It can seem impossible to find time for creative work when you’re working long hours or raising children or caretaking or coping with diminished health. How can you be creative if you have no time?

A powerful concept I love from David Kadavy’s excellent book Mind Management, Not Time Management is the Minimum Creative Dose. It’s inspired by the “minimum effective dose.” Just as there’s a smallest dose of medication needed to achieve a result, there’s also a smallest action required to make progress on a creative project. Think of it as creativity for the time-strapped.

By breaking creative projects down into smaller, manageable parts and focusing on completing the Minimum Creative Dose, you can keep moving forward, even without much spare time. 

Kadavy highlights that this approach is especially useful for tough creative problems. By working brief sessions, you activate what he calls your Passive Genius—the part of your mind that works on problems in the background while you go about your day.

Kadavy adds that leaving work sessions slightly unfinished—what he calls open loops— allows your Passive Genius to continue processing, working on the problem without your direct effort. 

Here’s how to try out the Minimum Creative Dose for yourself.

1. Identify the Smallest Step: Ask yourself: “What is the smallest action I can take that will move this forward?”

2. Keep It Simple: It should be so small that it feels easy and doable.

3. Leverage Incubation: Your subconscious will continue processing the open loop of your project, making connections without needing your active focus.

4. Repeat Consistently: Repeat sessions as often as you can and over the span of weeks or months, you can finish substantial creative projects.