It happened to me on several occasions that I mixed up todo-list style working mode and creativity working mode, although every single time I was convinced that I did things the right way. In order to boost my creative output I have put several creative items on my daily todo-list and hoped that somehow getting things done and creativity would magically match. Not so! What happened, in fact, was that while checking off my todo-items I would postpone the creative items on the list. They would be postponed to the next day and then to next and so on. Since I have scheduled different creative endeavors on different days, you might already guess what happened. I got my regular tasks done but all the creative items kept piling up. Looking at this pile did not really inspire me to do anything creative at all. In fact, it scared me off. To conclude, during these experiments I haven’t achieved anything creative at all.
In the meantime, however, I have come up with a different strategy to get my regular things done and increase my creative output as well.