It's Time to Bring Untime Into Your Creative Routines

For too many years, I approached my creative writing as an assigned task with time limits in a structured environment. I had to because I had so much going on. School, job, and family. Creating was something that had to fit into my busy schedule. Here’s a few minutes to work, take it or leave it.

That worked in a sense. I produced short stories, screenplays, and three novels. I got a bunch of stuff done. Hooray for me.

The part that was missing was a gentle interface with my subconscious. When an idea emerged, I was quick to push it and get it into some work. I rarely played with ideas in my head.

I didn’t have a lot of untime in my life.

Untime is like regular time but you don’t have a deadline looming, or something your need to got done. You aren’t hiding from something else during this time—that would weigh on your mind, thinking you really should be elsewhere.

You can think of untime as a quiet break in your schedule. You’re probably alone, it’s quiet, and you can do whatever you want.

That’s the best chance for you to play with ideas.

When relaxed, alone, and free from distractions, you give ideas to surface from your subconscious. What sort of ideas? All kinds, really. That’s the fun part.

If you’ve been writing, or reading, or building something, ideas may surface about any of those projects, or all of them.

If you’ve been stressed about your job or family, ideas may surface about how to deal with that.

If you’ve been hoping to work on a new creative project, ideas may surface about things you’d like to create. Stories from your childhood may pop up. A trauma you thought you dealt with may hit you from out of nowhere. Or you may think of a place you’re interested in, or a person you used to know.

The best way to experience untime is to have a journal handy to capture these ideas and memories. Don’t judge them, don’t try to expand them. Just capture while you go about whatever you were doing.

Untime isn’t necessarily do-nothing time. It’s actually best to work on one of your creative projects in this stress-free period in your day.

For me, it’s getting up before my wife, dogs, and job get started. I have a couple of hours to myself. I write my morning pages, journal about projects I’m working on, and advance whatever my main project is.

I’ll work on a novel, or a website, or a newsletter, or a blog, doing the work. It’s untime because of the quiet and I’m not on a deadline. If I want to switch from one to the other, I switch.

Ideas flow once I’m busy with the relaxed-attitude “work,” and I jot down the ideas as they come. It’s a relaxing way to be creative.

If you get up before work to advance one of your creative projects, but you’re pushing yourself to hit a word count goal, or you need to get something published by eight o’clock or whatever, it may not be untime.

It’s fine, obviously, to get stuff done outside of untime. Do it. We all have to.

Just know that it’s not untime, and maybe you need some in your life.

This is different for everyone. Now that our kids are adults, it’s super easy for me to start my day before things get noisy around here and before my job. That’s my untime.

You may be able to get up early, but you also have to get to bed earlier because you still need a full night of restful sleep.

Or you may have the time in the evening when everyone else has called it a day and, finally, no one is going to bother you.

Maybe it’s a stop at the library after work with the phone turned off. You’re surrounded by strangers and there’s someone whose job it is to tell them to shut up when they get loud.

Find your untime. It may seem like you’re wandering aimlessly, but it may become your favorite time of the day.