How Slowing Inspiration Down Made Me More Creative
Receiving a new idea is an incredible experience — to me, the sensation is a whirlwind of hope, opportunity, and excitement.
This is a double-edged sword though, because all of us take in new ideas every day, which means if we were to act on all of them, we would perpetually be stuck in the middle of each one.
There are only two solutions: either to make smaller things faster (i.e., scope down, make it so you can finish the project in one day), or to pick and choose your ideas more carefully, because nobody can do it all.
For me, it’s a combination of both, and I actually decided to slow my ideas down with a process: I need to put together a bunch of information about the project before I can move forward with actually starting to work on it. This means coming up with a good name, for example; if I don’t care about the project enough to give it a good name, I don’t actually care about it that much, or I don’t have the room in my life to give it the care it needs to thrive.
Give Yourself a Break Before Starting
Author Ryan Holiday explains how the period after inspiration can be the perfect time to slow down and reflect. Before fully committing to a project or eagerly planning the next steps, he talks about the value of critically…
