How "Hustle Culture" is Hurting Your Creativity
- Adilla
- Jan 23
- 4 min read
In the morning, you join the sync-up meetings, then continue to finish your tasks while keeping in the loop with the recent updates. Afternoon rolls in; you rush to complete some social media posts to be published in the next few days. Evening comes, and you want to wedge in side gigs to fill the time. Then, when you lie down, it’s almost morning.
Does this scenario feel familiar to you?
Hustle culture, from an outside view, seems like a way to feel productive and make a good impact on the company. However, as creatives, this will not only affect your ability to consistently produce your best creative work but may also disturb your rest cycle.
In this article, we break down what hustle culture is and why it doesn’t benefit creatives. And why it affects sleep and the creatives’ ability to produce innovative ideas.
Table of Contents
What is Hustle Culture
“Hustle culture”, also known as “grind culture”, is a mindset and lifestyle that encourages constant activity and self-sacrifice as a path to success. This culture is seen as a badge of honour in the pursuit of career goals, while personal well-being and relationships are often neglected in the process.
Why Hustle Culture Isn't the Right Fit for Creatives
Creatives don’t thrive in hustle culture, as this culture focuses on constant grinding and productivity. And for creativity to blossom, it cannot be rushed in perpetual efficiency mode; it needs space to breathe, flourish, and rest to achieve the flow state.
These are the reasons why hustle culture doesn’t work with creatives:
Creativity Needs Downtime
Ever notice great ideas come when you’re idly eating or having a shower? These are ‘spaces’ that allow the mind to wander and explore connections. Hustle culture rejects the idea of ‘empty spaces’ as it emphasises the need to fill every free time that you have with something “productive”.
Pressure Sabotages Creative Flow
Creatives can’t force themselves to create under the pressure of constantly producing. This could lead them to creative blockage, halting their minds from generating original ideas. Thus, making them anxious, frantic, and not focused.
Bad Impacts of Hustle Culture on Creatives
Hustle culture has an “always on” mentality where rest may be seen as unimportant. However, this only creates a cycle of stress, resentment, and deep fatigue that not only negatively impacts individuals but also overall workplace culture.
Stifles Creativity and Authenticity
The constant pressure of having to rush their work leads to producing only what’s proven to work, instead of taking creative liberty. This leads to soulless work that blends into the creative market. Thus, hustle culture removes the luxury that allows freedom and space for soulful work for creatives to create “authentic creativity”.
Creative Burnout and Mental Health
Having to always ‘hustle’ leads to stress, anxiety, and creative exhaustion. Unlike physical burnout, where a few days of rest is sufficient, creative burnout runs deeper; recovery may take months, even years.
Hence, the constant pressure from always hustling feeds into the creative burnout. In the long run, this will impact the individual’s mental health, leading to a negative effect on productivity and eventually their self-worth. Especially for creatives, when their work feels very personal and tied to their work performance. This culture traps creatives in a loop of only fulfilling a checklist rather than a creative passion.
Guilt for Resting
The hustle culture emphasises constantly working and prioritising creative productivity even beyond working hours. Creatives absorb the non-written message that "real artists grind every day," which leads to guilt when they choose to rest. Over time, this guilt can slowly change the relationship with the craft, turning something you once loved into a source of constant anxiety.
How Sleep Deprivation Affects Creativity
If you feel energised after a lack of sleep, that can be a false signal. Rather, the effect of sleep deprivation is false energy from the pressure of having to always produce.
When you lack sleep, your brain’s ability to generate original ideas and solve problems will function poorly. The results: entering the creative flow zone gets more challenging, and finding it difficult to focus. Remember, sleep isn't optional for creatives; it's essential.
Sleep has been proven to help cognitive abilities, including creative thinking. Having proper sleep helps with executive functions, whereas the opposite affects cognitive performance. While it can be tempting to work on your art when creativity strikes, you can try to write it in your notes first and revisit it after a good sleep.
Key Takeaways
Hustle culture’s emphasis on productivity harms the natural creative process, like the flow state.
Sleep deprivation affects creatives’ mental health and ability to produce inspiring ideas.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How many hours of sleep do creatives need?
The standard recommended hours of sleep are 7 to 9 hours for adults. Despite the chaotic nature of creative work, they should maintain a consistent sleep time every day to regulate their internal clock.
Is hustle culture the same as crunch culture?
These terms tend to be used interchangeably to describe excessive work. However, ‘hustle culture’ is a broader term for the culture of non-stop work as a lifestyle. Then, crunch culture would be used for a specific period of intense overwork to meet an imminent deadline.
Author Bio
With a background in Arts English, Adilla has been a casual writer for various hobbies like parodies of animated shows and plots for board games. She loves to read anything and everything from fantasy stories to articles on tips and tricks. Now an advocate for mental health and effective project management for the creative industry. Currently, Adilla resides in Malaysia and is a creative writer at TESSR. To know more about her, check out her LinkedIn.
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