It is one thing to be creative. It is another thing to be creative on demand. Professional designers are charged with being uniquely creative every working day. This seems reasonable, but at times even the most creative humans can struggle to create. Design is a very intentional profession where every decision made has a reason. So, how can designers sustain a high level of performance and creativity throughout any given year and throughout their careers.

Here are five simple strategies to maintain and grow as a designer whether you are early in your career or you are a tenured leader in your profession.

1. Grow your toolbox

Think of a carpenter’s toolbox. A carpenter may have a hammer, a screw driver, a level, and so on. And the carpenter knows how to use everyone of the tools in the toolbox. What do designers have in their toolboxes? It could be a simple as software, drawing tools, color palettes, patterns, and textures. It could also be frameworks, themes, and structures that can add meaning to designs.

A young carpenter may start with just a few tools in the toolbox, and then over time the number of tools grows. The same should be true of a designer. As designers advance in their careers, they should also be acquiring more and more tools of the trade as they go that can elevate their work and enable them to produce more creative work.

2. Understand and develop your design processes

Every designer has their own unique way of designing. And perhaps multiple unique ways of designing. It is useful to understand and in some cases document your process, so that you can continue to develop and iterate the way you do things as your career progresses. It is particularly useful as you are growing as a design leader when you need to communicate the process that you want to use to design.

It is also useful to evaluate your design process for things like speed, strengths and weaknesses, difficulty, and the like. This will give you information to help you grow and make your processes work better for you and your clients.

3. Grow your team and your team’s skills

Very few people design alone. In most cases, designing is a team effort. So, it is useful to know your team, grow your team, and grow your team’s skillsets. Imagine building a dream team in your favorite sport. What do you look for in your teammates? What strengths would compliment your weaknesses? Who can you learn from? How can you make your team better? What gaps do you see in your team’s skillsets? How can you encourage your team to learn and grow? How many people should you have on your team? How many people does it take to do the work?

4. Find your well of inspiration

Sometimes, even if you show up and work hard, the creativity just isn’t there. Good designers know that creativity isn’t magic. It is not just something that some people have and some people don’t. There are a lot of ways to find inspiration and use it in your work on a daily basis. It could be as easy as going to your favorite design website every morning. It could be related to your daily habits associated with reading, working out, talking to friends, watching movies, and so on. Whatever it is, find it and learn how to use it consistently.

5. Relax and sleep

It sounds like the opposite of what you did in design school. Remember the all-nighters in the studio? Don’t do that. You need to recharge from time to time. You need consistent sleep for your brain to work well. You need to eat well and not over-caffeinate yourself every time a deadline is approaching. Don’t let the demand for your creativity impact your ability to supply good creative work. If you respond to absurd demands and deadlines by depriving yourself of sleep and nutrition, then you will burnout, and your work will suffer in the short and in the long term. Seek out a positive work-life balance, and maintain a consistent sleep schedule.