What To Do During the Summer Break (Even If You’re Not on Holiday)
Five ways to reset your creative energy without leaving town
After many years of producing creative work, leading teams, and building strategies, I’ve learned that creativity doesn’t run on demand. It flows when the right conditions are in place, and it disappears when you’re running on empty. These five points are not theories. They’re what I actually do when I feel drained. When I need to get that mojo back. When nothing I write, design, or think feels right.
Creative work is a muscle. And like any muscle, it needs rest and nutrition to grow. Taking a break isn’t about privilege. It’s about understanding the process, your body, and your mind. Whether you’re working for someone else, building a personal project, or making art for a living, rest isn’t optional. It’s what allows the work to keep happening. Without pause, there’s no momentum.
Summer often brings a natural lull. Even if you’re not going anywhere, this is your best window to reset and recharge. Here’s how.
1. Change your inputs and leave your bubble
Your creativity can’t thrive if you’re feeding it the same things on repeat. Go outside. Visit a gallery. Talk to people. Go to concerts. Watch a documentary. Listen to how others tell their stories. Consuming creative work with no agenda is the best way to recharge yours and see things from a new lens. It’s not a luxury. It’s fuel.
2. Create for yourself, not for performance
When was the last time you made something without thinking of the outcome? Photography, ceramics, writing a journal—pick what feels good. This is about creative freedom, not results. Create without a deadline. Without feedback. Just to enjoy the act of making.
One thing I’ve learned to appreciate is playing with kids. It’s fascinating to see how their brains work, free from rules, expectations, or frameworks. Watch them create a whole universe from scratch. Let them guide you. Let them teach you. That’s real creative freedom. That’s the part of your brain you want to bring back to work.
3. Move your body and let someone else lead
Exercise clears the brain. I do CrossFit, and that hour isn’t really for my body. It’s for my mind. I laugh. I meet new people. I follow someone else’s instructions. For once, I’m not leading, just doing. Whatever it is for you—yoga, hiking, swimming—move in ways that get you out of your head and into your body.
4. Mute the noise, especially on social
You don’t need more inputs. You need better ones. Step away from social media. The comparison game is brutal for creativity. Someone will always look like they’re doing more. Stop watching what others are building and start watering your own ideas. The silence will feel strange at first. But trust it. It’s where focus returns.
5. Let ideas flow and capture them
You might think nothing’s happening, but your brain keeps working in the background. The trick is to be ready when the ideas show up. Keep a notebook or voice note app nearby. Don’t overthink. Just jot them down. Most of my best ideas show up after I stop working.
Everything Now was born this way.
In the summer of 2019, lying on a beach in Asturias, I opened my phone and wrote what I thought could be a great marketing studio. No pitch, no business plan. Just a note. After that, I created the website. Fully. Designed, written, ready. But I wasn’t. So I left it on a shelf.
The site sat there, untouched, for years. Waiting for the right moment. The energy had come from a summer break. A concert. A song by Arcade Fire called Everything Now. I didn’t know why, but the title stuck with me. It felt right. It had movement. And it gave me energy. That was it. No grand strategy, just a moment of connection.
The studio became real in 2025. But the essence of it had already been written five years earlier, on that beach. You never know what ideas will turn into something. But you need to give them space to appear.
