‘We’re all going to die’: Perceptions and experiences of time among creative practitioners

Abstract

This paper surveys briefly a range of modern ideas on the creative process and some possible approaches to understanding time, from scientific to philosophical, experiential and managerial. This paper argues that the relationship between time and productivity remains obscure, that the creative person’s commitment to an excessive and unpredictable use of time challenges administrations to adjust their expectations and re- value the use of work time, and finally that newly conceived levels of trust need to be foregrounded between an organisation and its most creative employees.