Category: Creativity
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Complaining vs. caring
NetNewsWire is at the top of Hacker News right now. It’s a familiar name; with a quick Google Search, I dug up an article I wrote over a decade ago for Guiding Tech that mentioned it. I didn’t have a Mac yet—I do now though, so I’m finally trying it again. It’s nice, and I’m…
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Creative Doing infographic
My publisher and I worked on three infographics based on my book Creative Doing. Each section contains a creative prompt and a very brief summary. We shipped the first one yesterday. What do you think?
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Ivy League creative exercises
One day project (Michael Bierut, Yale): “There’s only one rule, it has to be done by 5:00.” (via #The100DayProject) 100 day project (Michael Bierut, Yale): “Do a [creative] operation that you are capable of repeating every day… The only restrictions on the operation you choose is that it must be repeated in some form every…
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Make something for very few people
One of the prompts in Creative Doing is, “Focus on Connection.” There’s something special about making something for a few, specific, people you know. It helps make things specific: will this person like this? What would make them appreciate it? What problems are they facing, or what are they interested in? What do I want…
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Writing a book with index cards
I really liked Edward Slingerland’s coverage of how he wrote his book, mainly reading (for 18 months!), typing up note-sized cut outs in Microsoft Word and printing them out and pasting them on index cards, and then arranging and re-arranging the ideas until it makes sense. This always sounded like a ton of unnecessary work…
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Creative oscillations (redux)
When I was writing Creative Doing, I noticed a pattern: in order to develop your creative process, you need to get comfortable with oscillating; constantly swinging back and forth between opposites and extremes. For example, one prompt was, “Obsess over Details,” and another was, “Stop Obsessing.” In order to develop your creative practice, you need…
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Comparing vs. referencing
A year ago, I appeared as a guest on Nick Wignall’s Minds and Mics podcast to discuss my work with the book that would become Creative Doing. Our conversation was focused on practical creativity, and about halfway through we stumbled across an interesting topic: social comparison and creativity. In particular, we discussed the benefits and…
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Generation vs. practice vs. performance
There are at least three types of different creative work. Generation is preliminary work with the purpose of thinking and making breakthroughs. Writing to think is one application of this. Clearing the wastewater is another application. Practice is carefully refining a skill, whether that’s technical or conceptual. This mainly involves discipline, correction, and constant development. …
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Start smaller, cheaper, faster
An idea comes to you. Most people would stop here and let it go, but you know ideas are elusive; they depart once they think they’re not needed, and they’ll find someone else to breathe life into them. So you start looking into making it happen. You quickly realize it’s uncomfortably expensive to make the…
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Outer scorecard, or inner scorecard
Make something to sell, or make something you like. Write something to get attention, or write something to express yourself. Care about the outcome, or care about the output. Focus on the future, or focus on the present. Serve your ego, or serve a person. Appear like you’re winning, or be happy with what you…