The other day on Twitter, I accidentally nailed down what I’ve been trying to say on this blog for the past 18 months:
We so easily associate creativity with creative thinking that they are often treated as synonymous. Whereas, in fact, you can do a hell of a lot of creative thinking (brainstorming, lateral thinking, daydreaming etc) without creating anything at all.
On the other hand, if you start with creative doing – i.e. rolling your sleeves up and trying to actually make something amazing, the ‘creative thinking’ bit tends to take care of itself. If you’re hammering away at a prototype in the garage, or the first draft of your novel, or the first iteration of your website, it’s hard not to obsess about it, and keep thinking about it – even when you’re supposed to be relaxing out of working hours.
And as we all know, it’s when you’re in the bath/on the golf course/on the dancefloor at three in the morning, that that brilliant idea is most likely to strike. It’s not the bathing/golfing/clubbing per se that produces the idea – let alone any fancy creative thinking techniques – but the fact that your previous creative doing set the wheels in motion in your unconscious mind.
Creative thinking doesn’t (necessarily) lead to create doing.
Creative doing leads to creative thinking. More importantly, it gets results.
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1 2 3 Next »Awesome insight.
You may as well make this post your "about" page!
To go even further, launching is better than endless creating. There's something about preparing for a launch that focuses creative work.
Yes. Why creative doing beats creating thinking? It feels really, really good to do.
The aha moment feels great - and yes, I had one in the shower the other day - but making things feels better.
These days, I'm paying more attention to how I feel when I create something. Last week I produced a video course on creativity. It wasn't easy - I wrote the script and did all the filming myself. Setting up the lighting seemed to take days and really annoyed me.
But the satisfaction I felt after I'd finished all seven films was much, much better than the glow of initial ideas.
I treated myself to a walk and a sandwich at Snarfs, all the while savoring the work I'd done and the empowerment I felt from pushing through the difficult parts. While in the happy post-creating bliss, other ideas came to me.
It's my hope that others savor the deep satisfaction that comes from doing enough to drive past obstacles or the initial flash that comes from bright new ideas.
Creating shouldn't be an act you do only by punitive measures. Creating can feel very good and in tough times, don't we deserve a little thrill?
Thanks for posting this, Mark. It's true that doing begets thinking and more ideas are coming all the time!
Thanks Hashim. Yes, this is an updated version of what I was getting at when I wrote the articles for our About page, esp. Creative Thinking Is Not Enough and Beyond Getting Things Done.
Thanks Cynthia, excellent point. I actually just wrote this piece on the back of feeling good after writing another one. :-)
Finally, something written about creativity that's actually simple and make sense.
I've read so many scholarly articles, books, seminar, all these wasted hours.
Thank you.
Its a wonder why so obvious things like that eludes us everyday.
Excellent insight and nudge!
Here's a paradox. People recognized as thought leaders have to produce things, they can't just think about producing them.
Their creative thoughts and ideas may be produced in forms as divergent as blog posts, objects, systems or solutions but their creative thinking is definitely reflected in their creative doing!
Definitely.
The more I collaged and painted and DID, even when I thought I was being derivative and boring, the more I was able to think creatively and come up with new stuff.
The more I wrote blog posts for something like Inventing Elephants, the easier it was to come up with new ones and interact with people and develop insights that were creative and relatively unique to me.
One of my problems for the last few months has been a lack of doing these types of original things, which makes me think about them less and not as successfully when I do think about them. Which makes it feel like I have a wall to push past to get going again...
So perhaps there's a corollary
Creative doing inspires, instigates, and improves creative thinking.
@ dedude - I try to keep things as obvious as possible. ;-)
@ Mark - "People recognized as thought leaders have to produce things, they can’t just think about producing them." Very true.
@ Beth - Doing begets doing!
Great observation. I think part of what makes the creative doing so powerful is that it takes whatever you're working on out of the abstract and into the real. That in turn gives your brain something concrete to engage in.
The resulting creative ideas might come from starting to see the concept take shape and better understanding how to sculpt and refine it. Or they might come because you bump up against the obstacles that inevitably come up in the implementation of just about anything. And that forces you into creative problem-solving mode.
Like many people, I can get caught in the creative idea stage and never get to the actual reality-making stage. This is a great reminder that the two can actually work together in concert.
Oh so true, Mark.
@Hashim - I agree with you about launches. Or appearances of any kind. It's good to think of ourselves as idea-shipping people, I think, rather than just idea people. Sending stuff out means we receive stuff back that sets us off again.
I find that thinking is probably at its most creative when conjuring up ideas about how to avoid the creative doings we've lined up for ourselves. Most of my housework/correspondence/tweeting etc etc is done as a result of such creative not-doing.
And blog comments, too. :)
Ho hum...back to the novel...