Until recently, I haven't considered myself a very creative person.
This was highlighted to me when I started Ali Abdaals Part-Time YouTuber Academy in March 2022 and I was struggling to come up with content ideas for my YouTube channel.
Then, during one of the live classes on the course, Ali mentioned that a useful tip he was recommended by a business coach, which helped unlock his creativity and business ideas, was to take a Clarity Break.
"Yes" I thought, "I'm gonna take one this week."
Sure enough, I took my first Clarity Break on Wednesday morning between 8-9am in Queens Park, Brighton. I found a bench overlooking the pond, and the rest is history.
What is a Clarity Break?
The concept is really simple.
A Clarity Break is a regularly scheduled time in your calendar to spend with yourself.
There are two rules:
- You need to be outside of your regular place of work and somewhere where you won't be disturbed.
- This is not catch-up time to work on outstanding tasks.
You define how regular you take the break and for how long - once a week for an hour, once a month for half a day - armed only with a pen and notebook.
Then you wait. As soon as ideas start popping up in your head, your pen and notebook come in handy and you start to write.
What happened on my first Clarity Break?
After grabbing a coffee and finding the perfect bench to sit on, sitting down, I set a timer for 60 minutes and my first official Clarity Break started.
It took about 30 seconds of staring into the pond before I was writing furiously in my notebook. Loads of ideas were popping up in my head.
From buying a portfolio of Shopify stores and using them to sponsor my YouTube channel to writing individual emails to my newsletter subscribers asking how I can best serve them.
I filled 3 pages full of ideas in my notebook.
Later that week, I reviewed all of the ideas that I wrote down. Some were better than others and after some pruning, I transferred those ideas that I thought had the most legs into the Idea List in my Notion dashboard.
That's where they become 'slow burns' that I can develop over time and call on when I'm ready to start a new project or make changes to my business.
It's not all business ideas + insights
A week later, I took my second Clarity Break, and that was altogether a different experience.
This time around, the whole hour was filled with me questioning my character and reflecting on some challenges that I was facing at the time.
Some of the questions that came up were difficult and I didn't come up with any answers during my Clarity Break. What I did come up with, however, was a list of next actions for me to take in order to start getting some answers.
That Clarity Break lead me to one conclusion, which I told my girlfriend over breakfast the following day.
Final Thoughts
I was amazed at how beneficial taking a regular schedule Clarity Break has been from both a business and a personal perspective.
The benefit stems from the lack of distraction that you have during the Clarity Break - no phone, no laptop, no people - just you, a pen, and a piece of paper (or notebook in my case).
Taking a Clarity Break has become a new habit and I've got a weekly session scheduled on my calendar now.
I'm looking forward to seeing what comes up in future sessions!
Thanks, Ali