How I Structure My Creative Time

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about creativity, it’s that it doesn’t wait around. It shows up when it wants to, and if I’m not ready, it’ll move on without me. That’s why I structure my days around it. For me, the morning is sacred. Once the first meeting hits, the noise of the day takes over, and my creative window quietly closes. So I wake up early. Not because it’s trendy but because it’s the only way I can protect my focus before it gets pulled in a hundred directions.

I’ve always been fascinated by how great writers and creators structure their lives, not just their work. I honestly didn’t study Stephen King, Christopher Nolan, or Hayao Miyazaki to copy their techniques, I studied how they lived. How they showed up to the page or the storyboard with care, intention, and discipline. King writes every morning. Nolan creates environments where deep, focused thinking is possible. Miyazaki treats animation like a living thing…slow, detailed, and deeply emotional. That’s what I wanted to learn from. Not how they write, but how they prepare to write.

That level of discipline gave me permission to take my own creative work seriously. I’m currently working on my first screenplay, Degen Galaxy – a 2D animated story about the tech and venture capital world, told with a mix of humor, satire, and reverence. It’s a love letter to the tech ecosystem and the odd cast of characters that drive it forward. I think the tech world is one of the most fascinating and absurd modern landscapes. Covering it like a creative historian that in part lives in it, is one of the most fun challenges I’ve taken on.

I’m deeply inspired by the sheer amount of smart creativity it takes to build something out of nothing, whether it’s a startup or a story. And I think 2D animation is one of the greatest artistic forms we have. There’s something timeless about it – hand-drawn movement, carefully crafted expressions, each frame a decision. It’s not fast, it’s not optimized, which gives it more meaning. That really speaks to me. There’s beauty in the slowness and the labor, and I try to carry that same energy into my writing.

People sometimes ask how I stay motivated to write, and the honest answer is: I’m just a fan. I love great writing. I love a perfect line of dialogue. I love when a story turns in a way I didn’t expect but instantly understand. I’m the type of person that will listen to the same great song on repeat 1000 times. Reading great writing is like listening to your that amazing song on repeat – I just don’t get tired of it. So writing creatively never feels like a burden. It feels like I’m getting to be a part of the thing I love most.

But writing time doesn’t appear out of nowhere. I’ve learned to treat it like any other kind of commitment, it needs a container. For me, that’s usually the first two hours of the morning. No email, no Slack, no news, no multitasking. If something good comes out of it, great. If not, that’s fine too. The point is to show up and make space.

My only advice to other writers is this: get the first few lines onto paper as soon as you wake up. Don’t wait for inspiration to arrive…just start. Writing is rhythm. Writing is flow. Even if those first few lines end up getting cut or rewritten later, they serve a purpose. They’re your warmup, your way of telling your brain, “It’s time now.” I actually learned this by watching the old “master” at the Korean hair salon I go to. When someone walks in with a huge, unruly mane, you can almost see the wheels turning in his mind- mapping, planning, imagining. But before he dives into anything major, I noticed he always makes a few small snips. Maybe they don’t mean much structurally, but they matter. It’s how he gets into flow. A cue to his hands and his mind: now we shape, now we create.

I’ve come to respect this idea that creative structure isn’t about rules, it’s about rhythm. You don’t force it, but you do make room for it. And when you treat your time with care, it responds. It’s not magic. It’s just attention. When I give my creativity a place to land, it usually shows up.

And that’s really what it comes down to for me … attention, time, and care. Just the quiet, consistent practice of making space to do the work I love.

Trying to Hold Time

When I was seven, I told my mom that I wasn’t a kid anymore. I said it seriously, with full conviction. I told her I knew life came with responsibility, and I was ready to carry some of it. I don’t think I fully understood what I meant, but I felt it. Awareness that time was moving forward and that I had to grow up with it.

