Every day, you take the same route to work. You stop at the same coffee shop and order your coffee exactly the same way. When you get to the office, clutching the same branded cup, you place it in the same place on your desk. You fire up the same computer, tidy the stuff on your desk into the same pattern, settle into the same chair and open the same tabs on your browser.

You follow the same routine, sipping your coffee, browsing your email, skimming through the same blogs, the same news pages, the same social networks. As your colleagues arrive, you exchange the same greetings, the same gripes and gossip. As you drain the cup, you get the same itch for the same music, take your headphones out and plug yourself in. You open the same blank document, give it the same hard stare. The music kicks in.

Now you can begin. If that sounds anything like your morning routine, you're in good company. Over the years, as a coach and trainer, I've heard a similar story from hundreds of creative professionals. Of course, the details will vary - if you're like me, your trip to work will be the "30 second commute" known to freelancers the world over, and you'll be making your own coffee. You may incorporate meditation, or other exercise into your morning routine. And you may use a camera, easel, guitar or whatever instead of a computer. But the chances are you're living proof of one of the great paradoxes of creativity: that the most extraordinary works of imagination are often created by people working to predictable daily routines. There's even an entire blog (sadly now on hold) devoted entirely to accounts of the Daily Routines of writers, artists, and other interesting people. Here's the architect Le Corbusier, as described by his colleague Jerzy Soltan: Filmmaker Ingmar Bergman: And novelist Haruki Murakami: There are plenty more examples over at Daily Routines, but you can probably start to see the family likeness. Murakami may have been joking when he mentioned mesmerism, but as a trained hypnotist I can tell you he was bang on the money. By repeating the same routine every day, all these creators are effectively hypnotizing themselves, deliberately altering their state of consciousness in order to access the "deeper state of mind" that allows them to work their creative magic. The different elements of the routine become associated with this creative state of mind, so that they can re-enter it by simply repeating the steps of the routine. If you want to develop your ability to enter the creative zone at will, you should know that there are three conditions for a really effective hypnotic trigger:

1. Uniqueness - it should be something (or a combination of things) you don't associate with other activities, otherwise the effect will be diluted.
2. Emotional intensity - the kind you experience when you're really immersed in creative work.
3. Repetition - the more times you experience the unique trigger in association with the emotions, the stronger the association becomes.

So to fine-tune your daily routine for maximum creative magic, make sure the key triggers have these qualities. For example you might want to save a particular album for listening to while you work, or be careful not to use the same notepad for sketching ideas as for your to-do list. And when you have a particularly good day, make a note of something in your routine for that day, that you can associate with the emotional state - and use the same trigger the rest of the week.

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Do you have a daily routine that helps you create? What are the most important triggers for your creative state of mind? What happens to your creativity if your routine is interrupted?