Taylor Swift’s Newest Obsession Can Teach You a Lot About Creativity

What’s the best way to stay fresh and creative when you’re putting in long hours and facing tight deadlines? Especially when you can’t take much time off? For Taylor Swift, the answer is to do something completely different–but also highly creative–that you’re passionate about.

Many creative people take their hobbies very seriously. Steve Jobs famously followed his passion to a calligraphy course that later helped when it came time to create Apple’s fonts. Albert Einstein was an accomplished violinist. Swift bakes bread. Specifically, sourdough bread. Loaves and loaves of it.

Whether you consider her a genius or not, there’s no denying that Swift’s creative output is prodigious and impressive. She recently released her 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl. It was mostly written while she performed three-hour shows in the long-running Eras tour, at the same time as she was releasing her 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department. Oh, and making it to every Kansas City Chiefs football game she could so she could cheer for her now-fiancé Travis Kelce.

Swift works almost every waking hour.

“My question is, when do you sleep?” Seth Meyers asked her in a recent interview on Late Night.

“I actually sleep a lot,” she said. “It’s just that I don’t do anything other than this when I’m not sleeping.” She loves what she does so much that it doesn’t feel like work, she explained. And she does it for all her waking hours. Except when she’s baking bread.

Baking allows her to stop her mind from continuing to work on songs. “It’s, like, stress relief,” she said. “Like, you’re following instructions. You’re doing a thing they’ve done for thousands of years. There’s something kind of calming about it.”

It’s also a different form of creativity for Swift, and one that can be all-consuming. “It’s like I have when I have a hobby, it becomes an obsession, and then it becomes my entire personality,” she said. To prove her point, she gave two loaves of bread to Meyers before the show, in their own bakery-type bread bags, and covered with stickers that said things like “Are you bready for it?” and “The fate of Doughphelia” (a play on Swift’s new song, “The Fate of Ophelia.”) And, of course, there were pictures of Swift’s cats, another of her obsessions.

She even described how delighted she was that a loaf of her bread made a cameo appearance on a table next to an apple in the “Fate of Ophelia” video. “It was a huge moment for me,” she said. She was accustomed to baking bread for texture and flavor, but this time she was aiming for visual appeal. “And I’m just really excited that it seems to have gone really well. Like, I did the feather scoring–” she paused in a moment of apparent realization “–that nobody cares about, except for me.”

Baking bread is a healthy release.

So, yup, beyond all doubt, Swift’s breadmaking had turned into an over-the-top obsession. But it’s also a healthy release from the pressures of her very public, very work-focused life. It’s a chance to do something completely different from writing songs, or making videos, or singing. It’s tactile, and extremely satisfying. And, just as important, it gives her creative, obsessive mind something different to focus on. It’s a way to let herself play.

If you’re an entrepreneur or business leader, chances are you’re obsessed with your work, too. You may not have much time off. And you may still need to keep that creativity flowing and a fresh outlook. If so, try finding a hobby that fascinates you as much as bread fascinates Swift. It just may be the outlet, and the creative boost you need.

There’s a growing audience of Inc.com readers who receive a daily text from me with a self-care or motivational micro-challenge or tip. Often, they text me back and we wind up in a conversation. (Want to know more? Here’s some information about the texts and a special invitation to a two-month free trial.) Many of my subscribers are entrepreneurs or business leaders. A lot of them are completely consumed by their work. But they also know how important it is to have creative passions that have nothing to do with their job. Should you give it a try?