Why you’re not doing creative work(every.to)
every.to
Why you’re not doing creative work
https://every.to/superorganizers/why-you-re-not-doing-creative-work
31 comments
I've thought recently that the worst thing that can happen to an author's quality is massive success - it seems like there are a lot of authors who get to the tail end of a series or who get a large body of work behind them who decide that they don't need anyone's input on their work, and their editors know it will sell and refuse to fight them on it. It's not universal, but "full creative control" seems like it doesn't work for a lot of writers.
Nice read, but am I only one annoyed by titles like this one? “Why you’re not creative” subtly implies that you should be doing creative work and that if you aren’t, you’re doing something wrong. So many self-help articles on HN in particular seem designed to inspire this sort of guilt trip.
Do creative work if you want to. Or don’t. Not everyone has to do everything. The answer to “why you’re not doing creative work” honestly could be “Because I don’t want to and I don’t have to.”
Do creative work if you want to. Or don’t. Not everyone has to do everything. The answer to “why you’re not doing creative work” honestly could be “Because I don’t want to and I don’t have to.”
If the article was titled "Why you don't catch many fish", do you think the article would need extra clarification that it shouldn't apply to people who don't like fishing?
"Why you're not creative" isn't the title, and means something completely different than the title.
If you see the title and it inspires guilt, then that's a personal problem. Either you should be doing creative work, and you aren't, in which case the article might be helpful. Or you shouldn't/don't need to do creative work, and if you still feel guilty nothing in the article - or truthfully, any article - is going to help.
If you see the title and it inspires guilt, then that's a personal problem. Either you should be doing creative work, and you aren't, in which case the article might be helpful. Or you shouldn't/don't need to do creative work, and if you still feel guilty nothing in the article - or truthfully, any article - is going to help.
disagree. the title is not suggesting that you should be doing creative work. it didn't to me. it merely stating that you aren't, and it explains why. it's a statement not a question asking you to explain yourself.
for those who actually do want to do creative work, the article has some good insights, some of which i'll be trying out myself.
for those who actually do want to do creative work, the article has some good insights, some of which i'll be trying out myself.
Remember that you aren't necessarily the audience for this link. It was just posted on a link aggregator site.
The only thing that irks me more than articles (or headlines) written in the second person is articles written in the first person plural.
It depends on the context. If you're writing in the persona of speaking for your company, first person plural may make more sense than singular. Depending on the circumstances one or the other can feel more appropriate.
I was actually expecting the title to mean "why what you think is you doing creative work really isn’t".
As someone with ADHD who has done what I consider to be quite a lot of creative work, the equation seems to be the exact opposite for me. Execution is dull and predictable, plus my brain just doesn’t care about the good/bad consequences unless they are both significant and imminent. On the other hand, during exploration I’m like a firecracker on speed and can lose hours going down rabbit holes experimenting and chasing different ideas. My brain is very happy in this state with a constant flow of dopamine but before my diagnosis, I struggled to ever finish anything of significance. For the past couple of years since though (and with the help of medication which ironically is a kind of “slow release amphetamine” as far as I understand, so quietens my brain’s constant desire for stimulation), I’ve finally been able to see a whole serious of large tasks through to completion over the course of a much longer project than I’ve ever really been able to do before.
So I guess what the author describes may well be the root of why people sometimes refer to ADHD being a “superpower” if neurotypicals tend to struggle so much with the bits that come naturally to us…
I have social anxiety, and I feel like deadlines and public commitments stress me out and distract from actual work. The more work feels like non-committed play and less like social obligation, the better.
However, deadlines work best for me if I am genuinely helping someone. So setting an arbitrary deadline is less productive than asking something like "I need that tomorrow because I would like to show that to client". Possibly because helping others is always, in some sense, uncommitted.
However, deadlines work best for me if I am genuinely helping someone. So setting an arbitrary deadline is less productive than asking something like "I need that tomorrow because I would like to show that to client". Possibly because helping others is always, in some sense, uncommitted.
The more I feel I "have" to do something, the less I want to.
I’ve found that my most productive time is in the early morning. I can bang out a lot of high-quality code, and find and fix very difficult bugs, before 10AM.
I find I’m most creative, though, in the afternoon. I often start something in the afternoon, then get it working, the next morning.
Also, I’m constantly in “ship” mode. I write all my code (even the experimental stuff) as if it is shipping code.
