Even the most creative people get stuck in a rut sometimes. One way to snap out of it is to make a creativity todo list: a list of things to get you unstuck. The list can be short or it can be long. It could be written by hand, on a white board, in a blog post, in frige magnets, or just jotted down in TextEdit. You can keep it to yourself or tell the entire world. The items can be super specific, like “make a birthday card for my Aunt using pressed daisies” or more vague, such as “observe the world around me.” There are only a few rules, and they are as follows:

1. The items on the list should be easily doable. This isn’t the same as a bucket list. This is a “do right now so you can start living” list.
2. If you’re stuck on something specific, don’t put that on your list. For example, if you’re working on a novel and you have writers block, “write 1000 words in the novel” should not be on your creativity todo list.

Need some inspiration? The internet has tons [Disclaimer: I do not necessarily agree with everything on these lists]:

• This list of 33 Ways to Stay Creative is all over the internet. My favorite is “Stop trying to be someone else’s perfect.”
• This Creative ToDo List is very artfully done. (I must strongly disagree with the “no more cat videos” one, however. Everyone needs more cat videos.)
• This Tumblr blog was supposed to get up to 365 Ways to Stay Creative but they appear to have gotten stuck at 85. Maybe they need to make a creativity todo list. Still, it has several gems, like this one:

• This is a bunch of creative advice from very creative person, Miranda July, including:

Nothing I can come up with these days is as scary as opening for punk bands in bars back before anyone knew who I was. Sometimes these audiences were so confounded, so unfamiliar with the idea of “performance” that they would get angry and yell at me while I performed. I remember searching the crowd for the eyes of one woman who looked like she might know I was I was talking about. I would do it for her; that would get me through it.

•  This is the story of one writer’s quest to reclaim creativity, along with some great advice like “embrace the suck.”
• This is a list of creativity killers, or things not to do. (I disagree with the not following the news one. I think it’s important to be informed of what’s going on in the world, and often that inspires creativity.)
• This is a creativity quick fix. It’s not a list, it’s just one idea, and it’s perfect.

Here’s my Creativity ToDo List:

1. Take a walk to the East River.
2. Write a haiku.
3. Draw something from one of  my instagram photos.
4. Paint my toenails for sandal weather.
5. Practice using my new bamboo brush.

It’s short and sweet, but easily doable! I’ll post my results once I’ve completed the things on my list. Happy creating!

[Title image photo by John-Morgan.]