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You're not lacking creativity, you're overwhelmed

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Re: You're not lacking creativity, you're overwhelmed

#21

Post by 121789 »

FigurativeVoid wrote: post #13

I think that we are being overwhelmed and it hurts us in more ways than our creativity. We are moving through the world in constant distraction. Until recently, when I was doing something around the house, no matter what, I was listening to music, podcasts, or books. I found that it seemed like it was taking for ever for me to do the simplest tasks. After a while... I figured that I must be going slower because I was…

I can’t agree with this any more. If you find yourself always thinking “I’ll do the laundry, let me just find a good podcast first” you are in trouble. It’s so easy just to have constant input these days

Re: You're not lacking creativity, you're overwhelmed

#22

Post by alisson_dover »

hobs wrote: post #9
alisson_dover wrote: post #2

Creativity requires space. Can't remember who said it (paraphrasing): dedicate at least 4 hours to the process, you might end up being creative for only 10 minutes of that time.

Generally I find boredom or challenge is a prerequisite for my creativity to start percolating - but overdosing on boredom yields more creativity (to stave it off), while overdosing on challenges generally leads me to burnout.

That's a good observation. I tend to over-index on challenges and often end up distracting myself for long enough to completely drain myself of all energy to be creative.

Re: You're not lacking creativity, you're overwhelmed

#23

Post by wintogreen74 »

catchmeifyoucan wrote: post #17

I agree with the title, but I wish the solution was less about a second brain and more about giving ourselves space. The past week I've been getting burned in meetings, and just a whole lot of "to-do". And I'm just not as creative anymore because I don't have the room to be bored and ponder (which I like)

Boredom is such a great motivator. The problem is kids are never bored anymore (for real; I'm sure they still say they are...)

Re: You're not lacking creativity, you're overwhelmed

#24

Post by FigurativeVoid »

wintogreen74 wrote: post #20
FigurativeVoid wrote: post #13

I think that we are being overwhelmed and it hurts us in more ways than our creativity. We are moving through the world in constant distraction. Until recently, when I was doing something around the house, no matter what, I was listening to music, podcasts, or books. I found that it seemed like it was taking for ever for me to do the simplest tasks. After a while... I figured that I must be going slower because I was…

>> because I was always doing two things at once I think this is part of it; aside from basic system 1 stuff (like breathing) we're actually flipping between 2 or more things constantly. Sure I can listen to music while I go for a walk, but I spend 2 minutes getting set up before I start, and I slow down whenever I need to change anything.

You're exactly right.

This is actually related to one of my pet peeves. I hate when people say they are good at multi-tasking.

You aren't. Multitasking isn't real. You are just good at switching tasks.

Re: You're not lacking creativity, you're overwhelmed

#25

Post by lelanthran »

FigurativeVoid wrote: post #13

I think that we are being overwhelmed and it hurts us in more ways than our creativity. We are moving through the world in constant distraction. Until recently, when I was doing something around the house, no matter what, I was listening to music, podcasts, or books. I found that it seemed like it was taking for ever for me to do the simplest tasks. After a while... I figured that I must be going slower because I was…

I listen to white noise, on headphones, when I want to think.

Might be my imagination, but I think it's made a difference.

Re: You're not lacking creativity, you're overwhelmed

#26

Post by FigurativeVoid »

coffeebeqn wrote: post #19
FigurativeVoid wrote: post #13

I think that we are being overwhelmed and it hurts us in more ways than our creativity. We are moving through the world in constant distraction. Until recently, when I was doing something around the house, no matter what, I was listening to music, podcasts, or books. I found that it seemed like it was taking for ever for me to do the simplest tasks. After a while... I figured that I must be going slower because I was…

I think it’s not unlike other addictions. You end up using constant external stimulus to not have to deal with whatever is actually bothering you in your life. The concept I was missing basically since smartphones become a thing was this thing called “solitude”

https://eriktorenberg.substack.com/p/on-solitude was a post that was on HN a while ago.

It basically agrees. We get some good things from solitude.

Re: You're not lacking creativity, you're overwhelmed

#27

Post by scarby2 »

FigurativeVoid wrote: post #24
wintogreen74 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> because I was always doing two things at once I think this is part of it; aside from basic system 1 stuff (like breathing) we're actually flipping between 2 or more things constantly. Sure I can listen to music while I go for a walk, but I spend 2 minutes getting set up before I start, and I slow down whenever I need to change anything.

You're exactly right. This is actually related to one of my pet peeves. I hate when people say they are good at multi-tasking. You aren't. Multitasking isn't real. You are just good at switching tasks.

there has been research that suggests that people who say they are good at multi tasking are actually worse at it (or task switching) than people who say they are bad at multitasking.

Re: You're not lacking creativity, you're overwhelmed

#29

Post by alisson_dover »

sosodev wrote: post #4

This seems like nonsense. The author claims that we're overwhelmed by the volume of content we consume and that's why we can't be creative. So the suggested solution is to do more work to consume content? That doesn't make any sense to me.

I don't see a contradiction in that. Books are knowledge. If you want to learn how to do something better - reading a book is one way to do it. Could be a video, or a longer article, but the point is the same.

Another good way to develop a healthier relationship with our content consumption habits is to meditate. It's not contradictory to suggest to read a book on the benefits of meditation.

Re: You're not lacking creativity, you're overwhelmed

#30

Post by nologic01 »

wow, didn't realise tiktok is 50x youtube... should I sign up and catch up on any things I've been missing on that platform

> The sheer volume of content is overwhelming

> The mental effort required to evaluate and choose between many options can be exhausting

> Saving these links in a digital vault where they’ll most likely be forgotten forever

The diagnosis seems correct. We all experience this digital overabundance. Abundance is in principle a good thing. But obviously there is gross mismatch with the tools we have to manage this flow. You can overwater your plants and drown them.

But I am underwhelmed by the remedies proposed. My gut feeling is that nothing less than a ground-up reworking of the personal computing infrastructure will be required to restore an equilibrium that accomodates the nature of our information processing capacities.

We need to go back to the Engelbartian concepts of augmentation but drastically updated for the vast knowledge we have acquired in the meantime.

And of course this has to be done in a context that is seriously human centric. The people that will build this infrastructure need to somehow have their incentives and interests aligned with the average person. They should not see the dazed and confused online masses as product to be trapped and exploited.

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