That means a lot of “stopping to sand off the rough edges,” as I proceed.
I seem to strike a decent balance between creating and delivering.
I find I’m most creative, though, in the afternoon. I often start something in the afternoon, then get it working, the next morning.
Also, I’m constantly in “ship” mode. I write all my code (even the experimental stuff) as if it is shipping code.
That means a lot of “stopping to sand off the rough edges,” as I proceed.
I seem to strike a decent balance between creating and delivering.
I am also most productive before 10AM, but that is usually because 6-10 is the only time I have to work, because at 10AM, meetings usually start, and they don't stop until around 3pm (sometimes as late as 6pm near releases), and by then my entire soul has been sucked from my body and I need 12-16 hours to slowly reel it back in.
I love WFH, but this is the one part that has seriously killed me. Before WFH, management was rarely in the office before 10AM or between 12PM-2PM and I would sneak out at 4PM every day. Now that everyone is WFH, the concept of work hours has died. I still have a hard stop at 4pm, but doesn't stop me from getting calls or texts even as late as midnight - I just refused to answer anything after I'm done working and put my phone on silence.
I love WFH, but this is the one part that has seriously killed me. Before WFH, management was rarely in the office before 10AM or between 12PM-2PM and I would sneak out at 4PM every day. Now that everyone is WFH, the concept of work hours has died. I still have a hard stop at 4pm, but doesn't stop me from getting calls or texts even as late as midnight - I just refused to answer anything after I'm done working and put my phone on silence.
A lot of wisdom here. Allow me to just restate and expand on some of your thoughts.
1. If it goes from experimental to ship, you aren’t going to go back and make it shipshape.
2. Sanding time is meditation on the product. As I rework, I’m revisiting the code and design at multiple levels.
3. Before 10am is the old programmers 2am. It’s quiet. The hustle and interruptions of the day haven’t begun.
1. If it goes from experimental to ship, you aren’t going to go back and make it shipshape.
2. Sanding time is meditation on the product. As I rework, I’m revisiting the code and design at multiple levels.
3. Before 10am is the old programmers 2am. It’s quiet. The hustle and interruptions of the day haven’t begun.
> 1. If it goes from experimental to ship, you aren’t going to go back and make it shipshape.
Also, I'm constantly mining my codebase for snippets, so I would like them to be quality.
The other main reason, is that I like to establish good habits. If I do all my code that way, I don't have to worry about taking extra care for the shipping stuff.
I write about my approach, here: https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships...
Also, I'm constantly mining my codebase for snippets, so I would like them to be quality.
The other main reason, is that I like to establish good habits. If I do all my code that way, I don't have to worry about taking extra care for the shipping stuff.
I write about my approach, here: https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships...
I'm in the same boat. I've started waking up at 5am to make the most of this. 5-7 work on side projects, 7-11 actual work then after than I'm done for the day.
> Execution is Elton John writing Your Song in 20 minutes
Nitpick: he means Bernie Taupin, a prolific song writer who wrote many of Sir Eltons songs. Credit where it is due: According to Bernie "I scribbled the lyric down on a lined notepad at the kitchen table of Elton's mother's apartment in the London suburb of Northwood Hills, breakfast time sometime in 1969. That’s it. Plain and simple." [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Your_Song#Composition_and_insp...
Nitpick: he means Bernie Taupin, a prolific song writer who wrote many of Sir Eltons songs. Credit where it is due: According to Bernie "I scribbled the lyric down on a lined notepad at the kitchen table of Elton's mother's apartment in the London suburb of Northwood Hills, breakfast time sometime in 1969. That’s it. Plain and simple." [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Your_Song#Composition_and_insp...
Are you proposing that the music for Your Song (written by Elton John) was not part of the songwriting? Or should we just say that he chose a poor example and would have been better off with a example where the lyrics and music were written by the same person.
That's probably different for everyone, but
> In the exploration phase, you don’t know what the thing is going to be, you don’t have all of the information or ideas you want to have, you don’t even know if what you’re thinking about is important, and any little breeze in the wrong direction might blow you off course. In the execution phase, you are inspired, you know what the thing is, you know how to make it, it feels urgent; all you need to do is sit down and do the thing.
