Just make a thing

Creativity is one of the best ways to future-proof your career, because process-driven work seems likely to get continually chipped away at by software, (which FYI, is eating the world).

Creativity happens to be my scene. Always has been.

But what if you aren’t so comfortable and free with creativity?

Well, my first piece of advice about being creative is: Don’t think, don’t judge, just make a Thing.

Here’s what I’m getting at.

Sometimes, usually when I have just enjoyed some coffee, I indulge in some freewriting, which is basically just tapping at the keyboard, writing non-stop without necessarily knowing what to write about and certainly not stopping for spelling and punctuation. That’s what I’m doing now, but by the time you read this, I’ll have (hopefully) cleaned up all my typos.

The reason I like freewriting is because it’s a way to surprise yourself and discover something new. I find that if your mind is sort of stuck in Nowheresville, you can tap into a wellspring of inspiration that exists inside of you by just poking away at the keyword.

Of course it doesn’t have to be a keyboard. If you want you can draw, paint, sing, play guitar, scratch patterns in the dirt with a stick, whatever. And it only needs to take five or ten minutes. The point is you just start doing something– anything–and before you know it, you’ve made a Thing. 

It may not be a great Thing and you may not even like it – but I don’t think that matters. What I think does matter is that, if you have this latent desire in you to create, that you just honour this compulsion by moving your fingers or vocal chords or toes or whatever and making something happen. 

Whether it is good or not is entirely subjective, so forget about that, it actually doesn’t matter. What matters is how you feel about yourself and what you’ve affirmed within yourself–that you’re a doer not just a dreamer. Then, at the end of the day you can sit back and flick on the telly and say to yourself “Hey, I wanted to do something creative today and I did, so hand me the chocolate, yo.” 

Not unlike this blog post, really.