Is Facebook killing your creativity time?

This week, I reached Level 500 on the Words of Wonder game on Facebook.

Woo-hoo!

Hang on a minute…

500 levels?

It takes me about two minutes to play each level. And of course, I don’t always succeed the first time – sometimes it takes me weeks of trying.

And it’s not the only Facebook game I play, of course. There’s Candy Crush Saga, Juice Jam, some Christmas thing I can never remember the name of, Pet Rescue Saga, Candy Crush Soda Saga, Guess the 70’s… and 80’s… and 90’s… and a whole load of others I tried for a few levels and then got bored with.

I’m not an online gaming addict, but over the last couple of years I must have played about 2500 games.

And I have to wait a few minutes before I play each time for it to load the game, ask me to ‘enjoy this message from our sponsor’ and try some pathetic attempts to trick me into buying ‘gold’ so I won’t realise how much the extra boosts will cost. Not a chance! I’m no sucker – or am I?

Making time for creativity

You’re a creative person.

You’re full of exciting ideas – if you could only decide which to start on first.

You’ve got the skills to make something good – maybe even something amazing.

Yet somehow you never seem to have enough time to… well… create anything.

You start projects, but they never get finished.

Those brilliant ideas lose their savour halfway through, so nothing feels good enough.

You go over things in your head so many times that they’re so familiar, you have a feeling they’re not original – that you must have heard them somewhere else.

And life gets in the way, and it seems self-indulgent to waste time on your personal creative projects when there are so many more important calls on your attention.

So you end up with a handful of crumpled dreams.