What do you do to keep your creative juice flowing after working on mundane work?

[Neel_K]

We all work 9to5 or freelance or something else; for long working hours, same project, sometime mundane work, right? Then how you keep your self creative?

I personally make small side project on weekend and learn something new; generally these project deal more with hands-on work. for example; few weeks back I made wind sculpture with aluminum. Sometime I make music, short films, and learn code.

What do you do?

[Leslie Moak Murray]

This resonated with me because I'm on a horrendous deadline right now, and being creative on demand can be challenging. But that's part of being a professional. The client does not care if you're "not in the mood."  You just do it. The problem is that with what we do, we have to make sure it doesn't show when we aren't in the mood. I mean I'm almost always in the mood to draw, but it's the tedious parts such as assigning product numbers and organizing the layers so they make sense to the production people etc.that kill me.

When I need a shot in the arm, I go on Behance and look around at all the inspiration. Sometimes it's a bad idea when it ends up making me feel bad about myself hahaha. It's also a good idea to come here to take a break..Good grief, I just realized it's 1:19 in the morning. I have to make myself stop working earlier than this!

[Peru Bob]

I take a break and view some of my previous projects.  I notice the things I did well and the things I could have done differently.

[SJRiegel]

I take a photo walk.

I am not a professional-quality photographer, but a photo walk makes me really look at the color and composition of everything around me, which refreshes my ability to look at those things in my work. (The fresh air and exercise doesn't hurt, either.)