You know the feeling: deadlines are looming, your to-do list is as long as your arm and you check Teams just to realise someone’s put another meeting in your diary. Safe to say, there’s a lot going on – and not enough hours in the day to get it all done. What do you do?
While it’s tempting to burrow yourself under a blanket on the sofa and wallow in denial with your good friends Ben and Jerry, there is a way to get through these periods of overwhelm – ones that don’t involve joining the ‘5am club’, mastering complicated journaling hacks or filling your phone with productivity apps.
Instead, what might help is just picking up a good book: one read, sharing one approach to boosting productivity (that’s far kinder and more accessible, might we add). Here are the books we’d recommend, those that strip it back to the essentials to help you reconnect with your creativity and find a method that actually works for you. Whether you’re manifesting or looking for a manifesto, we’ve got you covered...
The Skills by Mishal Husain
This is everything you need to succeed in your career, packed into one motivating guide. Whether you’re a recent graduate navigating the scary world of your first job, a working mum juggling multiple priorities, or someone considering a big career pivot, Mishal Husain offers lots of encouragement and practical advice. Drawing on her own remarkable journey to becoming the first Muslim woman to present Britain’s flagship radio breakfast programme, she shares all the lessons that helped her break barriers in a traditionally white, male industry. These bitesize insights, tips, and reminders are just the right length to dip into with a morning coffee.
Pigeonholed: Creative Freedom as an Act of Resistance by Gary Younge
Pigeonholed is an inspiring, compact 48-pager – perfect for your lunch break. Drawing on his own career at The Guardian, Gary Younge reflects on being positioned as the ‘Black journalist’, being expected to write from a racialised lens, and the burdens of representation in elite spaces. He delves into the pressure on marginalised individuals to represent their communities whilst preserving their creative freedom, and how refusing to be ‘pigeonholed’ is, in itself, an act of resistance. It is a rallying cry to broaden the creative space for all while embracing creative autonomy, and an uplifting voice for anyone experiencing writer’s block or wanting to speak on their own terms.
The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
Rick Rubin, legendary music producer, offers a thoughtful and philosophical take on creativity in The Creative Act, inviting us to think about creativity not as something you do, but a way of being. It’s a continuous cycle: from planting the seeds, to experimenting, to crafting, to completion. This book has a lovely meditative pace; definitely one for the reflectors and the slow readers. You’ll be crafting your masterpiece with a side-serving of deep awareness in no time. But if you’re looking for more of a how-to guide, we’ve covered all bases with our next pick.
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
Got the first draft of a novel sitting around, an unfinished song, or a creative project that you keep putting off? The Artist’s Way is the cult creativity manual that has fueled the artistic lives of countless writers, directors, actors and musicians, including Reese Witherspoon, Alicia Keys, Martin Scorsese and Elizabeth Gilbert. Structured as a 12-week programme, the book guides you through tools designed to reconnect you with your own innate creativity. Julia Cameron’s encouraging voice guides you through ‘morning pages’ – three pages of journalling first thing each day – and weekly ‘artist dates’ designed to nurture your creative impulses; think gallery visits or walks in nature. Part spiritual guide, part workbook, The Artist’s Way is the go-to for getting unblocked and letting your creativity flow.
