Creativity > Productivity
“More people should do what I’m doing right now. They should sit at their computers and bat the cursor around — write full sentences about themselves and the things they care about. -James Somers”
-- Me
I love when I have an idea forming in my head and then I randomly find the idea eloquently written by another author. It feels like they’re writing your thoughts for you. This week I experienced that in this essay.
Somers speaks about how writing can influence your train of thought in everyday life.
When I have a piece of writing in mind, what I have, in fact, is a mental bucket: an attractor for and generator of thought. It’s like a thematic gravity well, a magnet for what would otherwise be a mess of iron filings. I’ll read books differently and listen differently in conversations. In particular I’ll remember everything better; everything will mean more to me. That’s because everything I perceive will unconsciously engage on its way in with the substance of my preoccupation. A preoccupation, in that sense, is a hell of a useful thing for a mind.
I love the idea of writing as a sort of intentional preoccupation. Deciding on a writing topic is like setting an intention for thinking throughout the day/week/month where everything you consume goes through a quick filter of “how could this relate to what I’m trying to write?”. When you put that lens on things, they become more easily connected in ways they otherwise wouldn’t have.
You should write because when you know that you’re going to write, it changes the way you live. [A notebook] is the site of a collision between a mind and a world.
I found this via a great article from one of my favorite writers, Sari Azout. The theme of the article is right in line with some of the books I’ve been reading recently - namely Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman and Slow Productivity by Cal Newport.
In Sari’s essay, she describes the obsession we have with maximizing productivity and how no number of apps can really help guide us on what to actually *produce* in the first place. Now that production of almost anything is being commoditized and automated, that initial creative element of idea generation is becoming more and more valuable.
She clearly and logically lays out her case for her new personal knowledge management tool – Sublime – which I just signed up for.
Along the way, she shares a concise description of the creative process:
The creative process involves taking existing ideas, making novel connections between them, and combining them into something new.
Collecting: Gathering interesting ideas
Connecting: Drawing connections and organizing materials
Creating: Producing something new
Music 🎧
Comment yours. I want to see them! Seriously…
I saw Suki Waterhouse perform at Brooklyn Paramount recently. I’m loving her song, Moves.
OKRAAA - randomly discovered this ambient artist performing at Public Records last week.
Movies 🎥
I finally finished Paddington 2 and it did turn out to be an incredible movie. I get the hype.
Reading 📚
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I picked up Music is History by Questlove. Each chapter is dedicated to a year between 1971 and 2002 and he tells the narrative of the year through songs released in that year. Pretty cool idea.
Updates
Santa Theresa, Costa Rica Dec 14-21 🏄🏻♂️
Some combination of PA/NJ/DE week of Christmas
NYC for New Years week
FL Jan 6
Tycho in St. Pete Jan 9
Just finished "The ONE Thing" and it had a similar theme. One of the things (ha) I took away from it is you don't need to be productive and doing more, you just need to focus in on what really matters and do that thing. It's not exactly anti-productive, but it's along the same lines. I found it really interesting and inspiring.
I've had Slow Productivity queued up to read next, and excited to take a crack at it over the holidays. Keeping on this theme of "doing less" and "focusing".
Sublime sounds really interesting. Are you going to try it out? I've found similar tools like Notion, Readwise, Obsidian, and Logseq to be helpful but always wanted a certain combination of their features. Maybe I'll give Sublime a shot.