Posts about the creative process.
I think Neil Gaiman pretty well captures the magic of creation with this quote.
The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before.
Neil Gaiman
Turns out the dude can also draw, at least in a sketchy kind of way that I hope to master someday as well, if only for practical purposes.
I love the anecdote about writing a short story for his daughter’s 18th birthday that Daily Inspiration added for context on this quote.
The little, square book Show Your Work has changed they way I think about blogging, processing my ideas, and has even helped me appreciate my music playlists.
One idea it introduces is to embrace collecting.
There’s not as big of a difference between collecting and creating as you might think.
Show Your Work
Great musicians, writers, and artists tend to collect and appreciate other people’s work. “The reading feeds the writing, which feeds the reading,” the book says. Hopefully this approach works for me as I dig into music creation.
Or to put it another way:
You’re only as good as your record collection.
DJ Spooky, via Show Your Work
To that end, here is my ever-growing list of new songs I like, built up gradually over the last few years, thanks to Shazam and a few coffee shops with their own great playlists. As of this writing, this playlist is over 49 hours long and could double as its own radio station.
Don’t hoard indeed. 😆
The best quotes are both funny and true, and therefore memorable. At the end of this talk good on conversations, Celeste Headlee credits her sister with this quote.
A good conversation is like a miniskirt; short enough to retain interest, but long enough to cover the subject.
It seems the sister may have borrowed the idea from Winston Churchill. 🤷🏻♂️
I think the idea generalizes to writing too, so I’m going to adapt the spirit of this quote for my own purposes.
A good
conversationblog is like a miniskirt; short enough to retain interest, but long enough to cover the subject.
And it’s working. I already deleted three sentences from this post – and added this one. 🤔
Before I forget, here’s a salacious photo – as required – to catch your attention.
“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”
What does it take to pull you into a new podcast? Or a book? Or really anything?
With so many great podcasts out there and already not enough time for them all, the bar can be pretty high for anything new. But the first few lines of the Missed Fortune podcast pulled me in right away.
Did you ever find yourself in one of those situations where if it goes well, there’s a huge reward? But if it goes bad, you look just unforgivably stupid? Like what were you possibly thinking?
I’m in a car with some guys I don’t know on the way to somewhere we’re not supposed to be. And this is one of those situations.
They go on to explain that this is the story of a real-life treasure hunt in the Rocky Mountains with the only clues being a short poem.
I’m already hooked. 😲 Well played, new podcast.
Next up in my super summary series: Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport.
On this blog, a super summary is basically a “summary of a summary” of a book (with a few additions of my own). It gives you the basic idea of a book to see if you want to read the real thing. Most of the content comes from Lucid visual book summary series.
👉This book gives you official permission to set your chat app to do-not-disturb or enable Focus mode on your iPhone.
Shallow work is work that’s done in small pieces, doesn’t require your full attention, and keeps you busy. It is often necessary, but it does not lead to great achievements.
Deep work means complex thinking in a state of distraction-free concentration or flow. Your brain can do amazing things in this state of focus.
Many great thinkers in history went to incredible lengths to isolate themselves from distractions while they worked. Studies show that many of people’s happiest moments come when they are stretched to their mental limits and lose themselves in this state.
This intense focus allows you to master difficult skills and produce at an elite level. It’s a career builder.
Switching frequently between tasks leaves “attention residue” and makes it difficult to focus on a new task after switching focus, especially if you leave the previous ask unfinished.
To allow yourself to get the most out of deep work, schedule your time in blocks of deep and shallow work with one of the following strategies.
👉I’ve found that I can only be productive at deep work for about 90 minutes at a time. Then I need a mental break. 🤯
On one end, monastic deep workers go to great lengths to make time for deep work. They eliminate social media and use email sparingly to achieve their goals.
👉This seems pretty extreme unless you aim to be Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond or Bon Iver at his cabin in Wisconsin. 🤷🏻♂️
Bimodal deep workers plan their day in larger blocks to make time for both the shallow and deep work they need to do.
This strategy can mean bookending a solid day of deep work email and busy work at the beginning and end of the day.
Rhythmic deep workers break their time down into smaller chunks to fit their broken-up schedule.
👉This is how I work because, you know, meetings. 🤷🏻♂️
For those with even less predictable days, journalistic scheduling capitalizes on spare moments that come up throughout the day, even if it’s just 30 minutes.
These people keep fighting for deep work time as their day evolves. 🏃🏻♀️
👉 For some additional ideas, check out Wired article How to Use Block Scheduling to Revamp Your Workflow.
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