Category: Creativity
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Doing it all
A new friend recently asked, “You’ve written a book, you write a blog every day, you work at Figma. How do you do it all?” I remember that I have also asked questions like this. Here’s my method: Priority: I try to maintain a clear sense of what is most important that day, and overall.…
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Effective first
An effective first approach prioritizes getting your work done (feeding your family, achieving your goal, helping a friend, etc.), within the boundaries of your values and ethics. When you work from a stance of effective first, you prioritize doing the real thing. You tell people about what you’re doing. Through this doing, you get the…
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Your craft and your business model
If you’re doing something creative, you’re going to have to make a decision at some point: Are you going to try to apply your craft into a structurally difficult business model? Or are you going to find a different—less prestigious, less crowded, easier—business model to apply your craft? In writing, the decision is to spend…
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On franchises
When you make something on the internet, you’re best off making something that stands out. Even if you follow someone else’s template or structure, you want to put your own little twist on it—so that it cuts through the noise, but also so that people know that you made it. You do this by following…
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The pressure sweet spot
There are things you know you are capable of, and there are things you’re not sure about. You might have a decades-long habit of brushing your teeth, so you don’t feel pressure when someone asks you if you can brush your teeth. By contrast, the things you’re not sure about are less certain. For example,…
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Success vs. happiness
You suffer. You know you are capable of something great, and yet it feels like nobody sees that. Maybe it’s depression, or pain of another sort. It feels like there’s a hole inside of you. You think you can fill this hole by pursuing your art and achieving success. This goal gives you hope, motivation,…
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Make your business the case study
If you run a web design agency, you may find yourself too busy working on client work to spruce up your own website. If you’re a freelance writer, you’re too busy ghostwriting for clients to put pen to paper for your own thoughts. If you’re in marketing, you promote your client’s products, but you don’t…
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Constructive criticism
People who praise everything you can seem extremely supportive. They hype your work, and build up your self-image. While this energy may make you feel more confident, and can help you gather the energy to nurture an initial idea, pure praise also doesn’t help you make your work better. A statement that sounds like constructive…
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Yardsticks and patience
Ailian Gan believes that it took Seth Godin four years of blogging every day before he found his style and started writing like he does today. It’s tempting to use that as a yardstick; for me, I’m two years into blogging every day, and hopefully I’ll get there in another two. The reality is, there’s…
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The slump
Sometimes, there’s nothing you can do to get out of the slump. You feel as though there is barely enough time to make the work good—let alone to escape, clear your head, reset your energy. You’re feeling scared, too. You don’t want the slump to turn into a block. You probably know the answer: keep…