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Varsha Shah's avatar

Utterly brilliant. So much on creativity is cliched - this is the opposite. Every creative idea I’ve had can be traced to one of these points - not that I would have been able to articulate it like this or known how to recreate it. I do now thanks to this list . Many thanks for the great posts as always. One other way I find is rituals - coffee and a candle. Don’t know why but my writing is better when I have those by my laptop!

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George Mack's avatar

Coffee and a candle. The two C's.

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Fereshteh Zeineddin's avatar

I love this! thanks for inspiring more creativity in the world.

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David Butler's avatar

One technique I use in my writing is to allow space to explore my most outlandish ideas. The bigger, grander and more absurd the better.

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George Mack's avatar

80% of the game is escaping self-imposed prisons.

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Ben Levy's avatar

Wow. I usually read stuff like this hoping for a kernel of useful info, but every one of these was as much of a banger as “one”.

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George Mack's avatar

Most substacks could’ve been a note. Good goal I try is to make a substack post that could’ve been 15 of them.

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Tomas Loucky's avatar

Keep these coming! 💪

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Jared Stivala's avatar

So is creativity and productivity two sides of a scale?

Creativity is about doing novel things to get new inputs in the brain for more diverse outputs. Productivity is about output output output. Predictable, known.

So is it one side can be maxed out but the other side suffers ?

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Luc Lucid's avatar

My best ruminations gets solved just before I wake up, when I am emerging from sleep but not opened the eyes yet ... Not dreaming, but not awaken yet ( alpha ? )

So I wake up ... 5 times a day ...

From micro naps ... ( 20 to 5 mn , depends) ...

This is a variant of your 4 ( time zone ) and 5 (bathroom) and 9 ( no boxer short required )

Been doing this since 2016 (!) and my deep work is just flowy ...

Over time, my nap time reduced

As I get trained to fall asleep quicker and quicker ...

I investigated NS, seems to be linked to DMN , ( Default Mode Network ), the brain «reorganising» at rest

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George Mack's avatar

Don’t out work your self doubt. Out nap your self doubt.

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Luc Lucid's avatar

yes, and there are case you cant decide like this , besides self doubt. in very emerging situation, its better to "rest on a case", to enable agency . this is beyond "solve the case", because what is needed is a new viewpoint, a new worldview is to be created.

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Ishita's avatar

Ok but.

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Karloverse's avatar

Yesnt

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NorthSeaFanClub's avatar

Brilliant piece, bravo.

If I was your editor, I would say, actually, we’ve got three articles:

One’s about creativity (joke and translation)

Second about play (SHM and away days)

Third about agency/permission

And a compelling mystery:

60k subscribers at the start of your journey????

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Niamh Donnelly's avatar

This is probably the most useful thing I’ve ever read

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Bri-Bri's avatar

Surely the wealthy man has a home with parking

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Harriet Beveridge's avatar

Love seeing Swedish House Mafia looking hella bored and sitting with it. I was so lucky to grow up in the 70s/80s and spend a lot of time bored out of my skull… where it was totally on you to create something.

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Karthik Rajeshwaran's avatar

Thank you

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Allan Degra's avatar

Alice Coltrane was basically a single parent for two weeks while John, in the attic, worked on what would be A Love Supreme.

Solitude.

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Cephalo Monk's avatar

I’ve never needed help being creative.

I’ve ALWAYS needed helping being wealthy.

I feel like the two are like oil and water. I haven’t found a good method to mix them yet. Any tips?! ANYONE??!

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Syd Meyer's avatar

But drugs work too??

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