Build a Bliss Station

Writer Joseph Campbell came up with this idea in The Power of Myth.

A Bliss station is a place of creative incubation.

It’s a place where you have no way of contacting the outside world, free from the internet.

It’s a place free from judgement and self-criticism.

It's a place to produce what you are or what you aspire to be.

Without a bliss station, meaningful work and reflection is next to impossible to achieve.

Austin Kleon further improves on this idea in Keep Going by suggesting the addition of a time of day.

He argues that not everyone has a vacant room in the house just for work, so a bliss station could also be a time of day.

This frees our physical space limitations, and allows us to use any of the 24 hours we have. We could work sitting on the bedroom floor (as I'm doing now - I'm out of my flat at the moment), or working on the kitchen table after dinner.

The type of work you do at a bliss station doesn't matter. Journalling, writing blogs, painting, sketching, and cutting up pieces of paper are all viable.

What matters is mastering the practice of sitting down and getting to work every day.

My Bliss station is this desk in my living room, and I sit here to work at 9am everyday (or at least I try my best to).

I do both my university work and and other hobbies on here, so I separate these activities by doing them at different times.

I find that the mornings are the best time to get ideas down and work through creative problems, and nobody’s awake enough to tell you that your work is crap.