That's pretty much the opposite of how I work on such things. In the exploration phase there are lots of interesting aspects to think about and I'm motivated to actually work on that, while during execution all the interesting parts are already done, therefore my motivation is completely missing and there's a good chance that the "sit down and do the thing" part never happens or if I start I use every possible excuse to explore another project instead.
> In the exploration phase, you don’t know what the thing is going to be, you don’t have all of the information or ideas you want to have, you don’t even know if what you’re thinking about is important, and any little breeze in the wrong direction might blow you off course. In the execution phase, you are inspired, you know what the thing is, you know how to make it, it feels urgent; all you need to do is sit down and do the thing.
That's pretty much the opposite of how I work on such things. In the exploration phase there are lots of interesting aspects to think about and I'm motivated to actually work on that, while during execution all the interesting parts are already done, therefore my motivation is completely missing and there's a good chance that the "sit down and do the thing" part never happens or if I start I use every possible excuse to explore another project instead.
Very much this.
When a game idea occurs to me, the exciting part is discovering the mechanics, the story, the gotchas. As soon as the idea is even semi-formed on paper or in my mind I lose interest.
When a game idea occurs to me, the exciting part is discovering the mechanics, the story, the gotchas. As soon as the idea is even semi-formed on paper or in my mind I lose interest.
As someone who is creative not by choice but by inescapable genetic predisposition:
The creative phase takes a lot of energy, it constantly runs in the background, grinding out the possible from the impossible.
If you go out of your way to take on another task unrelated to your day job - you are going to feel the pain. And your performance at work is going to drop.
Because the uncomfortable truth is that creative work is like a background task constantly running in the brain. And that saps up resources and removes brain power from your run of the mill tasks.
I can feel when a creative process has ended because the fuzzy veil over the world lifts and I can suddenly see more clearly. The resources that were tied up in designing a compressive sensing camera or a new lenticular screen design or a new physical theory of the universe are suddenly released and it's a relief.
The creative phase takes a lot of energy, it constantly runs in the background, grinding out the possible from the impossible.
If you go out of your way to take on another task unrelated to your day job - you are going to feel the pain. And your performance at work is going to drop.
Because the uncomfortable truth is that creative work is like a background task constantly running in the brain. And that saps up resources and removes brain power from your run of the mill tasks.
I can feel when a creative process has ended because the fuzzy veil over the world lifts and I can suddenly see more clearly. The resources that were tied up in designing a compressive sensing camera or a new lenticular screen design or a new physical theory of the universe are suddenly released and it's a relief.
This article hits home for me. Especially the description of the exploration phase. In a world run by clocks, it's easy to overlook how important this phase is. The tip to value the exploration phase, regardless of the outcome, is an important one.
To be honest, by judging the title, first I thought this was 'yet another journalist' writing a nice fluffy article. Glad I clicked and read though. The author has experience, that's very clear from the text. Thanks for submitting!
To be honest, by judging the title, first I thought this was 'yet another journalist' writing a nice fluffy article. Glad I clicked and read though. The author has experience, that's very clear from the text. Thanks for submitting!
- You've just finished reading Linchpin and come to the conclusion that you're not doing creative work because you don't have the time.
- But you can do things fast when you're already dripping in experience. (Explore/Exploit problem)
- So, you spend more time gathering experience and use some approaches from The Procrastination Equation.
- Then after all of that you realize thinking outside of the box is hard so you induce creativity using ThinkerToys.
- But you can do things fast when you're already dripping in experience. (Explore/Exploit problem)
- So, you spend more time gathering experience and use some approaches from The Procrastination Equation.
- Then after all of that you realize thinking outside of the box is hard so you induce creativity using ThinkerToys.
[deleted]
As they added a paywall: https://archive.fo/4B7ee
its not truly about creative work, its about creative work that sells (big).
am I the only one who is like "I don't care about creative work". I just like to code and I like money so for me my career is a win win?
This matches my experience. I finished writing a novel a few months ago. It took me ~2 years, of which very little time was spent actually writing. Gathering information, thinking about the book and day-dreaming took the bulk of the time.
The problem with so-called "exploration" phase is that you don't know what you're doing, you don't know why you're doing it, you don't know where you're going or where your general direction might be. It's not terrifying, it's aimless. It's like being in the desert or in the middle of the sea, with no compass but plenty of food, so there isn't even a sense of urgency to push you forward.
I think it's Duke Ellington who said "I don't need time. What I need is a deadline." Editors breathing on one's neck are underrated.