In 1926, a guy called Arnold Bennett wrote a short book to help people get more out of their lives.
He called it:
“How to Live on 24 Hours a Day.”
The gist:
Most people come home from work, collapse on the sofa, watch a little television, eat a meal… and then say, “By George! Is that time for bed already?” So they go to bed, wake up tired, and arrive unenthusiastically at work the next day.
For these people, evenings and weekends fly by, and their entire life seems to revolve around just one thing:
Work.
Bennett’s solution?
Make the most out of your time outside of work.
Because ironically, the more productive your leisure time, the more energised and creative you’ll feel when working.
Sounds weird, but I’m with him 100%.
When I waste time watching Netflix or scrolling through socials, I always feel more “meh” about work the next day.
So, in today’s edition of Coached…
Let me tell you why we're all feeling a bit dead inside.
Science lesson: you NEED creativity to be happy
Creativity — the act of making/trying new things — literally triggers dopamine (the feel-good chemical in our brains). It’s one of the big drivers of motivation and satisfaction.
There's even a theory that creativity is what made us human - it's what separates us from chimps.
Is that baloney? I'm not a biologist, so can't say either way.
But look at human history. We've always been creators: fires, huts, shelters, weapons, tools, clothes, jokes, stories, cave drawings, paintings, recipes, words, ideas and businesses.
Whether it's 10,000 BC or 2024, it doesn't matter - creating is natural to us.
But here's our modern problem:
We CONSUME way more than we create. Netflix. Instagram. Twitter/X. YouTube.
And at work? We're stuck in routines. Same meetings, same tasks, same problems, day after day.
Almost zero novelty. Zero autonomy. Zero creativity.
No wonder we feel... blah.
So…
How do we inject this "creativity" back into our lives?
CREATE.
(duh)
To fix this, you need to start creating again.
The goal is to do something that you do NOT normally do. Essentially - force your brain to think in new ways again.
Break your routine. Make your brain solve a new problem. At work, but also outside of work.
A lot of people confuse creativity with being artsy — but creativity here is more about newness. It’s the mental equivalent of stretching muscles you haven’t used in years.
Here's what's working for me
For a while now, I've been doing what I’m calling now as "creativity workouts" - basically, COMMITTING to doing something creative every week. Some examples…
For work:
Writing career advice from a fresh, playful angle (like the essay I wrote on "how to win at work while being LAZY" - read it here if you missed it, a lot of people liked it!)
Writing the occasional ‘funny’ content on LinkedIn, instead of only serious career advice, like this
Doing stand up comedy - I wrote about what standup taught me here (it’ll teach you how to become more interesting and a better communicator)
What do you notice?
None of these were "urgent" or even "important". The point is working that creativity muscle and giving our brain what it craves!
And stuff like this seems to work. It might be placebo, it might be the dopamine, who knows — but I feel recharged every time I work on one of these kinds of tasks.
You can also do this outside of work. I’d also experiment with things like these:
Trying a totally new workout or new machines/exercises at the gym I’ve never done before
Listening to podcast categories I usually skip
…got a smart friend who loves getting better?
Tell them about Coached! I put a ton of time into my essays and love seeing them reach people who want more out of their careers.
If you want to share this essay with a friend, or colleague, here’s a link to it: https://coached.com/essays/add-creativity/
Some ideas for you
Steal anything above. Or try these low‑effort ones:
Spend a few hours revamping that presentation deck template you always use
Write an essay to your future self
Rewrite your elevator pitch from scratch
Come up with a new recipe
Rearrange a room or desk
Write a short LinkedIn post about a random topic you like - fashion, history, etc.
(And, if you're posting on LinkedIn, make sure your profile clearly represents you—people who read your posts will inevitably check you out. First impressions matter. Use this quick tool from Resume Worded to optimize your LinkedIn profile. Takes 30 seconds. Check it out here.
Start small! The important thing is to make creativity a habit.
Nothing needs to be important or life‑changing.
The goal is simply to use the creativity muscle that corporate life almost never asks for.
This stuff works (and makes you BETTER at work)
A cool example of someone who practiced creativity is Oren Klaff.
Klaff’s one of the most successful dealmakers of all time, making more than $2 billion dollars (that’s billion, with a “B”) worth of deals single-handedly, competing on his own against the biggest investment banks on the planet.
On a podcast, he mentioned one of his “secret” weapons that transformed his deal-making skills.
You know what it was?
It wasn’t hard work…Or “networking”...
It was classes in improv comedy.
Improv forced him to be creative and “get loose”, which helped him think on his feet and be more engaging in his deals.
This also connects to something I've noticed again and again:
The most valuable careers aren't built on being world-class at one single skill — they're built on combining skills that rarely go together.
People assume career growth means becoming deeply specialized. But you don't need to become the world's leading expert in one field to stand out. You can combine multiple interests instead.
Practically, this means following your curiosity even if it seems unrelated to your job:
If you like consumer psychology, read that psych paper that caught your eye — it won't be a waste of time. It might just shift how you approach feature design.
Fascinated by stand-up comedy? Learn joke-writing techniques — it might make your sales demos far more persuasive.
You can't predict exactly how different interests will overlap. But they almost always do, in surprising, valuable ways. And the more unusual your skill combo, the more unique your career becomes.
To wrap up…
Here's what I've learned:
The happiest people aren't the ones with the perfect jobs.
They're the ones who never stopped creating.
Even if it's just for fun.
Especially if it's just for fun.
So tonight, when you're about to collapse on that sofa (like our friend from 1926)...
Try creating something instead.
Anything. Just make it new.
Your brain will thank you.
What’s your creativity workout going to be?