That’s one of my earliest memories of time—really noticing it. Not in the calendar sense, but in the way a child starts to grasp that life isn’t endless. I remember it hitting me even harder when I was nine. I’d look forward to something, usually a school field trip or summer vacation. Then, almost before it arrived, it was over. I’d find myself stunned by how quickly it all disappeared. Like I’d been holding my breath waiting for the moment, and then suddenly I was watching it dissolve in the rearview mirror.

Now I’m 26. Time doesn’t just move fast anymore every year feels like a blink. Holidays blur together. The seasons flip like pages in a book someone else is reading too fast. And I find myself trying to grab at seconds, to hold them in my hands, even though I know they’ll slip through anyway.

When I visited Santa Monica in LA not too long ago, I stood by the water watching the sunset. And all I could think—besides how beautiful it was—was how damn badly I wanted to just remember vividly that exact moment. To take the clearest full view mental screenshot. To somehow dig in and remember that moment for the rest of my life. It wasn’t just about the view. It wasn’t about not wanting another moment to pass. I knew it would become another memory so fast, I wanted it to be one that I really remembered.

Childhood is the training ground for nostalgia—we build our first mental scrapbook, and we also start realizing how quickly the pages turn. It’s not that we didn’t enjoy those moments. It’s that enjoyment and impermanence are inseparable. The more something means to you, the faster it seems to end.

People always say life is short. I used to wonder if that was just because it’s finite. But it’s not just about the total length—it’s about how much of it we feel. You now fully realize you can live 80 years and still feel like it all happened in the space between two blinks. Especially if you don’t take time to notice.

And that’s what I try to do now. Notice. Slow down when I can. Pay attention. Make things, share things, write things—not because they’ll last forever, but because the act of creating something is one way to stretch a moment just a little further. Sometimes, the only way to hold time is to leave a mark inside it.

I don’t have all the answers. I still rush through days I wish I hadn’t. I still find myself missing things as they’re happening. But I’m trying. Trying to live like time is something sacred. Trying to hold on—not to stop it, but to really be in it while it’s here.

For most of my life, birthdays felt like something to brace for, not celebrate.

I’ve always had a complicated relationship with the day I was born. My third birthday was traumatizing in a way I didn’t have the language for at the time. My 13th birthday was the same day as my closest grandparent’s funeral, a moment that permanently fused joy and grief together in my mind. Most years, I didn’t get presents. And the one actual party I had as a kid? Everything went wrong. I remember leaving it more confused than happy, wondering if I was the problem.

As a kid, you grow up watching birthdays on TV or in movies. There’s always cake, laughter, parents beaming with pride, friends showing up with gifts. You grow up thinking that’s normal. And when it doesn’t happen for you year after year you start to internalize that maybe celebration isn’t meant for you. You become the kid who shrugs it off. You start to believe it’s better not to expect anything at all.

If you asked my therapist, he might say that birthdays represent more than just getting older. They’re emotional checkpoints. For people who grew up with instability, grief, or disappointment, birthdays can feel like pressure cookers: a time when unmet expectations resurface, when old emotional wounds come out of hiding.

And for a long time, I didn’t even feel sad about it. I didn’t feel much at all. It was easier to disconnect. To treat the day with lower expectations than any other day and just move on.

But something shifted this year. I turned 26, and I tried to do something different.

It wasn’t anything huge and it wasn’t even solo. It was a joint birthday with a friend. But for me, it was symbolic. An act of healing. I let people celebrate me, even just a little. I let myself enjoy the moment – not because it was flawless, but because it meant something. It meant I was trying to rewrite the script.

What I’ve come to realize is that birthdays aren’t really about cake or parties or the number of people who show up. They’re about permission. Permission to be acknowledged. To be celebrated. To take up space. And sometimes, that’s the hardest thing to give yourself…especially when your earliest memories tell you not to.

So no, I don’t regret the past. I’m not bitter. But I’m also not pretending like it didn’t shape me. I’m learning to hold both truths at once: that I missed out on something, and that it’s not too late to reclaim it.

My 26th birthday was a step. And I think that’s all healing really is…giving yourself small moments that remind you you’re allowed to feel joy on your birthday, even if it’s taken a while to get there.