Efficiency and creativity go hand in hand. Because if you're efficient, you can complete your creative work faster.
And you can also complete the not-as-interesting-yet-necessary tasks faster so you can do more of that fun, creative stuff.
I've become a huge fan of the keyboard shortcut over the past few years.
"Command+C" instead of right clicking, and then going down to "copy" from the menu.
"Command+X" instead of scrolling to "cut" on that same menu.
It might seem silly. It's just a few seconds saved, after all.
But all those precious seconds add up.
When you reach a point where you don't need to touch a menu because you can do everything from the keyboard, you save hours of collective time.
Templates are awesome, too. If there's any type of email you send out on a regular basis, make a template.
If it can be automated with technology, automate it.
If you have tasks that you don't enjoy, but are simple enough to teach a college student and you have the freedom to do that, outsource it.
Yes, it will cost money, but it will buy you time for more interesting projects that only you can do.
Shortcuts, automation, templates, and delegation.
When you make efficiency part of your practice, you'll produce so much creative work, people will swear there's more than one of you.