5 Counter-intuitive rules for creative people

By stef | Published: January 18, 2009

Here are some counter-intuitive rules that I’m following at the moment, and if you’re a ‘creative entrepreneur’ they might apply to you too:

1. Give good ideas away

Ideas are ten-a-penny. So you’re an ideas person? That’s great, but isn’t it frustrating having loads of wonderful ideas and then not seeing any of them happen? Give one or two of them away instead. Email a rough explanation of the idea in ‘elevator pitch’ format to someone who might be able to make it happen. We’re taught to keep ideas to ourselves just in case someone else ’steals’ them, but to be honest, with so many people in the world suddenly connected together it is action rather than idea-having that is the hard part – try it, if you can’t make an idea happen, send it to someone else who can as an elevator pitch email.

2. Fail more

Totally screw up a lot more and you’re more likely to succeed. Like I said – you’ve got some great ideas. What’s stopping you from just saying ‘I quite like that one’, finding a spare evening or two to work on it and turn it from idea into reality?

If it’s a web idea, like most of mine, the realisation of those ideas can actually take place within a handful of hours. When you’re working in that kind of environment, does it matter if not every idea that you take from concept into reality is a world-beating success story? Not really.

Will it affect your ‘personal brand’? Well, if your brand is all about being safe and not taking risks, then yes it will, and probably for the better. I’m experimenting with lots of stuff at the moment on the web, throwing ideas around, connecting with people in exciting new ways, and all because I want to totally fail at a bunch of ideas.

Fail fast, fail often, succeed massively every once in a while.

3. Play, don’t work

The closer I move my work to a kind of ‘digital play’ the more I get closer to being in a state of ‘flow’ with my work. Flow is that amazing sensation when your brain almost goes into automatic pilot, you can see yourself doing what you’re doing and it just feels almost effortless. Athletes, artists, designers, dancers, actors, almost everyone experiences ‘flow’ and for me I can make myself get into that state by being more playful in the way that I work.

I think that the more that creative web people can get into that state and feel ‘code joy’ while mashing something together online that nobody has done before, the more amazing ideas will flow, and the more success and wellbeing will emerge.

4. Don’t get things done

A lot of people have been recommending I follow very structured processes for ‘getting things done’, which is actually something of a semi-religious movement around personal productivity (shortened to GTD).

I like the idea – that people can achieve more with their time. But actually there is a subset of that scene that talks about a ‘four hour work week’ (there’s a book). For creative people I cannot imagine anything worse that a life goal of sitting around doing absolutely nothing for the other 164 hours. For creative people, drive, ambition, life goals and personal motivation are all intrinsically tied to the urge to create. GTD and The Four Hour Work Week urge you to remove the actual process of being creative from the day to day flow of being a creative person.

It means that you must close yourself down and be very timetabled and task-based in what you do with your day. “Between the hours of 11am and 2pm I will have some inspiration”

This is entirely the opposite of what I think will be required of creative people, so I am doing precisely the opposite.

‘Don’t Get Things Done’ means keeping your eye on the overall strategy of what you are trying to achieve, but crucially being totally open to accepting tangents and changes of plan along the way, and crucially on a very short timeline. Yes, have a rough list of what you need to do, but get on with the ‘being creative’ side of things and let other people that you are working with deal with whatever structury, legally, stop-the-creativity things they need to be doing.

It means letting a few things go by the wayside, being slow to respond to a few emails, but by focussing on what you’re trying to do at the same time as taking interesting tangents and exploring you’re bound to come up with things that other people won’t in the same length of time.

5. Get riskier

I’m really bad at Monopoly. Until I win. My strategy is pretty much always to bag the two most expensive properties on the board and get a hotel on them as quick as possible. Yes, it’s risky. Yes, it means I often lose. But when I win it’s totally game over for whoever lands on that hotel.

A lot of people busy themselves talking about entrepreneurial risk – the ‘put everything on the line’ mental state you have to live with when you’re running your own company. In an online world that just gets more pronounced. In order to succeed on the web, it seems to me that there will always be someone else who can build the thing you’re doing faster and better than you ever would. And if it’s not faster or better it’s in another language or with a big media partner you didn’t have time to approach just yet.

So the only way to really succeed is to ‘ring-fence’ each of your ideas with just an acceptable level of risk (nobody is going to come and kill me if this bails out) and then push as hard as possible on that idea within the length of time you’ve given it.

6. Accelerate serendipity

The unexpected rule. By far the best way of making big and amazing things happen on the web is to connect with other people who can give you a leg up. The trouble is, you don’t know who or what is going to help you in your mission until you’ve met them or found out about them. So, the only reasonable strategy is to ‘network’, but I’m now of the opinion that ‘networking’ as was is just one part of the equation for the kind of connectivity we’re seeing happening online.

