Using Time to Leverage Creativity
by Alan Pritt
Yep, you need discipline if you want to use this technique to do less work! This is not a contradiction. The discipline comes from doing a little bit of work early on instead of putting it off.
I'll illustrate why this is so important with a tale of two students...
Jonny:
Jonny begins his semester at the University of Slackers. In the first lesson he is given a course outline, including a choice of questions for the essay due in 12 weeks. He has a brief look at what's going to be covered in this unit, but doesn't even bother reading the essay titles because he knows they're not due for almost 3 months. This is Jonny's favourite time of year because he knows he can get away without doing any work for a while.After 10 weeks, the lectures stop and the students have a few weeks to work on their essays. Jonny has other essays due as well. One is not due for 3 weeks still, so he doesn't worry about that. The essay for this unit is due in two weeks. And another essay is due in just one week. Obviously he forgets about this essay, and races towards the earlier deadline.
One week later, he hands in his first essay. It's been a heavy week and he has two more heavy weeks ahead, but he is going to celebrate this small victory. He can begin work on the next essay tomorrow; tonight he's going to celebrate.
The next day, sometime in the afternoon, he drags his hungover body to the library. He takes a look at the questions. None of them look particularly inspiring, and he spends the rest of the day deciding which question to do.
Having eventually decided on a question that looks half decent, he goes to find some books for research. He sees his classmate there, who tells him none of the good books are left. Unfortunately everyone doing similar questions had already taken them out!
Eventually Jonny finds some half decent books, and takes them home. The next day he begins writing without much of a plan; or any idea which way he wants to take the essay. Over the course of the week he struggles to come up with ideas and find support for them. Occasionally he vaguely remembers something from class that may have been useful, but can't find the reference in his notes so he has to forget about using it.
Finally, at the end of a fatiguing week he checks over the essay one last time before printing it. It's at this point that he thinks of a great idea! Unfortunately he doesn't have time to put it in. He has no choice but to brush the idea aside and print off the essay.
Finally he hands in his essay. It's good, but he knows he could have done better if he put more time into it. And boy was it hard work. Hopefully the next essay would be a little easier.
Burney:
Also enrolled on the same course was Burney. Like Jonny, Burney believes in doing the least work possible for the biggest results. But, unlike Jonny, he is smart in his approach. He has a fundamental quality that will give him success while doing less work. That quality is discipline.When he receives his course outline at the same time as Jonny, he reads through it and makes sure he had a general understanding of the course. He also reads through the questions and by doing so takes the first step towards the completion of the essay. He circles a questions that seems interesting and then starts listening to the introductory lecture.
When he returns home that afternoon, he takes 10 minutes to go through his notes for the day. He also takes just a couple of minutes to read the questions again. He has a slightly better idea of what question would interest him most, and he jots down a couple of ideas that immediately come to mind. He would later dismiss these ideas, but importantly he has got his creative juices flowing.
Most importantly he has vaguely memorised the questions that interested him. This one simple act would save him hours of work down the line.
Over the next couple of weeks, he attends lectures and seminars with the questions at the back of his mind. When something randomly comes up that may be related to the essay questions, he jots them down. He doesn't even think about whether they are good ideas or not, he jots them down anyway.
A couple of weeks after the start of the unit, he has a good idea which question he wants to tackle. He makes a firm decision and vows to stick to that decision. The total time he has spent on the essay, is still about 10 minutes because he just jots down the ideas when they automatically come to him.
Now that he has honed down his question exactly, he has a bit more focus. Every time he reads something for the course or attends a lecture, he does so with the question at the back of his mind. While most the lectures don't seem related to the question, he is continuingly surprised by how relevant they become when viewed in the right way.
As he attends the lectures and reads the textbooks in preparation for those lectures, he finds more and more ideas come to him. He makes a note of book references and jots down any ideas he has.
After each lecture he spends a few minutes organising this information into a clearer structure.
Over the course of the semester he gradually develops more and more notes and ideas. When the semester finishes, he finds he has the basis of an essay. So far he's probably put in about an hour and a half extra work.
He begins writing properly at the same time as Jonny, but he already has a head start. He spends the next couple of days doing extra research. This will support his ideas, and help solidify the argument. This is what will help him make the essay that much better.
This leaves him with about 5 days to write his essay out properly. All the research has already been done so it shouldn't take him long. But Burney knows life is full of surprises, so he starts writing it up straight away. He works hard on it for one day, and gets a first draft completed. It hasn't taken him long, because he already had a clear structure.
This draft reveals a couple of gaps in his arguments, so he casually spends the next few days researching and refining. He's disciplined enough to get on with it, but he doesn't put too much pressure on himself. He realises that a clear head is imperative for this kind of thing, so he gives himself plenty of rest.
As he reads through the essay for the last time before printing, he knows he has done a good job. But a new idea still comes into his head. Like Jonny, Burney is also a bit upset that he doesn't have time to add the new idea. But Burney consoles himself with the knowledge that the essay is already full of his good ideas. This extra drop of creative juice will have to wait for another essay!
What makes it Easy?
There are four main things Burney did, that Jonny didn't- He began the process as early as possible
- He made sure he kept reminding himself of the ultimate goal
- Throughout the unit, he made brief reviews of the ideas he had so far
- Whenever he had an idea, or saw something relevant he would note it down
In effect, this helped him work with the natural laws of his creativity. Creativity doesn't like to be rushed. You can't just ask your mind to come up with a great idea on the spot. The ideas will just come to you and you need to be ready to grab them. Starting early gives you more time to do this, and constantly reminding yourself of the goal will keep your mind focused in the right area.
You can try this with all your creative pursuits...
- Writing a book - Follow the same strategies as in Burney's story. When you come up with an idea jot it down. Keep reviewing and restructuring the basic ideas you already have. Seek inspiration by doing research.
- New ideas for a business - Get clear on your goals for the business. Do you want to develop new products, increase the number of customers, or increase the quality of what you already offer? Getting clear on your goals provides a framework from which you can notice new ideas. When they come to you, jot them down. It takes seconds!
- Refitting your kitchen - Get clear on the necessary features, and then jot down initial plans. When you visit your friends, you'll be more interested in the design of their kitchens and you will start to notice interesting features. If you'd already started to implement your new kitchen, it may be too late. But if you start thinking about it early on, you can gradually build a list of features in your dream kitchen.
The bigger the project, the earlier you will want to get started on it. You may start thinking about your kitchen a month prior to really starting to plan, but you'd probably be thinking about your dream house for a year or more before you start looking for an architect.
It's all about learning to behave in accordance with the natural way our minds work.
