We’ve all been there. You worked really hard to get into your dream school, your dream job, and finally, your dream company — just to secure a position in society that you think you would be proud to identify with.

It starts out just fine. You consider yourself fairly diligent; after all, that’s how you got this far. You pour your heart and soul into every task assigned to you. You fight to do everything perfectly, even if it means struggling till the crack of dawn to meet a deadline. You lose count of the number of times you cancel on social appointments because your career takes priority, and people begin to accept that you are never going to be there, not anymore.

When you allow yourself to be consumed whole by your career like this, your identity becomes wrapped up in it. Over time, you begin to associate your self-worth with how successful your career is, and if that falls through — take it from me — it will tear you apart.

I’m not here to tell you that you should give up on your dreams, or that you should give up on the idea of building a career completely. I’m here to tell you that you are more than the work you do.

“Futures not achieved are only branches of the past: dead branches. ” — Italo Calvino

Would it really make a difference if you slowed down, took a step back to think about personal goals and dreams (that do not involve your career)? When everything at work commands urgency, and every task demands your immediate attention 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, how do you keep up with such a lifestyle without falling apart?

I couldn’t. In my head, my sense of self-worth was at an all time low. I felt diminished, like I’d lost a part of myself. I couldn’t sleep because I was constantly anxious about work left undone, and I blamed myself for my inability to cope. I was beginning to feel like a fraud.

I don’t know what the long term effects of my coping mechanisms — multiple cans of red bull and coffee in a day to stay awake, heavy smoking, alcoholism — are going to do to me. I don’t know what I’ve done to myself, but I know that I was slipping steadily into a self-destructive rut and that was when I requested to resign my position at the company.

When you find yourself in situations like mine, you need to listen to your gut. Don’t hold on to a job long after you’ve burnt out, even if it means tearing yourself away from the one thing you once thought made you happy. Remember, you are more than the work you do.

You will thank yourself for that.

Do you find unique ways to “upcycle” random objects by accumulating a collection of items?

Do you have a desktop so cluttered with screenshots and files that you can’t see your wallpaper?

Do you have multiple Chrome browsers with hundreds of tabs open?

If you answered yes to any of the questions above, don’t worry, there is light at the end of the tab.

It’s not news to anyone that creative people have messy minds. Google ‘creative minds’ and you’ll find a slew of articles that teach creatives to “declutter their mind” in order to think through the mess.

Why can’t we be organised, you ask? There are many reasons why creatives hoard, one of which is to ensure they never lose an opportunity to create something amazing. They are inspired by the sheer potential of information; which they would park in their browser tabs or stash away in a storage area for later use.

As an inspiration hoarder, I swing back and forth between hoarding and brutal, self-imposed editing. I don’t know about you, but that is how I hustle. This occurs most often when I am pressured to produce more content, better content, original content, within a short span of time. My day job as a creative doesn’t allow me the luxury of doing nothing until inspiration hits me, which, funny enough, is every self-help article’s prescribed antidote to creative blocks.

If you have the same problem as me, you know that doing nothing isn’t the answer. You fire up the Google search bar with the wrath of a thousand Conservatives protesting outside an abortion clinic. You speed read article after article on everything remotely relevant to the topic at hand, trying to locate that tingling thrill of inspiration. Suddenly, you’ve amassed a mountain of material, most of which you don’t need. Here is where your hoarding becomes beneficial — let me break it down for you:

Step 1: Give yourself a time limit to stop looking for new material. Set the alarm. Don’t procrastinate here.

Step 2: Take a step back and identify the objectives of your project. Re-read every article, re-watch every video in your collection, and sift out the ones you can use.

Step 3: Here’s the brutal part: delete everything else. Put your files in the right order. Re-organise your downloads folder to stabilise your mind.

Step 4: Trust yourself and acknowledge that creativity works subconsciously. Use whatever you’ve saved and map it till you make it.

Don’t underestimate the importance of Step 3. If you skip it, you’ll likely find yourself in the deep, dark recesses of the Internet a week later, having made no progress. Think about it this way: will you use the material again? Maybe. Will you try to find newer, more improved versions of the material next time? Definitely. That’s the beauty of the Internet.

We don’t need to stop hoarding to hustle. The only way to get through a creative block effectively is to find a method in the madness. Create processes, form habits and coping mechanisms that get you through these these tough times, even if it means allowing your mind to be cluttered for a brief moment.

Encourage clutter. Embrace your hoarding behaviour. Don’t let organised chumps tell you otherwise.

This article was also posted on http://amcasia.com/insight