It’s a bit ’social media’, it’s a bit ‘meet up in your local area’, it’s also a bit ’set out your stall’ – but in all of this, if you have your eye on one simple idea you’ll succeed: accelerate serendipity – make more ‘happy accidents’ happen. Find ways to engineer inspirational encounters with people you will grow to know and admire.

Find ways for potential collaborators to just ‘bump into you’. Work in a cafe more often. Hang out in unusual places. Accept invites to stuff you probably shouldn’t go to because you’re too busy. Go to unexpected and tangental conferences. Work in the web? Don’t go to ‘User Experience Expo 5′, go to where a philosopher is speaking at a university near you instead. Randomise your work-week.

I’m not saying that these rules will work for anyone but me, but these are general rules I’m obeying for myself and so far it’s making for an exciting way to work -sorry- play.

This entry was posted in Blog and tagged counter-intuitive, creative, creativity, fail, play, risk, serendipity, win, work. Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

Christine Forest

I have just stumbled on to your blog but I couldn't agree more with your ideas. Many people may argue but I often work the same way. And, often, good things happen unexpectedly. Sometimes, counter-intuition helps opening ways we thought shut. I like your willingness and courage to talk about out not so main stream ideas. That definitely accelerates serendipity.
I look forward to read more of your blog. Good luck with your fellowship.

Karl Randay

Great Stef! I don't check in here nearly as much as I would like, but needless to say I found that inspirational. Having worked closely with you for years it feels like a natural evolution (albeit one that is validated by being put into practice on your own terms, not the clients!) to everything you really felt was an ideal work-balance ethic.

I'll be back more regularly mehtinks!

Derek Neighbors

Stef all stuff we preach regularly at Gangplank. You should find your way down someday soon. : ) Items 3 and 4 I think are somewhat problematic is mis-interpreted. Especially, item #4. I agree with the core principle, but think most people will read entirely incorrectly and actually be less successful. Regardless great post.

Karen Strunks -B4AM Project

Thank you for your great post! It's certainly given me food for thought, and highlighted the fact that there is more than one way to approach my work, use of time and productivity. I feel it's now time to try a different way of working and shake things up and bit and see what happens.

As a bit of a newbie to social media, I am amazed to see serendipity at work, for myself and others, on a day to day basis. A wonderful thing.

stef

Wow! Thanks so much everyone :)

I wrote this and then all the comments came in just when we're preparing for the arrival of our baby. I'll just take a moment now and try to respond to some of the specifics. Seems like I'm not alone though!

sixball

Another emphatic upvote for 1, 2 and 6 with the following notes.

1. Giving ideas away. The common tendency to sit on that genius idea prevents you from getting possible flaws pointed out, variations you may not have considered as well as serendipitous connections you'd not have made otherwise. This *almost always* outweighs the simple risk of your idea getting nicked. Just the fact that it's your idea and not theirs halves the attraction for creative entrepreneurs.

2. Fail more. Feedback again. There's so much more to be learnt from a 'failure' than a 'success'. In the long run the only real failure is to not learn the lessons from the experience or, worse still, miss the opportunity to have the experience.

6. Accelerate serendipity. This is the artful part that can almost feel self-indulgent but is essential for the major transitions in your projects. A rough 'strategy' (as far as that is possible) might be socially promiscuity with a playful eye for opportunities and a readiness to move along when some other context presents itself. It's worth bearing in mind that the richest seams are often found in the unexpected direction.

Rich Batsford

Interesing stuff, thanks.

My strategy for Monopoly is pretty much the exact opposite to yours (I buy as many of the cheapest properties as soon as possible and invest in property on them straight away) and I nearly always win.

Usualy by the time anyone who is holding out for collections on the big properies has got the set and got hotels on them, Ive got enough money to afford to land on them anyway.

I like what you say about being flexible in your work, tho I do like a certain structure as well. (meditation, reading and piano playing are the sort of things Ii like to do first thing, followed by catching up with stuff on the net and clearing my inbox, then cracking on with the" to do list" in the afternoon, before whatever the evening holds).

My To Do list system is in six parts - allowing for a variety of options:

1) things that are fairly important but not too time critical

2) things I specifically want to do today

3) things I want to do in the days remaining this week

4) things that are less time critical and important, but worth a look soonish (if Im too busy this stuff sometimes just gets cut and paster en masse to the end of the following week).

5) entries for the rest of the year

6) non urgent stuff that Id like to get to at some point.

