Category: Creativity
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Essentials week: This Four Stage Creative Process Shows You How to Unlock Your Creativity
In this article, we’ll look at the creative process from the most popular conventional one, the four-stage creative process described in London School of Economics co-founder Graham Wallas’s The Art of Thought in 1926. In the spirit of collaborative creativity, it’s important to mention that many people have since put their own spin on it,…
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Essentials week: On quitting, failing, and, “I find a lot of people who should quit don’t”
My next post from essentials week, a short collection of the best posts at this blog. Here’s an excerpt: Perhaps in some cases, quitting needs to be redefined, or reframed, as creating a life. Even art and work are just two aspects of a life. The extremities are framed as homelessness or do a soul-crushing…
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Essentials week: 8 Lessons from 800 Note Cards in the Zettelkasten
My next post from essentials week, a short collection of the best posts at this blog. Here’s an excerpt: If there’s anything I’m sure of, it’s that I’m “doing” the original Zettelkasten method technically incorrectly. Ryan Holiday uses the word “perverted” to describe his own note-taking method compared to the one he learned from Robert…
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Essentials week: Don’t think to write, write to think
Since I started writing daily, I’ve now published over 700 blog posts. I wanted to highlight 7 posts this week, so I’ll choose one good post per day. Most of these will be greatest hits—the most popular, discussed, shared, etc.—some may be a deep cut or a next step, or an excerpt from my book…
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Cold-blooded creative work
Patrick Dubroy writes: You see, warm-blooded animals — like humans or mice — have a stable body temperature that stays within a pretty narrow range. For humans, it’s around 37 degrees Celsius. A few degrees higher or lower and we’re in big trouble. Cold-blooded animals like the painted turtle can adapt their metabolism to the…
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No bad ideas, no good ideas
One of my teachers told me about a student who was generally quiet, but when they spoke up, they said something brilliant. I always wished that quality for myself, but unfortunately, that’s not the case at all. That’s not how my brain works naturally. My good ideas are usually accompanied by bad ideas as well.…
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Write it down for someone else
Whenever you can, however you can, stored and published in some digital and searchable format for posterity.
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Three things about competition
It’s awards season. In between discussing who should’ve gotten what, it’s also a good time to consider the relationship between competitions and creative work. In many ways, it’s always awards season—30 under 30, weekly funding announcements, grants and fellowships, Olympics, etc: Competitions pay the bills Competitions take place because we value stories, drama, and craft.…
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Foundation first
One philosophy or heuristic I have been drawn to recently is to prioritize foundational activities. Personal life: wash your face, work out, eat healthy and regularly, feed your cat, shower, do laundry, present yourself, journal, write, draw, etc. Do things that make you feel alive. This is actually the most important foundation. Professional life: keep…
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Value your ignorance
My friend Abdel’s lament, after watching a student “solve” the Rubik’s Cube on his desk just like the YouTube video showed her how: “You need to value your ignorance.” Ross Gay, The Book of Delights When I played video games as a young boy, I constantly referred to cheat codes and guides. I wanted to…