I’ve noticed if I don’t follow my my a good going to bed routine the next day I won’t do my creative thing because I’m too tired and I will have this terrible day of not being very productive and not getting all the things done.
So it is definitely for me it’s it’s it’s a whole um
Colie: It’s creating
Sarah: yes totally creating habits and but it’s really starting way back way before you think you need to so you know things like. I stopped looking at my phone at a certain time. I, I put my phone on charge in a different room overnight. That’s been a really big one for me.
, I fill a lot of my creative time with reading. So I do a lot of reading lasting at night as well, where I, I’ve gone through a phase of not reading for like 18 months, I think it was, which is unheard of for me. And now I’m, now I’m down, I’m back to reading a book a week. So it’s.
And that’s all just through starting off with like 10 minutes. I always, and that was the, actually, sorry, this is kind of like a bit garbled, but, um,
Colie: It’s okay. I am
Sarah: Good, I’m pleased that when I started the creative practice as well, it wasn’t about having an hour, it was about having 10 minutes. I read something somewhere that said, If you’ve got 10, everyone’s got 10 minutes, and if that means just turning off TV 10 minutes earlier, or putting your phone down for 10 minutes, or just some, we’ve all, you can, everyone can figure out 10 minutes in a day, and you, you do 10 minutes, and you realize, actually, I can stretch this to 15, then I can stretch it to 20, and before you know it, you’re doing an hour every day, and it’s, yeah, yeah, absolutely, it just becomes, it’s very slowly building up that habit, I think.
I’m pretty sure like it was in Atomic Habits or something like that they talked about slowly building up the thing as well so yeah that’s that that’s how it kind of started for me was just like oh I can do 10 minutes you know there are famous novelists who wrote their book in 10 minutes every morning for however many years it took them it’s doable it is totally doable so starts very small and build up on it
Colie: I mean, Sarah, that was perfect. It’s totally doable. Everyone can start small, start with 10 minutes a day and just build yourself up. And I will say in case you’ve never again heard it, heard me talk about white space. You should really make it non negotiable, like, and I think in Sarah’s case, she is just doing the hour, you know, after she’s woken up.
And like, if you are someone that needs to wake up at the same time every day, and you need that structure in order to make your day go, that’s great. But otherwise, like, for someone like me, who. On the days when I have to take Chloe to school, I’m now waking up at 7 15, which is much later than I was, but like on the day when James is home and I’m not responsible for that.
I mean, I would love to stay in bed until like 8, 39 o’clock, but I would make sure if my hour of creativity was in the morning. I would just make sure that I was at least waking up to give myself the hour before whatever my work is for the day starts. So, yeah. If you need to be flexible, be flexible. If you need to have structure, have structure.
You get to do whatever is going to make this most effective for
you.
Sarah: 100%
Colie: Sarah, now we didn’t actually talk about your business. I mean, we talked about all the things that you’ve done, but we haven’t actually talked about like what an awesome copywriter you are and where people can find out more information about you. So tell us where you exist on the internet so that people can find out more about you and your services.
Sarah: Sure, yeah, so my website is sarahwayte. com. I’m sure you’ll put that in the show notes, I don’t need to go spelling it
Colie: I will
Sarah: aNd I’m mostly on Instagram because, you know, it started off as a photography platform and that’s
why
Colie: as photography. I mean, that makes total
Sarah: exactly. Instagram and… Hang on, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.
I am Sarah White Creative. Yeah, I mean, I, I, I use LinkedIn, but it’s not my favorite space. Um,
Colie: not mine either, but I’m making an effort. I’m making an error. Sarah, and you need to make an effort too, since you work with business
Sarah: is very true, yeah, I do, I do try,
Colie: to make the effort.
Sarah: Absolutely, and , I put some of my personal pieces on Medium as well, so if you search for Sarah Wayte on Medium, you’ll find, I write, I mostly write about, my years as a paramedic, so there’s a lot of, it’s a little bit doom and gloomy and a bit deathy, but you know, there’s a lot of stuff on
Colie: So everyone, I hope that this conversation with Sarah has inspired you to add an hour of creativity to your day. And if you are feeling inspired, I would love to hear what you do in your hour of creativity. Hit me up on Instagram at Colie James.
That’s it for this episode. See you next time.
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