I particularly like what you say about "flow" - its great when things are going along well and you can simply let them happen.

in the groove baby :-)

re failing more - why even see things as success or failure? - surely theyre all steps along the way - each is an opportunity to learn and represents a progression of some sort.

And yes, playing rather than working sounds great.

Ive been through a process of letting go of what I consider to be work and what isnt. ie seeing it all as productive activity.

On a bad day that can mean that everything seems like work - on a better, nothing does.

Heres to more good ones :-)

Rich
Xx

Vegard Sandvold

Great post, Stef!

David Weinberger writes about how ideas people are often placed (or place themselves) at intersections between people, departments or fields of study. It's almost like you can't stop yourself having ideas when you're in the right spot.

From CE Buzz (http://cebuzz.wordpress.com/2008/03/22/training-david-weinberger-and-those-messy-crossroads/):

By the time we reach the final sections of Everything Is Miscellaneous, we’re happily flying high in messiness and miscellany with Weinberger. He reports that network analysts “have found that innovation happens at the intersections” —as we interact with colleagues from other fields of study or with backgrounds much different than our own, we are most likely to have the breakthrough moments in learning and creativity. It is, he suggests, similar to standing at a busy intersection in a city: “at those messy crossroads you’re more likely to get splashed” (pp. 181-182), and this leads to the enviable and disorderly position in which we now find ourselves: “We can make connections and relationships at a pace never before imagined” (p. 221).

Daniel Davies

Hi Stef. I like this post, its also reassuring to know a lot of what you say I'm already practicing. However, I find myself not quite understanding point 4. I find tangents to be a very bad thing, often taking too much of a tangent prevents you ever getting something done, or completely missing your original goals. I prefer to initially work within a very limited and focused scope. Maybe its my almost religious following of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, but getting something very focused done and released quickly and then over time allowing the tangents to emerge out of demand can be far more rewarding and useful to your audience/user-base.

Tom

Love this post. The failing rule is spot on. Try. Fail. Try again. Fail better. Failing is the only true innoculation against fear - fear of damage to your reputation, of 'looking silly'. Once you've failed enough, you'll be able to let go of the fear of failure.

On the play one, it's probably worth thinking about how much work you have put into gaining a skill before you're able to play with it. Think about a musician. There's a huge amount of practice and hard work required before they can stand up and just play with their instrument. I'm sure if you think about it, you'll see the huge number of hours that you have clocked up working hard on your coding skills before it got to the point where it feels like play.

But the 'flow' you're talking about is an awesome feeling I can relate to - almost an out of body experience when a part of you is just watching yourself at work, being amazed by what you can do.

stef

Tara Hunt gave an excellent talk at Thinking Digital last year about Flow - there might be some slides online somewhere. A few people talk about this but I'm not sure many understand it. Achieving 'flow' is actually a whole way of living I could imagine.

jeddings

If I could offer an additional counter-intuitive rule about creativity: "Pay attention to the ideas you laugh at." Some of the best Ideas that I or others I've worked with have had are the ones that when they were first uttered brought laughter, giggling, or downright mockery. Sometimes the best ideas in the world are the ones that at first seem audacious and silly, but upon reflection, digging, or slight modification, turn into brilliant nuggets. Once while trying to figure out how we can allow developers to build components (today called gadgets or widgets on Web pages), I made the silly suggestion that they can just develop it online through a Developer Component. After the chuckling subsided, we actually looked at that idea and realized it actually solved all the problems we were facing, and pushed our product ahead by that much. I'm sure when someone came up with the idea to transport people long distances by hurling them into the air in giant metallic boxes, and then using a controlled crash to get them down to their destination must have had a good laugh, but this is how things like the airline industry are born.

stef

That's excellent advice - some of the best ideas that I come up with too are 'that's just plain silly!' ones.

In fact these projects: I So Wish, Twadio, 5alist, Mansion Impossible, in fact most of the viral games we've done at 3form and probably a bunch of other things I've done are ones that started off as 'pub ideas' and I just made them happen with people who giggled. Hell - 3form started off with me saying 'I'm going to start a design company in my spare time at university' and people laughing at the idea :)

Nicky Getgood

Totally agree. Especially with the Fail More and it being ok to do so. I remember hearing a business-type lecture (annoyingly can't remember or find out who by) in which the speaker said he'd never employ anyone with a perfect CV. A perfect CV with no gaps, sackings, academic or career failures spoke of someone who'd always played by the rules and played things safe. The type of person he'd never want to work with.

Not so long ago I was writing busy writing a business plan for a business that never actually got off the ground for various reasons. But I'm so glad I went through that experience, even if people did witness me trying and failing. I learnt so much along the way. I'm certain I wouldn't be doing some of the stuff I'm doing now if I hadn't gone through that and it'll no doubt come in handy for the future.

