5 Easy Ways to Boost Your Creative Energy When You’re Burned Out

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Creative burnout doesn’t always present itself as full, debilitating exhaustion. Sometimes, it sneaks up on you quietly—when you’re still delivering, still functioning, but the spark that usually fuels your creative projects has died or dimmed.

If that sounds familiar, please know that you are not alone. Burnout is common in creative industries. It is particularly so in interior design as emotional labor, logistics, and client dynamics often mix with high expectations and long timelines. The good news is that creative energy is renewable; you just have to give it the right conditions to return.

Whether you’ve been in execution mode for too long or you’re simply feeling uninspired, here are five simple ways to reconnect with your creativity and find your way back to yourself. No one deserves to stay in a slump.

5 Easy Ways to Boost Your Creative Energy When You’re Burned Out

#1 Visit Something That Isn’t a Jobsite

When’s the last time you went to a museum on a weekday or wandered through a historic home just for the joy of it? One of the easiest ways to reset your creative energy is to change what you’re looking at and give your brain something unexpected to process.

Visit an exhibition that has nothing to do with your current projects. Explore an architectural landmark in your own city. Book a few hours to walk through a sculpture garden, textile museum, or antique warehouse without needing to make a single decision. Let beauty, story, and contrast reignite the spark that may have dimmed or died in recent months.

Creative input matters just as much as creative output and when you shift what you’re consuming, you change what you’re capable of making.

#2 Collaborate With Someone Outside Your Bubble

Interior design can be an isolating field—especially at the leadership level. You’re constantly managing clients, timelines, and teams, but when was the last time you made something just for the sake of making? And when was the last time you did that alongside someone else?

Reach out to a stylist, floral designer, set decorator, photographer, or friend in another creative field. Set up a mini shoot, an afternoon of styling, or even a concept brainstorm.

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Collaborative creativity takes the pressure off being perfect; the final result and the ideas that produce it are not all on you. This format introduces new perspectives, new instincts, and sometimes new obsessions. 

#3 Change Your Environment, Even Slightly

As designers, we know how even the most minor tweaks can make major differences in a space that doesn’t work. If your desk is stacked with samples and your studio table has become a staging zone for things no one has time to put away, it might be time to change your space to change your state of mind.

You don’t need to move to Italy. Sometimes a small shift is enough. Work from a café for the morning. Rearrange your pinboard. Light a candle you forgot you loved. Move your chair to face a window. Clean one surface and put a single object there that inspires you. Add music. Add silence. Take five minutes to make your environment feel intentional again.

Creativity doesn’t thrive in clutter or chaos. It thrives where you feel present, grounded, and calm.

#4 Revisit Your Own Work

When you’re running a busy design firm, it’s incredibly easy to move from one project to the next without reflecting on what you’ve actually created. But sometimes, the best inspiration isn’t external; it’s yours.

Open a past project folder that you loved. Flip through old photos or sketchbooks. Re-read an old concept deck that still makes you proud. Remind yourself what your aesthetic voice sounds like when it’s not chasing timelines or approvals. What patterns do you see? What phases of your work felt the most alive?

Burnout can trick you into thinking you’re out of ideas—but often, your ideas just need to be seen again. Your creative mind is a lot like a wellspring; it might rise and fall with the seasons and there might be periods of drought when groundwater dries up, but it always replenishes eventually.

#5 Schedule a Creative Recharge—And Treat It Like a Project

Creative rest doesn’t happen by accident. If you want your energy back, you have to protect time for it—on your calendar, with your team, and in your mind.

Schedule a recharge activity this month. It can be personal or collaborative. Solo or shared. Maybe it’s a long weekend somewhere new. Maybe it’s an afternoon to rework your material library. Maybe it’s a “no client” Friday where the team re-energizes with inspiration boards and cocktails. We host “Champagne Fridays” to celebrate weekly wins and recap with the team.

Whatever it is, make it a priority. Because you can’t design beautiful, layered, emotionally rich spaces if you’re running on empty. You can’t lead a team, either. 

Final Thoughts: The Spark Is Still There

Burnout can make your creativity feel distant and drained, but that doesn’t mean it’s gone. It just means that you need to reconnect with the part of yourself that creates without pressure, without a deadline, and without having to prove anything to anyone.

Take the time. Make the space. Change the input. That spark will return and when it does, it might take your work somewhere new entirely.

Need support while you navigate that process? Join the DesignDash community, where designers talk openly about the creative highs and lows of this work. We also share the rituals, routines, and moments that keep your spark alive!