Category: Creativity
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The infinite game of blogging: 1,000 posts later
On February 14, 2022, I started playing a game. I could win by writing a blog post every day for 100 days. Before the game, writing had felt like a chore on good days and torturous on bad days. I struggled to find my way out of the mindset of “content creation.” I started the…
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Disappointment and writing
Michael Lopp wrote a simple post about what you can expect your writing to do for you. The one that caught my attention was, “45% will do much worse than you expect when published.” That is a high percentage, but it sounds right. Writing—and all sorts of creative endeavors, really—means becoming very familiar with disappointment.…
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Creative success will not fill the hole in your heart
Tara Brach writes in Radical Acceptance, “Even when we are engaged in activities that are meaningful to us, that are creatively and spiritually gratifying, they can be “co-opted” and used to satisfy the unmet needs of the wanting self.” This resonated with me. In July 2022, I wrote, “When you instrumentalize creativity—that is to say,…
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Ladders as liberating rules
Aaron Renn made a mistake early in his career. He attended Indiana University in Chicago, and he started his career in mid-tier corporate consulting. At the time, he didn’t have a clear perspective on the possibilities outside of his small town. He writes, “My choices were extremely high ambition by the standards of that community,…
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Waking up from the trance of hesitation
Sometimes you can control how something turns out. Sometimes, you can’t. You only have so much energy in your life. If you dedicate your attention to controlling how one project turns out, you will need to let go of how the other projects turn out in that present moment. If you don’t, you’ll start to…
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Very early Thursdays
For over a decade, that’s when Tyler Brûlé would write his Fast Lane column for the Financial Times. Of all details in his farewell article, that’s the one that stuck with me. It’s a helpful reminder that there is no secret technique. Everyone makes the same bargain with time—hacking it out of the marble of…
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Giving new life to a dead publication
Publications are difficult to keep up. Unlike a book—which you can write and publish once—a publication regularly is preparing to work on a new issue. Publications bear much resemblance to warm-blooded animals. They require constant attention, energy, and love. Every publication comes to an end at some point. I understand that. A few mornings ago,…
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Wiggle room
The second-worst thing that can happen to a good habit is interrupting it. Let’s say you’d been running for 10 days in a row, and on the 11th you stopped for some reason. You got busy, the weather was bad, etc. The worst thing that can happen to a good habit is letting that one…
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Three things about deadlines
In order to plan a project well, you need a deadline. Even small tasks—meetings, emails, and occasions—all come with deadlines. Inspiration comes with a subtle version of a deadline: an expiry date. If you don’t bring the idea to life in a given time—its own deadline—the idea will look for someone else. The idea needs…
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Easy, boring, and obvious
When an idea or task is boring, obvious, and easy to you, you might want to dismiss it. It feels low effort, or even effortless. But just because it comes naturally to you, doesn’t mean it does for everyone else. You may have stumbled into your core strengths—a zone of genius that other people want…