BTW the 'playing more' thing has inspired the seed of what could be a great, game-playing project. It may come to fruition, it may not. But I won't know unless I have a bash at it, so that's what I'll do! :-)

stef

That's fantastic - let me know what happens with that one :-)

If you find that link please let me know!

Carl Morris

Love it.

In particular, number 1 "give good ideas away" is a total win for so many reasons.

I would actually expand on that and say that the ideas you KEEP should be shared as well.

Almost every person you meet will have an insight or observation which improves or refines your idea, taking you closer to a good execution. People want to help and generally people love talking about ideas.

I've been trying to adopt this openness for the past few months. My inclination is to be a closed person. I keep reminding myself that being more open will help other people and will help me. (If this scares you, almost every person will be either 1. too busy to take your idea or 2. not as skilled or advanced as you in your niche.)

Here's to playing, trying and failing! And occasionally succeeding.

stef

Yes! Here's to that :-)

Actually - as a result of this post I've had a load of good ideas suddenly sent to me. And I've also sent a bunch of ideas I've been holding onto to other people to see what they can do with them. It felt pretty good and it looks like something might come of one or two of them too.

dubber

You know I'm with you on all of this stuff, Stef - except point 4.

I've interpreted GTD and the 4-hour work week in the light of your comment 'Don't work - play'. Sometimes we do have to work, and it's stuff that can't be considered as play no matter how much we want to turn it into a game. I want no more than 4 hours a week of that stuff.

The rest of the time is not about doing nothing - it's about being busy doing what I love.

The GTD system (or at least my implementation of it) clears all the clutter and crap out of the way, gets it into a system I can rely on, so that when I'm working on something I'm really into, I'm not being nagged by my brain that I should be handling some other stuff.

An empty inbox (the hallmark of the GTD advocate) is confirmation that I'm doing exactly the right thing, right now. Being creative, making cool stuff - without worrying if I was supposed to be somewhere, do something - or whether somebody has different expectations of me right at this moment.

Honestly - implementing a strategy that takes all that little niggling crap out of my brain and dumps it into a reliable system frees me up to play unencumbered by concerns. It's not about doing more with your time - it's about being able to make informed decisions at any moment as to what the best use of your time might be.

An overflowing email inbox and a bunch of people waiting around for you to get back to them is just psychological baggage. I want to get that stuff handled as quickly as possible before things turn into chaos and crisis so that I can think about the fun, creative stuff.

Because if you don't have a system that works for you - all you're doing is ignoring it until it reaches crisis point - then you're panicking as things spiral out of control. Which, frankly, isn't part of my fun, creative '164-hour Play Week' plan.

stef

Andrew - I just _knew_ you'd pick me up on the GTD thing.

For those that missed it Andrew was the person who managed to get me to Inbox Zero last year - unfortunately I'm failing to keep it up...

Part of me wishes I could get to that zen-like state all the time, but I just like a gas, the more space that I have, the more I create to fill it. Inbox Zero just implies 'fill me up even more now', I guess.

At some point you have to accept that certain behaviour is permanent and some of it can be changed. I don't think anyone can doubt that I get a lot of stuff done, but yes, it's chaotic, and usually up against a deadline with stress in tow, but perhaps some of that is just the mode that I work best in. I know that a lot of people do the same and want to change - but that behaviour does mean I achieve a bunch of stuff.

I'll keep chatting to you offline about this one. But I wasn't going to hold back and pretend that I'm following those kinds of rules when I'm clearly not!

marksteadman

Excellent post. I feel like, maybe now 'cause I'm beginning to experience it myself, I fully understand the idea of accelerated serendipity.

This has also inspired me to think about my working day, and from tomorrow I'm going to start building in a bit of "braintime", an hour or so of lying in silence and letting the brain skip, jump, shout and throw things around, instead of dulling it by checking the feeds (it can wait) or watching crap telly during my lunchbreak.

It's not often you get to thank someone for a good post, but thanks :)

Ian Hughes

Great post Stef, particularly agree on the idea of failing more, this without doubt helps us to succeed in the long run, and builds experience and confidence.

Ideas are ten a penny, and many people have them all the time, some people have one which they will never do, and normally entrepreneurs just make them happen. It's the entrepreneurs that will keep hold of them and won't change them, even if they are poor to start with and need research and support from the people around them for feedback and best results.

The work flow again comes from experience, and our general outlook on that work. What takes one coder a day, can take another three. The attitude to the work we do is key, and as with all 'work' if we like it, people normally give it their all.