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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

#71

Post by Apocryphon »

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”

Before the internet I was just reading a lot. I'd like to get back to using books as a balm.

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

#72

Post by paulpauper »

CollinEMac wrote: post #6

There's some irony in the writer recommending books and videos to help with digital hoarding. I now have two more books sitting in my Amazon wishlist. On another note, I recently started using Obsidian and it really is as good as they say. I also use Remember The Milk for my daily TODOs.

It reads like borderline marketing spam, something from the 2012-2016 era when productivity apps and gurus were all the rave , like Tim Ferris and Neil Patel and such

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

#73

Post by yowzadave »

coldtea wrote: post #57
makeitdouble wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious other side of that coin: of the two things we're doing at once, one of them is neither fun nor engaging. Making it the thing to 100% focus on will also mean it it's now a stronger candidate to procrastination, and just won't be done at all.

Perhaps it shouldn't have been done or added to our plate in the first place?

Who are the people who deserve this task? This reminds me of the Tim Ferris mentality, in which he simply hires low-wage workers to do every task he thinks is unworthy of his attention. Obviously not everyone can have this luxury— at some point somebody still has to do the grunt work.

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

#74

Post by jstarfish »

BagelGuy wrote: post #48
yamazakiwi wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe that's just for children? I'm bored everyday at work and it never motivates me. Boredom drives me towards the easy things just to kill time. The outcome is usually waiting for the cause of boredom to end. (Work)

Boredom + Freedom = Creativity.

Freedom is debatable. Too much of it and you just get overwhelmed with possibilities.

I'd submit that it's boredom plus constraints that equal creativity. You're forced to think around your obstacles.

It's why bands and authors suck once they make it big. Once they have tons of time and money, output suffers and they stop delivering. The threat of starvation no longer forces them to make something that works on their broken keyboard.

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

#75

Post by 121789 »

philipov wrote: post #51
121789 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

At first, I thought you meant you could no longer agree with this.

You’re right, I worded that terribly. Not changing it though

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

#76

Post by Llamamoe »

goodroot wrote: post #32

These posts pop up every now and then. Too much rationalism in this approach for sense. But I get it, it's difficult to sell letters when you're warning people against reading letters. As a lay student of Buddhism, there's a much more simple and effective route. Meditate. A clean, crisp, quiet break into your own internal fortress of solitude. Curating as a means of establishing a creative sandbox makes sense to me,…

> Your own internal world can surpass any notebook.

If you have exceptional executive function and memory, but a lot of people don't.

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

#77

Post by thejorgemedina »

jug wrote: post #16
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.

Also the recommendation to block content to curate your feed and not just scroll past it. Does he even realize what he is suggesting? That the user curates the social media feed to be more tailored and thus addictive. It won’t shorten just because you block stuff. The actual cure to that crap is to fill your day with healthier activities so that you’ll end up surprising yourself you hadn’t browsed Instagram today.

Hey, the author here :)

My point is that there's also good that can come out of social media. Completely disregarding any social media as useless and a waste of time is wrong, in my opinion.

My point is to start blocking so that you can turn whatever social media of your choosing into an enriching experience, rather than a doom scrolling one.

But of course, even if you do so, we should all keep a limit on our internet consumption as a whole.

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

#78

Post by thejorgemedina »

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.

Hey, author here :)

Having enlightening experiences of learning requires effort. Anybody who wants to learn and thrive on any topic needs to make an effort to curate the sources he's consuming. That's not new. It certainly isn't an internet thing.

We've always paid to be entertained and educated. And money is earned with effort. When content wasn't as abundant, you needed to be selective with what you wanted to consume. You developed a taste, and continued to consume that type of content, hence basically becoming a curator of whatever your interest was.

The problem now, with all content being free, is that we pay with our time. And time is our most valuable currency.

So yes. Even though there's an initial effort curve to build a Second brain (or any other system you like), the end result is a much better internet experience.

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

#79

Post by thejorgemedina »

karaterobot wrote: post #38

> First and foremost, creators are curators. That seems like an overstatement. Foremost? Johnson said that a writer may turn over half a library to make one book, but this article doesn't talk about doing anything with your collection after you've curated it. The creative act referred to in this article seems to be the curating itself. That's fine as far as it goes; curation is a form of creativity. But I'd say creat…

Hey, the author here :)

Curation is only the first step of the framework i'm building called The Creative Flywheel. So you're right. It is not enough.

But the sentence you highlight means creators are very good curators. They learn from other creators and carefully select their sources of inspiration, then they ideate on their own, and finally create.

The cycle goes Curation > Ideation > Creation > Distribution.

That article is only dedicated to the first step. But I have another talking about the blueprint of creativity where I go over the 4 in less detail.

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

#80

Post by thejorgemedina »

paulpauper wrote: post #58

Sorta off-topic, but the submitted Substack link only got a single 'like' on Substack an a single comment despite being viral here, top of front page of HN with 107 points. If that is good enough for only a single 'like', what does it take to get dozens of likes, as I often see on other Substack blogs? or many comments? A huge PR campaign? Being famous? What hope does anyone have to make money or success at writing w…

Hey Paul! I'm the author :)

I think it has to do with the fact that you can't like if you're not a substack user. Also, I don't think it reached the top because most people agreed with it, maybe the opposite.

So they might be reading (i got around 7k views on it) but not liking it haha

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