The Artist's Way: How Unstructured Time Unlocks Creativity and Flow

What’s not to love about this riot of flowers?

It takes time—loose, unstructured dreamtime—to experience nature in a meaningful way.
~Richard Louv

The other day, I took myself on an Artist Date—wandering through neighborhoods full of gorgeous flower gardens and signs of civic activity: a hot race for a couple city council seats; support for love, immigrants, equality; the sweetest Little Free Library—a testament to the best of democracy, it asked for reciprocity, supported bilingualism, honored beauty, and came complete with a rooftop garden and solar. I stopped in vintage stores, gazed at art, meandered through Japanese antiques, and walked in the woods. I checked out an open house at a charming victorian home. I watched people; I talked to people. It was an entirely lovely day.

I didn’t actually recognize it as an Artist Date (ala Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way) until the next day. Rather, my day was open, and feeling called to wander, I just walked out the door. (It helps that I’m visiting a town (still on my Gypsy Wagon tour), that while not entirely new, still holds lots of surprise.)

All the signs of an engaged community

Contemplating it the next day, I recognized it for what it was—juicy, luscious unstructured time with no agenda and no expectation. As Julia Cameron describes it, Artist Dates are assigned play. The Artist Date is a once-weekly, festive, solo expedition to explore something that interests you. The Artist Date need not be overtly “artistic”—think mischief more than mastery. Artist Dates fire up the imagination. They spark whimsy. They encourage play.

I had no idea where it was going. All I knew is that I encountered plenty of whimsy, and, I felt full. This is the point, really.

Turns out neuroscience corroborates what wanderers like me have always known: when we're not focused on external tasks, the brain's default mode network becomes active; as the mind idles and drifts, this network gives rise to ideas, and at times, creative breakthroughs. Being in nature takes this even further—natural environments evoke a state of soft fascination that allows the mind to rest and reflect, helping to replenish cognitive resources depleted by everyday mental fatigue, a phenomenon researchers Rachel and Stephen Kaplan call Attention Restoration Theory. This is why a day of aimless wandering feels so nourishing.

An unfortunate reality of our modern culture is its constant pressure to produce, often over all else and at any cost. In this context, for many, the idea of an Artist Date is, if not anathema, certainly a cause for resistance (I don’t have the time. Wouldn’t that be nice?). I’ve witnessed friends coping with these pressures through avoidance—some by overstuffing their schedules, others by numbing out with doomscrolling or drinking. In all cases, they’re not fully present, not comfortable with unstructured time, and certainly not available for spontaneity. And, their nervous systems seem tapped out. It leaves me wondering: What would have to be true for them to have a day like mine? What would they have to let go of? What would they have to risk?

Paradoxically, those who suffer most—with always-on nervous systems, plagued by productivity guilt, uncomfortable being alone—are both most in need of unstructured time and most resistant to it. It reminds me of the Zen proverb: You should meditate for twenty minutes a day, unless you are too busy. Then you should meditate for an hour.

I am accustomed to functioning in flow. I’m certainly not always there, but I understand what conditions and activities help cultivate it, what mindset gets me there. My days have space in them—that's not an accident, it's a choice I've made and remade. So, it wasn’t all that surprising that the very next day after my Artist Date, I received a text from my friend Frieda Nixdorf: I have all these art supplies. My mom was an artist and I want to use them but they’ve just been sitting there. I was wondering if you wanted to come over and play around with painting?

We hadn’t talked of this. She didn’t know of my Artist Date. But, somehow, someway, we both knew.

Today, I visited her home, met some of her family and all the critters, and she and I spent the afternoon painting. She told me that lately she’s been clearing all sorts of things and finding herself moving in flow. She’s been operating in Yes! mode—stepping in to actively participate in life, following her intuition. She found herself inspired to invite me to paint and rather than question it, she asked. Little did she know that I’d been preparing myself for the request with an Artist Date.

And so it was, two friends painting on a Monday afternoon in honor of her late mother, both living in flow and both willing to say Yes!

Our painting date

To saying Yes!

xo Wendy

What would have to be true for you to say yes to an unexpected invitation on a Tuesday afternoon?