I don’t know about you, but as a creative professional I need a certain amount of time alone. Personal time. Quiet time. Time to think, reflect, ponder, and dream. Time to recharge. My best creative ideas come from this space.

Too often we spend our days in overdrive, constantly shaking and re-shaking the snow globe in our minds. We don’t give ourselves enough time to let our flurry of thoughts settle.

But if we slow down and let things get quiet, an amazing thing happens…we feel peaceful. Inspiration comes. Because peace, contentment, and joy are our natural state. It is innate. We were born that way. It is only when we allow the noise of life to crowd out the signal do we get disconnected and anxious.

So how do we achieve that natural state?

Step 1: We choose to make time for quiet. Heck, we schedule everything from morning commute time, to meetings, to gym workouts, to when we eat dinner. We can schedule quiet time the same way.

Step 2: Tune out or turn off needless distractions. Even background music. Close your browser. Log off of Facebook. Power down your phone. Lose the adult pacifiers and get present. There is nothing so important that won’t still be there an hour from now.

Step 3: Breath deep. Close your eyes if possible. Even 2 minutes doing this at your desk works wonders.

Step 4: Learn to enjoy silence. I am amazed when I see people driving to work at 7:00 a.m. and talking on the phone. Are we that uncomfortable being alone with ourselves that we can’t go 15 minutes without a device glued to our ear? And don’t even get me started about people using phones at the movie theater.

Silence is the playground of genius. Make time for it.